Sacha Chua - tag - hipsterpda

Lifehacking your groceries

2005-08-02T18:19:00Z

One of the coolest things about having
delicious:lifehacks in my inbox
is turning up all the craziest lifehacking tips. Today's treasure is
about lifehacking your groceries by using index cards to keep track of ingredients, simplifying a week of shopping and cooking. _And_ it comes with index card templates!

Hipster PDA: Waste of paper?

2005-06-16T18:32:00Z

An insightful but anonymous person wrote in:

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but even though the
HipsterPDA is excellent for notetaking etc., it really is a waste of
paper!

“My notes and to dos are NOT a waste” I hear you cry. But that’s not
what I’m referring to. I’m referring to using ONE index card for
writing a phone number, or an address, or a task. When this
information is then transferred to the necessary electronic or paper
area, the card is thrown in the trash – what a waste!

I apologise to those of you who recycle your cards, but from the many
articles, comments I’ve read re: HipsterPDA, most people just trash
the card and that’s it.

I’m not a great fan of the digital world, but this disrespect for
paper (and ultimately the rainforests) is just not on.

Hmm. Good point. Index cards require more processing than cheap paper
notebooks do. I like the feel of heavy paper, and index cards require
more chemicals and raw material than paper notebooks do.

I use one index card for all my notes regarding a meeting (and
sometimes two if I need to segregate topics or spill over). I throw
the card away after I get the data into my Planner. I don’t really use
my index cards for keeping track of tasks, as most of my tasks so far
have been computer-related. My deck of index cards is really more for
jotting down notes, making quick sketches, or giving information to
other people.

I feel the trade-off is justified. I work better with index cards. A
pack of 100 or 500 index cards is a small price to pay if it helps me
keep track of things I should do or little nuggets of information I
should pass onto other people.

Even if you multiply that by all the billions of people in the world,
as long as they use their index cards to help themselves keep track of
things worth keeping track of, then I think that’s a net win for the
earth.

Conservation is important, but it is not enough to see the evil in
little things. We make a lot of choices that cost the environment.
Food. Clothes. Housing and furniture. Should we stop eating because
cooking by gas or electricity uses a lot of energy from non-renewable
sources and the amount of waste going on in fast food places and
restaurants is staggering? Should we stop patronizing bookstores
because the vast majority of books don’t get read and reused? Should
we take our fingers off our keyboards now in protest against the way
computers contribute to environmental problems? Should we take direct
steps to end the world’s population problem? We make choices.

In this case, I think my pack of index cards is certainly worth it. I
respect paper, which is why I write down things that are worth writing
down. I respect trees. I really, really like trees, and wish we had
more in the city.

After I fill up the card and store it somewhere, I won’t be able to
use it a lot. I could write on my cards with a pencil and erase my
writing until the card falls apart, but my time and the earth’s time
isn’t worth that.

It’s good to look for ways to save the environment. Reduce, reuse and
recycle. However, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. Little
things matter, but if they help you do better things, then maybe it’s
worth it. You just need to make sure that what you’re doing is worth
the cost.

It’s one more thing to add to the pile of recyclable material (not
that garbage is really segregated in this country), one more problem
contributing to the death of the earth, but it’s something I choose to
use. Not that this is going to convince hard-core environmentalists
that I’m not a selfish, evil person, but at least I know and take
responsibility for my choice.

E-Mail from Richi’s server

Introducing the Hipster PDA

2005-06-02T21:22:00Z

by Sacha Chua

(Sneak preview of m-ph entry for tomorrow)

“I’ve found the perfect PDA,” I gushed. My friends perked up. Knowing
how much of a geek I am, anything I was that crazy about was bound to
be interesting. They leaned over and watched as I reached into my bag
and brought out…

… my Hipster PDA.

“SACHA?!”

Introducing the Hipster PDA

One of the hottest topics in the productivity blogosphere right now is
the Hipster PDA, a surprisingly effective low-tech way to
organize your life. Grab a pack of 3″x5″ index cards and a fold-back
clip and you’re set to go!

What’s so cool about the Hipster PDA?

