Date

My organizational system lacked vitality last year. It was rarely consulted, tedious to look at and on the whole not very fun. Now that I'm somewhat back on top of things, I think I've identified the fundamental thing that I missed, the thing I needed to breathe life into the system, much like the Creation Matrix.

Collect
Every time you think of something to do, something you're unsure about or something overflowing with bodacity, write it down. It's important to have a very small number of places where these written notes go, but it's more important to make the notes in the first place.

I carry around a small spiral notebook and write in that. When I'm at my desk, I write on index cards, or in an emacs buffer called 'inbox'.

Without this, I kept forgetting stuff, felt busier than I was and made poor decisions about what to do with my free time. I also missed lots of opportunities. Carrying around a little notebook has actually made me feel better.