Staples has a leather(ette?) “shirt pocket briefcase” that isn’t a Levenger SBP, but it is close enough for people that are on a tighter budget. It is a very clear knock-off of the original, but that may be a good thing for that price bracket.

They don’t have one in Balistic nylon either. Boo! Mine is fraying a bit and I’m afraid I’ll have to move to the slip-and-slide leather model.

But at Staples under their “M” line or whatever, there was a display at the front of the store when I went. I don’t remember the price but it was low double-digits.

It seems that many of us otherwise computer-oriented geeks have a surprising and earth-unfriendly confession to make: we love paper. Notwithstanding the entirely digital nature of my own trade, for example, I'll freely admit that there is really nothing quite like the smooth glide of a mechanical pencil over a big sheet of crisp, white office paper to facilitate good writing and thinking.

I can't plan out a new piece of software—or write an essay for that matter—without first messily scribbling my ideas out as mind-maps or rough user-interface sketches onto paper. My brainstorms are too messy and flow too quickly for the computer to be able to accommodate my chaos, yet that early disorder is essential to crafting the order and structure that will follow.

And yet I used to have serious reservations about this tendency to spoodge my thought process onto tree carcasses. It wasn't until I finally learned how to get rid of paper, that I was able properly to embrace its use in my work.  read more »

Information R/evolution

I really enjoyed this video presentation by Michael Wesch on how we make, find, and share information in a world where we’ve shed the idea of paper as our sole medium for storage and communication — where ideas can munge and mix freely, thanks to digital collaboration.

Gorgeous.

Now, of course, as a fan of paper for certain kinds of work, I always feel like jumping in at this point to defend our pulpy little friend from what sometimes turns into a blanket party.  read more »

I know that notetaking has recently been taken up on the front page around here, and topics pertaining to academics also pop up fairly frequently, but I thought I’d try to solicit some feedback for my particular situation.  read more »

I’m in my first year of university and trying desperately to come up with the best way to take notes on my mac…

I’ve been looking into notae and yojimbo (I like the tagging features alot, but dislike that I can’t put in pictures and such) but have heard good things about journler and devonthink.  read more »

Hi

This is something I found to be both sacrilegious to GTD and very much a core part of its “capture everything” philosophy.

Over time, I’ve found that more and more, I need to capture something at any possibly circumstance. Now I usually carry a small pad and pen right in my pocket, but there are times when you don’t have access to that, in fact a lot of the time.  read more »

Here’s one of my favorite life-hacky tips from Peter Walsh (guy from Clean Sweep, author of It’s All Too Much, and inspiration for my recent War on Clutter).

After you’ve done a major purge of your closet, remove all the remaining clothes that live on hangers, and put them back in backwards, such that the open end of each hanger now faces you. Got it?

Then, mark your calendar for six months (or whatever) from today, and go back to your business as usual. Except that after every time you wear a shirt or a jacket or a skirt or what have you, when you replace the item, make sure the hanger faces the opposite/usual way (with the opening in the back).

When your n months have passed, and your calendar reminds you that it’s time, open your closet and remove every piece of clothing on a backward hanger; the chances are good you can give it away without the slightest pain, because you just clearly demonstrated that you don’t wear it.

Here’s why I love this.  read more »

009: Interview: Jeffrey Veen, Part 2 | The Merlin Show  read more »

Active Voice Writing & Editorial Services in Baltimore — Downloads

Cool-looking collection of CC-licensed Hipster PDA templates include iconic “capture notes,” research notes, and (here’s a new one for me) a “yarn sorting card.” Neat stuff.

Simply drag and drop them to your desktop, or right-click and “save as.” Templates are formatted as .png graphics and can be printed as-is or inserted into a formatted document. They can be resized to fit everything from a 3x5 card to a daily organizer to an 8.5x11 sheet.

Kvet.ch features an excellent article on how to print D*I*Y Planner HPDA cards (see the end of this page) directly to 3x5 cards for Mac users. The technique should also work nicely with the templates offered here.