25
Aug
The chasm between paper and online
I have tried numerous online and offline-computer-based resources to keep my GTD system in line. I’ve had a giant Word doc, modified Excel to within an inch of its life, followed the teachings of those who preach .txt files and made myself known to many an online and usb-drive Wiki.
But still I fall off the wagon and go back to my paper based to-do/Next Action list.
I really want a computer-based system. I hate writing. I hate the messiness, I hate the time it takes and I hate that I can’t correct myself when I stuff it up.
But up until now I haven’t been able (or willing) to invest the time to really give a program a good shot. Oh, I’ve been close. The Wikis that I’ve tried did survive long enough to collect my work related information and projects, but the main problem has come in the personal stuff. All those projects and next actions that have been sitting in my mind for years that I want to tackle around the house and around my computer. These poor, orphaned projects just never made it into those wikis, mostly because the setup and management of it just didn’t sit properly with me.
But I’m changing. I’ve been using iCommit now for a day or so, and today my very first non-work project appeared in it. It is a very simple, innocuous project that really won’t get done for a while (at least until that Marketing Management assignment is done) but nevertheless it marks a step in the right direction for my GTD system.
So this weekend I’m committing some time to getting into my home-office, collecting all those projects and next actions, going through the excruciating experience of mind-dumping my personal life and hopefully I’ll still be in the frame of mind that iCommit will pick it all up and keep it collected.
And hopefully I’ll have successfully bridged that chasm between my old, paper-based ways and a newer, computerised system.
