Week Thirty-Four: The Hipster PDA [GTD]

Fancy Pants Hipster PDA by lizbt

hip-ster PDA
–noun
1.  a stack of index cards clipped together.
2. the best thing to ever happen to you.

In the world of Getting Things Done, the Hipster PDA was not an original component, but it’s one that fits into it so well.

Basically, you have a stack of paper. Every time you think of something, you write it down. Every. Thing.

• You think about your awesome Aunty Katy and remember that you haven’t spoken to her in a while, you write down Contact Aunty Katy.
• You hum the words to the Gummy Bears theme tune and realise you don’t know what the second verse starts with, you write down Google Gummy Bears lyrics.
• You walk past a quirky looking store, you write down Awesome Store, 56 Hawesome Street, Zawesometon.
• You look in the mirror and notice you have grey hair showing, you write down Buy more hair dye or Get haircut to accentuate distinguishing grey streak.

The trick is to just write everything down. Doing this is the most calming thing I have ever done. And lapsing makes me hyper-aware of all the stuff I am constantly trying to remember all the time. Right now, I am trying to remember about 17 different things. One of them involves chicken stock and soup.

GTD comes into this with labelling and sections. Sure, the Hipster PDA will work just as a repository for your thoughts, but you add in some labelled cards, ‘On the Computer’ perhaps, or ‘In the City’, and we are talking organisation-town!

For example, all your googlings , emails to send and airplane flight queries would go on the ‘On the Computer card’. Then, the next time you sit down at your computer, you pull of that card, and voila! A list of things you want to look up right in your hot little hand.

For a more coherent explanation with less 90s cartoon references, check out 43 Folders.

Hipster PDAs – as approved by my clothes horse!