Nothing new under the sun and all that! I guess we’ll find out next about how Benjamin Franklin used an old-time version of today’s self-improvement/day planners.

No, wait…

That’s great!

I remember seeing this many years ago on a tour of Monticello. TJ had an affliction that has stricken many of us: he wasted a lot of time trying to become more productive.

I need a weathervane - perhaps a rusty rooster would do.

What is the purpose of this annotation of data? It seems displeasing to acquire too many numbers.

@drdang: Maybe, but it seems to have been a pretty good investment, given what TJ accomplished.

Love this reminder/insight to the mind of Thomas Jefferson. Many woodworkers also are aware that Jefferson desgned a 4-sided, turnable writing box that allowed him to work on the writing of 4 documents concurrently. The first multi window word processor. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. And, if you want to become really convinced that every good idea has been thought of before, after looking at the intellectual and material works of Jefferson, go to Leonardo DaVinci.

I’ve been making an “arts and crafts” PDA since last winter, inspired by this site. It’s made with “washi” handmade paper cards from the Japanese store Mujirushi Ryouhin (just called Muji in the west, I think) and uses a Gachuck steel clip (maybe called Power Clipper over there).

Sorry, Japanese text only, but you can see a really low-res, crappy picture of it at least.

washi PDA

and for a laugh, here’s the machine translated version

There’s also a “Poor man’s Moleskine” (a cheap muji notebook covered with lacquer…)

BallpointWren: he did. (Though you probably know that.)

I’ll link anyway, someone else may be coming across it for the first time: http://www.earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/chapt8/index.html (scroll down)

“My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg’d it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang’d them with that view, as they stand above.”

Yeah, and only $75…It nearly costs as much as a PDA.

I think I’ll stick to my $10 ($8 if you know where to find them) Moleskines although I love the hipster PDA idea and I have “Getting Things Done” on my Audible wish list. I love the hipster PDA idea, I just haven’t made one yet.

those “old ivory pages” look suspiciously like they were recycled from old piano keys. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. There aren’t many sources you can find for real ivory these days.

Umm, man - ivory is gross! I won’t blame Jefferson for using it, but no one should ever touch that stuff now, “old” ivory or not. (How do you prove its old?) Ugh!

The Romans used a wooden tablet covered in a thick layer of wax, which they then wrote in using a stylus (latin word) which had a pointy end for writing, and a flattened end for smoothing the wax for reuse. I think they gave them to the kids at school.

http://alanlnelson.typepad.com/seat1a/2005/08/whoknewwecou.html

WHO KNEW? We could have just as easily spent the mid-1990s being trained to use our Jefferson Planners.

???Hipster PDA

??????? GTD ??????????????????????Lo-Fi ???????????????????????????????????????????????????? GTD ?????????? ?????????GTD ????? 43 Folders?????Hipster PDA??????? ????????? (PDA =Parietal Disgorgement Aid???????) ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Hipster PDA ?????????????…

Hipster PDA

I like this version of the hipster PDA by Doug Giuliana at SolutionJunkie: “Getting Things Done — my way” … uses a carabiner and sailcloth covers … To see Thomas Jefferson’s version of the hipster PDA, see “Ye Olde Hipster”…

Commonplace book

Reading this blog put me back in touch with an idea I’ve tried before, on paper, that I would like to rejuvenate: The Commonplace Book. (from that site:) Commonplace books have their origin in the Renaissance as one means of…