I’m really bad a making notes of things we need to invoice people for. Whilst the cricketers were at lunch I decided to write another little application to work with my Backpack account. This allows me to e-mail or update one page that contains all the things we need to invoice.

Now, I could have set aside a page in Basecamp for this purpose, but then I have to do all the adding up. Or we could keep a record for each project or client, but then I have to remember to root through all those things before I prepare invoices.

So I now have an e-mail address for a page on Backpack.

E-mails are of the format:
Client name: hours_or_money_to_invoice optional_description

e.g.:

• Fred Smith: 1.5h Update Website
• Joe Bloggs Ltd: £10 Help with Network

There’s a link on that page that updates the page body to summarise what’s due to be invoiced, all added up and sorted by client. E-mails to that page get converted into dated list items so I can check them off when invoiced.

Little bits of fiddling around with my Backpack application in between watching cricket, doing some work and getting my Tesco’s order. What’s new?

I’ve just added simple recurring todos to my little Backpack application. Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly ones now recreate themselves on the appropriate day page.

These are identified by simple prefixes on their titles, like [RW] for a weekly recurring task. If they’re not done on that day, they roll themselves over to the current day along with another annotation indicating when they should have been done.

I’ve added a general notes page which I can e-mail things to. I’ve named it ’ Notes’ with a leading space, so it appears at the top of my page list.

I’ve also added a GTD Action page, which I can e-mail stuff to – mainly todos and notes. These get moved to today’s page whenever I visit my home page.

You might ask why I’m adding this functionality – couldn’t I use some other application? Well, yes, I could, but the beauty of this solution is it’s simple. I don’t need to learn a new GUI, and there aren’t a hundred features to get bogged down in. Plus, if I need something extra or special, I can just write something to do it. And what’s more important is it works exactly how I work.

43 Folders is a great way of keeping track of the things you need to do. You simply have 31 numbered folders – one for each day of the current month, plus 12 other folders for the months of the year. The numbered folders are used for the upcoming 31 days’ work.

To use 43 Folders you drop things into the respective date that you have to do something and at the start of each day you look in the current date’s folder and pick up the things to do.

Now, I’m a getting a little lazy keeping up to date. When I’m particularly busy, my 43 Folders don’t get reviewed regularly. So I decided to use Backpack to help me along:

I have one page for each of the following 31 days. For the purpose of 43 Folders, the useful content of each page is separated into a freeform body, a list (essentially a todo list), and any number of notes.

Using the API, I’ve written a simple web application that keeps these 43 Folders up to date. It does this by:

• Rolling over the body text of previous days’ to today’s page;
• Rolling over incomplete todos to today’s page;
• Rolling over the notes to today’s page;
• Creating appropriate new pages to ensure I’m still 31 days ahead.

Simple session management ensures that this housekeeping is only done once per day, and after the housekeeping is done I get redirected to today’s page. This web application is now my home page.

Each page of Backpack shows a list of all the pages you have, listed alphabetically, so the titles of these 43 Folders pages are like this: 2005-08-26, Friday (Aug) which means I can easily navigate to other days.

Next steps:

• Add Month pages and rollover their content into today’s page
• Provide an archive for completed todos

There’s obviously other scope: special annotations to the titles of todos or notes could mean certain things, and there’s great potential for integration with Basecamp once it’s API is published.

Okay, so what happens when I’m on the move and I need to know what I’m doing on other days (or indeed later the same day), or if I’m away for a long time?

If I want to, I can publish my iCal calendar to a web server and then refer to that on-line. I can always get to my Basecamp account the same way. If I’m away for some time, then I need to refer to my Tickler File before going away.

One really good thing about the Moleskine products is the expanding folder that they have at the back of each book. The easiest thing to do therefore is use this folder to hold printouts of the relevant time-dependent information and refer to it as required.

Since I’ve got into the Getting Things Done (GTD) way of managing the things I have to do I’ve found I’m using less of my Time/system. Once you realise that you should only use dated pages for things you must do at a particular date or time, one great chunk of Time/system disappears.

Instead I stick all my appointments in one of three places:

• iCal, for personal things or for business activities that only apply to me;
• Basecamp, for business activities that involve me and someone else or which others need to know about;
• the Tickler File, when I’ve made a commitment to do something on a particular day, for example, a small piece of web design work.

Since the majority of my work is computer based and I always refer to my computer at least once a day, these arrangements mean that I no longer have any need for the diary in Time/system. The whole GTD philosophy does remove the nostalgic, historic nature of such diaries. I can no longer go back to a particular day and find out what I was doing then, but, it actually doesn’t matter!

And what about notes? I use my Time/system binder as an organiser of information, but I’m now using some GTD forms and notes. I’ve also found I use my Moleskine Pocket Sketch Book for small project notes and I’m liking it (and using it) just like the early days when I used a Filofax. For example, I can highlight the edges of a particular series of pages to show that they’re important, or relate to a particular project.

Furthermore, someone pointed out to me that you can number each page, and provide written next and back links to pages related to the same project. Use the front page of each sketch book to record which projects there are. Of course, date each entry. Very much a ‘less-is-more’ way of working.

The ‘Tickler File’ is a great way of offloading things to do. If you decide to do something on a particular day, or just any day to get it done, you bung a note of it (or indeed the actual thing you need to action) into the Tickler File.

Problems start when something else arrives in your In Box, and you want to do it at the same time as something already in your Tickler File. Firstly, you’re reminded that both things need dealing with. Secondly, you have to go through your Tickler File to find the item.

My workaround is to action the second (and perhaps subsequent items), whilst filing them in the client’s folder. The action itself includes a reference to the first item which lives in the Tickler File.

The Getting Things Done philosophy includes an In Box which is where you put all the things that need your assessment. Whilst assessing the In Box, if you can do it within 2 minutes then you might as well do it straight away.

I’ve noticed over the past few years I’ve procrastinated on things that might take me as little as 10 seconds to get done. I’d often walk by something and be reminded that I need to do something with it, only to leave it for another time. I’m now trying to change my ways. If something grabs my attention anywhere in my house or office and it takes less than 2 minutes to deal with, I now try to deal with it immediately. This is a simple, minor, change in behaviour but it has had a remarkable affect on my well being.