More Thoughts on The Filofax and S60 Calendar

Am using Handy Calendar now after trying both Papyrus & Aqua Calendar. I cant live with the built in Calendar on my E90 not only because it miss many features but the font is too bulky & the notes linked to the entries are shown in the built in Notes application need to many buttons presses & so on. But again Handy Calendar dont serve half of many needs nor any other 3rd party application. No Catagories is the real problem,i either have Completed or Active task! Why? What if i completed 25% of the task & 75% isnt completed yet?

well,as i know there is beta test for an application called Dream Life which was for UIQ only. This has advanced Calendar & Contacts seperated applications in one .sisx instaklation file (correct me if am wrong) and am waiting eagerly for that.

I've recently reverted to using a Filofax for my organising, simply because my new employer doesn't allow any synchronisation between phones and outlook. All through university, and a multitude of odd jobs I've used an N70, N73 and E90 to organise myself, remember things and make sure I get to the dentist on time.

Now my employer has effectively cut that off from me, I'm having to ask for a blackberry, even though I hate the design and limitations, because for now, the only option is a filofax.

The biggest advantage of using a phone as an organiser is that its always been with me. That is the most important thing. Yes, I listen to music on my phone, but only because its always with me. I browse the internet in cafes only because its always with me. But being organised is something that I need whether I can use my phone for it or not.

So, I'm stuck with a filofax. It's too small to take notes in meetings, or do my "technical" sketches in, so I use an A4 notebook as well!

To recap:
My short-sighted and underfunded IT department won't let me use my own phone for anything. I have a Nokia 6300 as a work phone. I have a filofax as a diary and project planner. I have an A4 notebook for meeting minutes and note taking. I have a 15.4in laptop for working on (bigger laptops are cheaper, and so that's what you get issued with). I'm late for trains because my bag is so heavy. I have a bad back.

Mobile phones don't just make my life easier, they actually make my life better, in measurable ways.

Just in Counter to Ewan's countering of Tom's counters to Ewan's arguments (??) I imported all the F1 practice, qualifying and race times, including when it was on the the BBC and in what form (BBC1 or red button). A quick calculation tells me that was some 114 separate entries - and I have the website book marked. If Ewan reckons he can write that down quicker than I can go to the bookmarked website and hit "Import" then I challenge him to a race next season. The same applies for the European Championships, World Cup Finals, England Qualifiers and all Tottenham Games.

They are all widely available on websites I have booked and include when (if) they are on telly and on what channel. I'm sorry, but you just can't do that with a filofax (actually, you can* - but it's not as good).

Also, because devices are always connected, remembering backups has become irrelavant. I haven't backed up a device in nearly 12 months but have done several resets and tested new ROM's etc. My data is in the "cloud" (hate that word) so backups are unnecessary.

Oh, one final point against filofax's. I'm left handed but was forced to learn to write right-handed (they did that back then). As a result, my handwriting is often illegible, even by me. It's one of the many reasons I love smartphones 😊

* You could export to excel, format it and print it off, sticking it as a page in your filofax. It would still take much longer than just clicking "import" but it would work - albeit the appointments wouldn't be in the right place for Ewan's "system".

My requirements for a calendar app:

- Built-in. (Even if you reason that Joe User should be required to add third party apps, it's likely that the integration won't be very good.)
- I can set recurring events or appointments for eg "the third Saturday of every month". (Handy Calendar can do this, I gave up with Papyrus because it couldn't.)
- Multiple calendars, with the ability to import and merge (bank holidays, wife's schedule, phases of the moon, space shuttle launches, etc, etc, etc...).

Alas, poor Psion Agenda, I knew it, Horatio.

Ewan's GTD perspective is very understandable. The whole idea of GTD is that you drive the data, rather than the data driving (or even collaborating with) you. The S60 calendar (which is like all S60 built-in software in being unnecessarily basic) doesn't come from this philosophy at all, and thus is rather incompatible with it.

The more feature rich apps, including (soon on S60) DreamLife, have enough features that they achieve some spill-over into the GTD approach. But that's still not their core -- they want by nature to be more active than the passive GTD categorised list of tasks. And this suits the majority of users, I think. DreamLife's core metaphor recognises this and is a daily/weekly time planner, rather than a task list. The S60 calendar is, in contrast, rather confused about its metaphor, which makes it a bit of a poor compromise (improved slightly in the E Series and 5th Ed).

People who are already relatively organised find GTD a good tool. Those who are not (like me and obviously Steve and Tom) need a little more prodding, thus the time-oriented nature of most PIMs.

