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An Ass Pocket of iCal
Matt Wood | Nov 1 2007
A few posts back, I professed my love for paper. That affection runs deep already, but I stumbled onto a trick this week that makes me lust after the power of a sheet of 8.5” x 11” even more. As I’m wont to do, I returned to the Lucky Charms, marshmallowy goodness of iCal recently to organize my stuff. I know it isn’t perfect, but it’s my comfort zone, and after flogging myself publicly over my tendency to switch systems, I decided to stick with the ol’ July 17 icon for better or for worse. In my paper post, I mentioned that I like to jot down a few tasks at the beginning of each day, to focus my energy. It’s not GTD orthodoxy, but with a job like mine, I have to make a plan of attack or else it will be lost in a pile of board books and Legos. Normally this does the trick, but on days when I have lots of reminders, or appointments with accompanying notes, it can be tedious copying this all down. So one day this week, when I was in a hurry out the door, I decided to print out an agenda from iCal. Maybe I’m a dope for never experimenting with this, but have you seen what you can do with iCal’s print dialog? Merlin has written about this before, but the ability to pick and choose which calendars to print, restricting the view to a day, a week, a month, or my favorite, a simple list, just made me reaffirm my vows with iCal. Here’s what I do (in Tiger, mind you, so Leopard early-adopters may have to adjust accordingly … I’m upgrading this weekend, promise):
Maybe this isn’t rocket science, and iPhone and mobile sync bandits may scoff at the manual approach. Personally, I hate printers too, but this little trick has given my sad little Canon i960 new life. POSTED IN:
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Digital and paper hybrids DO work!
I feel the affirmation, reading your post...
I've recently experimented--successfully--with a printed template of my work month that I sync manually with my Outlook.
it's an extension of my GTD system.
I remember in Merlin and The David's podcast series, how David said that digital and paper are just outward expressions of the GTDing that's going on inwardly (not his exact words).
well, I found this system works very well, giving me a solid, tactile sheet of deadlines (it's a specific tracking device for a specific kind of work - copywriting) while being able to capture everything else in the dynamic "marshmallowy goodness" of my digital systems.
a monthly paper template that I fill in by pen.
synced by hand with my task list in Outlook.
a very usable system that geeks me out.
I write about it at http://blog.passionista.net/2007/10/time-management-it-not-what-you-take...
I hope someone else finds it useful too!
Printing to-do’s is one of
Printing to-do’s is one of the most singly kludgy features of iCal. I cannot imagine why Apple thought printing completed taks and tasks’ URL’s were good ideas.
And FWIW, iPhone owners won’t have much room for scoffing since iPhone doesn’t sync tasks. It’s why I still use my hPDA.
Nice...
I hadn’t ever thought to queue a print job in iCal before. It seems like a sharp, simple way to quickly lay out and present your iCal information for the day on a piece of paper, and “syncing” back to iCal at the end of the day really wouldn’t be that difficult at all (in fact it may encourage you to take that one last peek at iCal, so that you can transcribe the ink additions you made throughout the day into electronic form).
Also, using this tip, I just made an extremely cost effective 12 month paper calendar from iCal. For a number of reasons I enjoy keeping a physical calendar around, and this one lets me customize it with the subscriptions that are important to me.
This may have been obvious, but I didn’t have a clue about it. Good post.
You will LOVE this!
this is the first time i have ever commented on any blog. i registered just to tell you about this:
http://weblog.bignerdranch.com/?p=23
or see what Digg says…use ical etc: http://digg.com/apple/PocketModlikeapplicationforMacOSX
It’s based on PocketMod: http://www.pocketmod.com/
You can make quick portable organizers using plain paper… just check it out and thank me :)
hehe…hope you enjoy! jt
iCal
I used to sync iCal with Google Calendar and they worked really well together especially since they’re sort of built similarly. I used iCal for the home (where I have my mac) while I use Google Calendar at the office (a Windows environment). I used iCal/Google cal primarily to separate my wedding planning from my work schedule and my study schedule. I would also keep a hidden “Done” calendar where I would move the activities and tasks that were already accomplished. I would only print my wedding calendar and keep the work and study calendars online. I loved this system so much until we lost internet at work for a week and of course I was lost and calendar-less for the whole week. After that I moved to a purely paper calendar :)
ol' July 17 icon
Unless I miss my mark, the dock icon for iCal now shows the CURRENT DATE in Leopard! It only took Apple how many years to fix that? So there you go — one more reason to suckle at iCal’s marshmallowy teat.
umm...
I'm running Tiger and the icon changes to the current date for me. I don't have a printer or i'd try that out. I REALLY don't like printers. I do however sit next to a $3000 laser printer (that prints to index cards!) all day at work, which may color my decision.
Re: umm...
The icon changes when you open iCal, but if it's not running, the default date displayed is July 17. I never thought it was a big deal, but apparently it bothers some people, so it's kind of an inside joke. Try it at your next party, it'll totally get you digits.
Not Anymore...
In Leopard, iCal shows the correct date in the Dock no matter whether the app is running.
Umm...yeah...
That’s what I meant. In Leopard the iCal icon ALWAYS shows the correct date in the dock, not just when iCal is running (like in previous version of OS X). Thanks for clarifying.
wow. I thought I was
wow. I thought I was obsessive. jeebus.
Ass Pocket?
Nice tip, but what on earth is an ass pocket?
Re: An Ass Pocket of iCal
An Ass Pocket is the pocket you sit on. The back pocket of your trousers. You ass is you bottom, your backside, your gluteus maximus.
Re: Re: An Ass Pocket of iCal
tbenest is right, but the title was actually a reference to a blues album by RL Burnside called A Ass Pocket of Whiskey. It’s pretty amazing, if you like foul-mouthed blues men. He was talking about one of those pint bottles that you can stick in your back pocket. I didn’t expect anyone to get it, but whenever you get to use the term “ass pocket” in a blog post, you have to go for it.
Incidentally, this post is now the #2 hit when you Google “ass pocket,” second only to the aforementioned album. I’m sure Merlin is proud.
visual
any chance you can share your system visually? screen shots, doc view etc.
Re: visual
Sure, I can try that this week, though it’s nothing more exciting that some iCal calendars.
Re: An Ass Pocket of iCal
I use IcalViewer -http://www.icalviewer.com/-
This nice little app is showing your iCal-Calendars/To-Do-List right on your desktop. You can expose it with F8 and with a double-click on the selected item iCal popped up and you can edit it.
Before I found this app I had an Automator-script which took a snapshot of my weekly view in print/preview and placed that snapshot as a wallpaper on my desktop.
Worked well too, but was kind of static.