43 Folders

Back to Work

Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

Join us via RSS, iTunes, or at 5by5.tv.

”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

3x5 Card Tickler Files

So now I have a hybrid system -- I use a notebook as a capture device and I have tagged pages for shopping list reminders.

But now I'm finding a friction point on my 3x5 tickler causing me distress when I re-file repeating tasks. I have my tasks on 3x5 cards and place them accordingly by date. Works well except when I need to schedule a task to the next week and I'm having trouble sorting through the day (1-31) cards to find the following, say, Thursday, or the 2nd Thursday of next month.

How do you tackle this? I'm thinking I need to add Sunday-Saturday cards, but that seems inefficient. Or maybe use colored removable post-its on each day card to signify the day of the week, seems a little inefficient but not so much as the first idea.

I don't really want to do weekday tags because I have appts that I insert into the tickler file also. But maybe this is more efficient than the above? Maybe set up 4 sets of weekday tags for each month and look at a calendar to match the date with the appropriate weekday? Or maybe somehow band each week together?

What are you doing?

TOPICS: Lofi
Craig's picture

I've tried using calendars I, too,...

CathyHughes;7864 wrote:
I've tried using calendars

I, too, at first thought SansPoint was missing your original intent, but I now think his point was that he uses iCal to check how the days of the week fall with dates - he's suggesting not that you abandon your cardbox for a calendar, but you use a calendar for the information you need to help work your cardbox...

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

Popular
Today

Popular
Classics

An Oblique Strategy:
Honor thy error as a hidden intention


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

Scared Shitless

Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »