Jon Aquino's Mental Garden

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Monday, April 18, 2005

Index Cards: Programmer's Best Friend

I seem to have started a little trend at work. I've been using index cards to write down my tasks (1 task per card) so I won't worry about forgetting to do them. Turns out that when you are writing a computer program you can have dozens of these things scattered about your desk.

Well, the idea caught on, and now three of my neighbours are using 'em. One of them likes to tear up a card after completing it; another likes to colour-code his by project. We're not using them as CRC cards or anything fancy like that. We're just writing one to-do per card. Jotting your thoughts down frees up your mind to concentrate on the work at hand, instead of being nagged by outstanding to-do's.

You can tell I'm a big fan of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology for personal organization, and its ideal of mind like water.

3 Comments:

  • I have been using little spiral bound notebooks to record info. They are great for keeping information from getting misplaced but are harder to use efficiently. I find my self flipping pages to find the url I wrote down or the location I took a pic. If I was to do programming or heavy essay writing I would go back to index cards.

    By Blogger Leon, at 4/21/2005 4:23 a.m.  

  • Spiral bound notebooks, hey?

    That reminds me - I saw those famous Moleskine notebooks at Bolen Books!!! $15 for a small one, $21 for a large one.

    By Blogger Jonathan, at 4/21/2005 9:29 p.m.  

  • Perhaps, you will laugh at me but I prefer to keep all my information in my shabby notebook. There is nothing like it despite the fact that new computer-aided technologies are permanently created.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8/01/2007 11:02 p.m.  

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