YAH: Yet Another hPDA
While it’s not the only reason, I haven’t been writing because I lack organization. I lack the neuron paths along which travel the brain pulses to manage information and remind my brain’s user to pay the electric bill or schedule routine auto maintenance. I have looked for help, when I remembered to, for a while, but I have found success primarily at work and only after a few years of practice.
Around two years or so ago, I ran into 43 Folders, but I didn’t really get it. I read a lot of bubbly rhetoric about organization tricks and tips, hacks for moleskines, and other esoterica. I slowly cowed away from the pressure, and went about my nonlinearly dynamic way.
I can’t recall how it happened, though it probably had to do with Khoi Vinh posting about kGTD and a little bit of free time to follow my curiosity; but I came back to 43 Folders and I made it stick. I guarantee that I found more motivation in having just bought a house, given the number of details and forms and deadlines that process entails, as well as the committment to all manner of logistical challenges homeownership requires.
I stumbled upon the Hipster PDA (hPDA), and despite its potential for clunkiness, I knew I wanted one. Yes, it’s just a collection of note cards fastened together with variously successful instruments, and so is trivial; but the idea of a system or organization based on low-tech, cheap supplies jacks into the quasi-neo-Luddite, who wants to find the minimum amount of technology to achieve a healthy benefit therefrom. The web is good; cable is good; GPS is good, in certain contexts; but the conventional digital PDA is a poor solution to a misinterpreted problem. The PDA’s high cost of entry (monetary and interface usage) overwhelm its purpose, to remove work friction from the process of organization. Don’t even get me started on phones as PDAs.
What the PDA attacks with technology might better be attacked by engineering. If there is a solution to the given problem that doesn’t require learning a new syntax, doesn’t require portable energy solutions, and doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars, as long as the unpowered analog implementation doesn’t burden the user with a substantially heavier manual labor overhead, it’s a winner.
Enter a sorted, color-coded collection of note cards; but that’s not enough. The effort of keeping an unruly set of notecards together represents additional work friction, and reduces the relative efficacy of such a system. Also, fragile paper cards need to be protected, presumably by an enclosure. Check the Flickr tag for “hPDA” and you’ll find several attempts, none of which, when I first scanned them, really appealed to me. I had to make my own. [Note: Since I looked, hundreds of people have posted their tools, and several are very promising. I particularly like the idea of drilling still and assembling something very strong and sleek. That was actually what I had in mind, but, alas, I'm neither a metalsmith nor could I find a suitable shell anywhere to use.]
The first draft worked okay. I opted for a binder ring as the fastener, cut some plastic folders to make front and back covers, and used a rubber band to keep things together (and to hold a pen). This 1G version functioned for the few weeks I used it, but always left me thinking that it was too rudimentary, and that I could find a better point in the low-tech-to-high-tech spectrum. I checked the typical office supply stores, the Salvation Army, Target, Wal-Mart, and my office, looking for something to hit the spot. A couple of weeks ago, I finally found it.
I have shopped at Tuesday Morning a few times, and found it essentially an up-scale flea market. There’s a sense when you walk in that you might be the lucky bloke to find a special little something that no one else recogizes as valuable. I became that lucky bloke, I think, when I found a Geoffrey Allen Multiple Pen Carrier with Note Pad, in both brown and black leather (I bought two). The stock pen carrier hit close to my target, and a quarter-inch brass eyelet (to accept the binder ring) was a double-tap to the chest. Behold the product of my meager labor. I have no need to store calendars or business cards or paper footballs. Just a pen or two, the notecards, and sturdy enclosure (leather).
Why the long-winded fuss about a not-so-fancy box for note cards? Well, not so much because I think it’s cool or useful for anyone but me, but because I found a wealth of help from other people posting their results while I was searching. If you find this helpful, leave a note.
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