Anyway, all this discussion comes at a helpful time for us as we decide on the critical features of DreamLife for S60. My personal desire for a phone PIM is that it work with me in managing my data, so it should be as flexible and fluid as GTD, but actively remind me and make connections. That's what we're working towards, and I'm looking forward to the Symbian Foundation's open sourcing making that easier by removing much of the code replication that has, until now, been necessary in developing such solutions. (But that's another topic.)

Just thought I'd add my Calendering thoughts and usage to the conversation. I'm running the standard Calendering app on a N95 8Gb and I've got categories. I can sync over any network connection and add / edit delete appointments in any calender / category on my phone or in iCal on my laptop. I guess I can also edit them in any web browser as well.

All this has, so far been running very smoothly, with 4 read/write calendars (categories) and 2 read only calendars.

This has required the following :
[LIST=1]
[*] Calendars setup on gCal for my own domain for each user. These have shared read / write access. There is my web browser interface.
[*] These calendars are imported into iCal via CalDAV. Now I can edit on my Mac.
[*] They are also setup with Goosync to sync over the air to my phone. Final connection and ultimate portability. This includes two read only iCal feeds from others. All get tagged with a simple tag [tag] to identify the entries and Goosync handles translating them on the return from any new entries. I mostly use a single letter so the biggest hassle is getting the [] in via T9.
[/LIST]

Simple !!!

While it is true that, in the literal sense, 'phones' can't be used on (most*) aircraft, when 'offline' they aren't (literally) phones any more and so aren't any different to, say, a laptop or mp3 player. So long as they're not transmitting radio waves, they're fine.

Yes, as with all electronics, you can't use them during take-off and landing....but I don't think too many people would be using their Filofaxes either...

(*) Didn't I hear this was starting to change anyway with some airlines installing picocells?

A lot has been written about getting organised and about the GTD method. I became interested in productivity after watching a google lecture on youtube given by David Allen on GTD. A lot of the stuff he was saying sounded honest and logical so I kept reading his stuff. I wanted to try to implement his GTD methodology but being a geek I assumed there must be a tool out there that just by the way it is set up it helps you implement the GTD method. I was wrong. If you don't understand the underlying philosophy of the method, all the tools do is confuse you, because they are products of other peoples interpretation of what getting organised is. I found that getting organised is a very individual thing. We all have different ways we do things, different strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion the most important benefit of GTD and David Allen's work compared with other "getting organised" philosophies is that it went the extra mile and made a significant effort in trying to define the areas of things that can have our attention. By using the GTD's trigger lists and goals lists is a very good way to start defining "your" areas of focus (there is a pdf file flying around on the net, called "Making it All Work.pdf", that has all these lists). I have gone through all those trigger lists and have modified them to suit me. I removed stuff that were not applicable to me and I added other stuff that were. Once you spend that initial time to define the areas that have your attention and write them down, then it becomes a matter of 10 minutes every week to go through them and update them , or just to remind yourself on what stuff you need to pay attention to. I use a text editor (EditPad Lite) that allows for easy txt input on the desktop for multiple txt files at once.I have one txt file for each area of focus (e.g. responsibilities, finance, household, family etc).When something comes up I write it down, either on my N82 as a note or on a piece of paper. When I get back at the desktop (where I spend most of my time anyway), it's very fast to get all those notes I wrote, identify in what area of focus they belong and write them in the appropriate text file. If it doesn't belong in any of my areas of focus I can choose to make a simple action of it, make a project of it, or create a new area of focus. Again all these stuff require decisions. That's why a preset tool will fail, we all make decisions in different ways. My one txt file per list method gives me flexibility. Categories are just folders I have txt files in. It's very simple and fast. A multitabbed txt editor is very convenient. If you want to keep those lists with you then just copy the folders on your phone and use a file explorer with a tree structure to navigate to them. I use X-plore and it even allows for editing of the text files. So I can even work on my lists when mobile, although it's significantly slower than on the desktop.I don't know about you but there is something satisfying in working with text and folders in a tree structure. Functional simplicity is such a beautiful thing! So in conclusion when you have set up all your lists and folders and can access them at anytime ( on your desktop or mobile device), it's a matter of minutes to go through them and decide on your next actions. Make a new list and call it "Next Actions". There are only 3 types of stuff. Actions, reference stuff, and stuff you might want to do but not now. Decide what it is and file it on a list accordingly. Again the key is to DECIDE!! No tool or book is going to decide for you! Then whenever you have time on your hands open that list and start working. You can have peace of mind knowing that what you do is exactly what you should be doing! (given of course that you are someone who makes decisions and lives by them)