[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate used from fresh cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff. […]

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[…] Introducing the Hipster PDA Organizing Your Hipster PDA […]

[…] I am on a hunt for a fail-proof organization plan. I have a palm (don’t ask how old it is). It just doesnt seem to do the trick. I think mainly because I don’t use it religiously. My brother-in-law, ken, suggested a hipster. […]

[…] And, not that I’m in an organizing mood, I’m playing around with the so-called “Hipster PDA.” The creation of Merlin “43 Folders” Mann, the Hipster PDA is really a bunch of index cards clipped together in some fashion and it’s used to keep notes and such. Amazing. And yet, despite its simplicity, there are a ton of different web sitesand links and variations on the original “design” out there. […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate “used” from “fresh” cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff. […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Fans of the Hipster PDA have been cropping up around the Interweb, … Got a good hack for using, organizing, or processing your Hipster PDA? … […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Fans of the Hipster PDA have been cropping up around the Interweb, … Got a good hack for using, organizing, or processing your Hipster PDA? … […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate “used” from “fresh” cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff. […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate used from fresh cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff. […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate used from fresh cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff.    Posted in PDA     […]

[…] Organizing Your Hipster PDA | 43 Folders Quick way to separate used from fresh cards. Also a helpful reminder that it’s always a good time to process your stuff. […]

I accomplish the same goal without adding the colored cards.

I use 3x5s with a light grid printed on them. I stack the used cards together like you described. I also stack the fresh cards together, but turn them the opposite direction. Then, I can always tell which ones are used and which are fresh. A quick “flip” gauges if I need some more fresh cards (which I always have handy in my Moleskine.

An alternate version of the HPDA is, if you already carry a moleskine mini around, tuck a short stack of index cards under the elastic.

As you fill cards out, tuck them into the rear of the MM, where the bulging of the pocket (which is usually stuffed with a lot of other index cards if you’re me!) makes a neat little receptacle. At the end of the day, dump the back of your moleskine into your inbox, to be processed later.

This is good practice when you only want to carry one thing, but want your MM with you.

I loved your Hipster PDA when I first read it. In fact, it’s the setup that allowed me to finally start GTD instead of mucking around with Palm, OmniOutliner, etc.

My setup is like this:

Next Actions (one card per context) Divider (orange, labelled Projects) Projects (cards for Personal and Work) Divider (pink, labelled Calendar) Calendar (one card per day, with times indicating appts) Divider (green, labelled Waiting For) Waiting For (list of people and what I’m waiting on) Divider (bright yellow, labelled Someday/Maybe) Someday/Maybe (one card per list) Divider (muted yellow, scaled version of Advanced Workflow diagram) Blank cards (five or so cards)

The labels for each of these cards (@Home, Jan. 15th, Personal, etc.) are at the bottom of the card with a horizontal rule separating them from the content. Thus, I can flip through the PDA quickly and open up the clip only when necessary.

Further, my next actions are immediately accessible. I generally pull out the context card for wherever I am and move it to the top for more efficiency.

I’m really going to have to develop a version of that font that has decent punctuation marks in it.

Keep these tips/links coming. As a GTD neophyte, it’s invigorating to read how others are gtd and adapt the methods to my own process. After about a month, I gave up on any fancy technical solution and am gtd with a filing cabinet, a palm pilot, and a stack of cards.

The other key thing about the Hipster PDA (or any system you use for GTD) is making it like your wallet where you feel naked without it. If you don’t have access to your system, then it becomes unreliable. David Allen emphasizes this in his otherwise bland Ready for Anything.

Try an even easier version. Get a pad of Post-It Notes. The back of the pad is a brown sheet, that’s your divider. As you write notes, stick them to the back of the pad.

I’ve been using the hipster PDA, with good results, so thanks for that. Here are some of my tricks:

1. I created a template in Word that allows me to print a heading on each card that looks like this:

______________________________:: [___________] {__}

(Note: in my template the bracketed area is a shaded box.)

I write the topic of the card on the line. I’m a teacher, so it’s often things like “Gravity Notes” or “Kinematics Lab Idea”. Between the brackets I write the date. In the braces I write a category code…

1. I use Category Codes, which are 1-2 letter or symbol codes. Like these:

x = to-do list integral symbol = stuff for my calculus class Ph = stuff for my physics class B = books V = vocabulary (words that I need to look up) M = Music (CDs to buy, lyrics)

There are more, but you get the idea.