Gets rid of worries. You don’t have to worry about running out of
battery during a critical meeting. You can drop it and it will still
work. Even if you dunk it in water, you’ll still be able to recover
your data.
Grows along with you.
Don’t be constrained by software or hardware limitations! You can
easily experiment with different ways of planning, and you can expand
your Hipster PDA’s memory simply by buying another pack of index cards
at your nearest bookstore.
Helps you stay focused. The Hipster PDA helps you stay focused
and on-track by not supporting addictive games like Tradewinds. To
help you pass the time, the Hipster PDA comes with a few built-in
two-player games like Tic-tac-toe and Hangman.
Organizes real-life data. Receipts? Business cards? Movie
tickets? No problem! Just tuck them into the fold-back clip and
process them when you get home.
Beams anything to anyone. You can easily “beam” information
to other people—just scribble a note and give it to them. 3×5 index cards don’t crumple easily
and can easily be shared with other people no matter what mobile device they use.

Here’s what you can do with your own Hipster PDA:

Get a good pen or mechanical pencil. Keep it with your Hipster PDA at all times.
Write down one task per index card. You can write down subtasks and notes there as well. Rip up the task card up after completing the task for a satisfying finish.
Alternatively, divide your tasks into projects and write down your tasks. Check the tasks off as you finish them.
Scribble notes and ideas down on index cards.
Write down a month calendar so that you can easily see when you have appointments.
Print important contact information on an index card. You can probably fit 50 names and phone numbers. Good backup if your phone is out of battery or gets lost.
Print birthdays on an index card, sorted by month and day.
Label your Hipster PDA with your contact information just in case it gets lost. (name, phone number, e-mail address)
Clip a cheap pen to your Hipster PDA for people who borrow pens. Never lend your good pen.
Keep newly-written cards in an “inbox” section (front or back) so that you can process them when you get home.

For more information, check out the following links:
43 Folders: Introducing the Hipster PDA
Technorati: Hipster PDA

Check back on Wednesday for tips on making the most of your Hipster PDA!

Hipster PDA: GTD Tiddly Wiki

2005-05-13T07:44:00Z

Miguel Javier said:

GTD Tiddly Wiki is a GettingThingsDone adaptation of JeremyRuston’s
Open Source TiddlyWiki. The purpose of GTD Tiddly Wiki is to give
users a single repository for their GTD lists and support materials so
they can create/edit lists, and then print directly to 3×5 cards for
use with the HipsterPDA.

http://shared.snapgrid.com/gtd_tiddlywiki.html

No kidding. I wonder what we should do to get Planner to support 3×5
index cards sanely…

E-Mail from Miguel Javier

Colored index cards

2005-05-11T06:44:00Z

I love posting my productivity ideas because every time I do so, I get
comments suggesting even better ways to do things. Today’s tip comes
from Christopher Allan Webber, whose
colored index cards are leaps and bounds ahead of my deck of
plain white index cards. He has some cool ideas here!

He uses colored notecards to separate his notes into categories.

Yellow schedule & project cards

Red todo cards (or just stuff I should copy to planner-mode)

Blue idea cards

Green expenses (writing down stuff to copy to my ledger file later)

He also uses cards that are lined on just one side. On the lined side of schedule & project cards, he
writes down:

Photography

Mon 5/9 Lab

Wed 5/11 Critique of Assignment II & I (pics don’t have to be dry – must by Wednesday)

Mon 5/16 Field trip

. . Assignment #2 dry-mounted

On the back, he keeps a TODO list. When a task needs to be done
multiple times—for example, preparing a print of a picture—he adds
extra checkboxes before the task.

I think he writes down non-project-related TODOs and random notes on
red cards, which are easy to pick out in the pack. Right now, I jumble
them all together on white index cards. I’ll try keeping the front
half of the deck for tasks and the back half for notes.

Green cards help him keep track of his expenses. I keep receipts in
front of my index cards using the handy fold-back clip, although an
organized table view would be pretty cool.

I don’t know where he managed to find lined-on-one-side 3×5 colored
index cards. I guess bookstores in other countries are better stocked.
On the other hand, I found 3×5 organizer refills, so I’m not
absolutely deprived.

