My husband, who has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, calls his cell phone his brain. He has alarms set on it for just about everything. There's even one that rings to remind him when it's the end of his workday. Without that one, he'd just keep working and eventually look up at the wall clock to see that he'd worked at least an extra half hour.
Because I'm editing on the computer at home pretty much all day long, I have the kids' alarms and mine set in the calendar in Outlook: make sure the middle one has lunch money, make sure the youngest has lunch money, walk down to the bus stop to get the youngest after school, homework time, leave for guitar lesson ...
I've had a PDA since the first Palm Pilots.
I was exhausted the first 2 weeks I owned it, finally doing everything I was supposed to. Gradually, as I caught up on my life, things eased up a bit. I, too, have ADHD, but at least I'm running less behind now. It's the answer to the cowardly lion...if I only had a brain!
Plus, the games are great!
So, are you getting more organized? Because those things have always made me curious.
Phew! I'm glad I only work a full-time job (and don't have kids to worry about), and can handle everything on my calender with just alarms in my cell phone. I REALLY don't know how you handle everything, RedMo. My hat's off to you.
David Allen's ~Getting Things Done~ (GTD) is pretty much my textbook on this. I've never implemented his system perfectly, but I've made huge strides over the past few years.
If you're looking for a gigantic rabbit-hole to wander down, by the way, there's a whole slew of GTD-related sites & discussion groups out there, starting with Merlin Mann's 43folders.com.
The crux of GTD: Get *everything* you have to do - 100% of it - collected into one system that you can trust. If it's a spiral notebook, that's fine. A PDA can work wonders if you'll stick with it. But it *all* has to go into just one system where you're sure to see it. Anything left in the back of your mind rather than in the trusted collection system will create stress for you, and stress is the mortal enemy of getting things done in a harmonious way.
I have a little paper calendar that I bought a couple months ago when I was having trouble keeping "to do's" straight. I carry it with me everywhere.
I don't know what I did before I had Outlook. Oh wait, yes I do, I had a Franklin planner! I lost Outlook for a couple of weeks due to a series of circumstances and it was disastrous. I had come to depend on it so much I was dropping balls left and right.
I've never had a pda myself, but if there's a way to back up your data on there I would set myself a reminder to do that at least weekly.
I think the GDT concept is right on track. It all has to be in one place. I tried the flylady-style control journal for a couple of years, and while it worked well at the start, it was too big to haul around.
I find that most of the changes I need to make to my info happen when I'm out and about, so I was ending up with dozens and dozens of paper scraps with appointments, phone numbers, etc, swimming in my handbag. In theory I would've fished them out and copied them into the right sections, but I never had time to do that.
With the pda, I can add stuff on the go and not have to get back to it or transfer the information again later. I can't say that I'm organized yet, but I have a much clearer picture of what I need to do to impose some order around here.
I used to have a PDA back in the day when I had a 'real job'. I found it particularly useful during a period when other people put things in my diary. I just synched it all the time and knew what was going on.
My desk was still a mess though. I am a 'surface accumulator' so clean surfaces just don't happen in my life. Not even piles. Think geomorphological layers. I did a big filing of stuff not long ago and things are really organized but you can't see what my desk is made of.
Now I use a Harvard agenda. Week to a page with space for to do lists on the bottom. It is small enough to carry around but big enough to write stuff in. It seems to be working.
I guess I'm still in the dark ages - I use post its for reminders. I have a daytimer but I don't use it as a calendar. It's mainly for making notes and keeping all the business cards and stray post it notes organized...
I loved post-its for many years. Unfortunately my 2-year old likes to pretend they are 'wipes' so I don't handle them unless I must.
Second the David Allen Getting Things Done system.
I am organized and calm right now, with my life organized on several sets of index cards, despite the fact that this is currently a top-ten in my life for stress.
Also, tied in to GTD, free planner pages:
http://www.diyplanner.com/
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