1. My END card is a list of my category codes, facing out. So, rather than just saying “END”, it has a function. This card also lists my color codes…

2. I use color codes, as follows:

White is general notes or lists. Yellow is ideas. Green is lecture notes. Blue is labs/activities. Rose is homework/assignments. Violet is music/books/web/vocab.

I save all my old cards rather than recycle them. Then, if I’m looking for some old calculus lecture notes, I flip through the stack looking for a green card with an integral symbol in the upper right corner. If I want to find that book that someone told me about, then I know I’m looking for a violet card with a B in the corner.

Once I see the symbol, it’s quick to check on the date and the topic, all listed in my header.

Added bonus: people think the header is really cool.

My girlfriend got me a Levenger Int’l Pocket Briefcase for Christmas, so it is my new PDA. I’m still too attached to my wallet to replace it completely, but obviously that’d be the way to go.

yes. but does it run linux?

I’ve been addicted to spiral-bound index cards since 1998, and I, too, use a topic / date system on the top line, so that when the pack is full the cards can be removed, then filed by topic.

Some of the topic categories are topics of particular interest to me, but some general topics which I imagine would be useful for just about anyone include To Read, To Hear, and To See (to store book / music / movie recommendations); and Investigate (where I file notions or people I want to learn more about).

Places I want to check out in various cities around the US are filed by city name, as are public transportation directions to the homes of friends.

Holiday gift ideas are stored up all year under Gifts.

One can’t exactly cart around thousands of index cards wherever one goes, so I’m currently digitizing the entire card file, using DEVONThink — since DEVONthink uses a file hierarchy I can easily “mirror” the card filing hierarchy I’ve already created.

With the DEVONthink version of the card file I can also slot full documents (PDFs, webpages, etc) into the categories without first needing to “atomize” them into index-card-sized chunks. I haven’t done too much of this yet as I’m apprehensive about getting the paper version and the digital version “out of sync” with one another, although I think the merits of doing this will eventually win out over my apprehension.

Charles

the doubling up the post it note bloc is pure genius - Ive actually done it several times but never realised its potential untill you pointed it out - much as wish the hipster PDA all the best thats the one well all actually be doing in ten years time

PS Im a filofax addict of 20 years - comined with a the post it note they leave any PDA Ive ever used for dead -

PPS In London there is a mini craze about how much you can pack into your travelcard (metro/subway pass) wallet - credit card sized - I had a pal who wrote his top 50 phone no.s (pre moblie) on the back of a business card - I found you could fold a sheet of A4 down to A7 with a lot on ie a copy of the London AZ (street plan) of your area - MUJI (a Japanese Gift Store) did a great address book of two sheets of 4 micron Alu that folded out a long thin strip of incredibly thin paper

PPPS Hyperventilates - Ive found my true net home :-)

Could someone explain to me why this is such a revelation, or even an exciting idea. Is there really a group of people out there who somehow “forgot” about paper and pencil, or is the paperclip the exciting new element here? Is someone going to call a trapper-keeper® next year’s “hipster” laptop? (BTW, you sound like a total rube when you use the word hipster like that, but whatever)

It’s kinda freaking me out to have so many people be excited about this, is it some sort of complex joke?

milovoo -

surely the joke is that when everyone else pulls out their Palms in a Oneup-whosgot-the-biggest-weener-newest-palm-manship you pull out a block of pastel coloured index cards…. its just a joke turned into a cult

How is this dfferent from a moleskine??

Vise grips enable compact folding.

This sounds like a great idea, I’m definately going to stock up on the gear for this, as I fear putting my electronic PDA in my pocket… although I’m a little sad it will be gathering dust as a result. Oh well…

The first that came to my mind though, as I tend to wear on things, was that I should probably look at lamenating the “end cards”, to provide at least some protection from wear’n’tear and so on.

also, anyone know where to find space pens for cheap? I constantly lose pens. sunglasses, etc and am worried about blowing twenty bucks on something that might only make it 1/2 day for me.

Ally, glad you liked the trick, I’ve been doing it for 20 years. I can’t believe this application of Post-It Notes isn’t immediately obvious to everyone. Tips: if you like to travel really light (like I do), you can tear off the top of the blank stack and carry fewer sheets, and just replenish it by sticking more notes on the top as needed. Also it’s useful to write below the band of adhesive, which will be obscured when the notes are stuck back together.