He was bemused by my mention of “two pages of month templates from a
3×5 day planner”. If you crack open a pack of 3×5 organizer refills,
you’ll get year, month, and day views. Normally a single month would
span two pages, but if you’re using a planner where month views
haven’t been labeled “January”, “February”—in short, blank ones—then
you can use one page to represent one month. If you don’t have
organizer refills handy, simply print the numbers 1 to 15 down one
side of an index card and 16 to 31 on the other. Leave space at the
top for the month name, and space beside the numbers for appointments.

He also had this interesting anecdote to relate about a friend’s way
of planning.

“Oh, I gave up keeping track of to do lists,” she sighed. “These days
I just write everything on my mirror with a dry-erase marker, so when
I groggily stumble into my bathroom in the morning I go, ‘OH SHIT! I
HAVE *THAT* TO DO TODAY!'”

I should do that with a random Japanese quote of the day. I’ll write
it down the day before, then groggily try to read it in the morning.
Or I can scribble my Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (superb teaching and
quality assurance for computer science education, and strategy
coaching for life planning (must find better way to summarize these
things!)) on my ceiling at home. Ooooh. My ceiling is low enough for
me to do that…

Check out Christopher Allan Webber’s website at http://dustycloud.org/ . =)

I love swapping ideas with people, so feel free to send in more suggestions!

How I use my Hipster PDA

2005-05-09T07:22:00Z

After all my experiments with wearable computing
using a one-handed chording keyboard and a speech synthesizer,
I’ve found that the most portable device for me is still a 3×5 pack of index cards bound with a fold-back clip.
Jokingly dubbed the “Hipster PDA” elsewhere on the Net, this low-tech device is surprisingly flexible and easy to use.
I use mine to keep track of tasks and random notes for later entry into my online planner.

My Hipster PDA is composed of:

a colored index card with my contact information
my inbox: cards with notes on them that haven’t been entered into the computer
two pages of month templates from a 3×5 day planner
a year calendar for 2005 and 2006
my archive: index cards that have already been entered but might still be useful
a colored index card with yellow sticky notes
a stack of blank index cards
a fold-back clip holding all of these things together
a black signpen or a mechanical pencil tucked into the fold-back clip

One of the things I’ve found much easier to do with my 3×5 pack of
cards than with a PDA or a Franklin-Covey planner is to keep track of
get-togethers. When my friends and I schedule our next get-together, I
lay the month templates out so that I can see the next 30 days at a
glance. This is difficult to do with a PDA because PDA screens are
small. A Franklin-Covey planner would probably be more organized, but
I like being able to lay things out side-by-side instead of flipping
through pages.

When I need to jot something down, I flip the deck and write on the
last card. After I finish one side of the card, I turn it over, clip
it, and write on the other side. When the whole card is full, I move
it into my inbox.

Index cards are handy because it’s easy to give information away to
other people. Paper gets crumpled and business cards can disappear
into the chaos of a purse or a bag. An index card is big and bright.
I’m thinking of replacing half of my white cards with brightly-colored
cards so that people can easily find information I give them.

I’m planning to do other things with my pack of 3×5 index cards. For
example, I can write my projects on the cards. Reviewing these cards
will reinforce these goals in my mind and remind me to keep making
progress.

Index cards totally rock.

Hipster PDA: Month view

2005-04-26T09:53:00Z

Being able to quickly see my schedule for two months totally, totally
rocks. My iPAQ didn’t have the screenspace for something like that,
but my 3×5″ pack of index cards with some inserts from an organizer.
In particular, aforementioned monthly templates make planning
get-togethers so much easier. I can print index cards for these too,
but then it’d be a hassle to design the template and print it
back-to-back. Anyway, this totally rocks.

(I also had another epiphany earlier: we’re actually planning
gimmicks! We have a social life! We have a barkada! Nifty. Now I just
need to make sure I keep in touch with other people I know, too…)

Yellow	schedule & project cards
Red	todo cards (or just stuff I should copy to planner-mode)
Blue	idea cards
Green	expenses (writing down stuff to copy to my ledger file later)

Mon	5/9	Lab
Wed	5/11	Critique of Assignment II & I (pics don’t have to be dry – must by Wednesday)
Mon	5/16	Field trip
.	.	Assignment #2 dry-mounted