Posts filed under 'Organisation'
Over at 43 Folders, Merlin Mann is rediscovering the wonderful Mac application that is DEVONthink Pro - DEVONthink: An appreciation of “smart groups”
I’ve now had DT Pro v. 1.1.1 in battlefield action for the last few weeks, and have been dutifully feeding it anything I find that seems tangentially interesting or useful; a few custom Quicksilver triggers mean one-click, no-look addition of any data type, from web pages to text selections to photos, full PDFs, and movie files.
DEVONthink Pro is probably my favourite piece of software. Ever. While I use a score of multimedia applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc.) on a regular basis, I am –by nature and trade, in the broadest sense– an information worker. I need a digital commonplace book to collect, track and act upon all those things that Merlin mentions, and much more. While DEVONthink Personal proved an excellent application for doing this, the introduction of DT Pro and its subsequent updates have left me continually astounded. (See my earlier detailed review of DT for more information.)
Merlin goes on to mention the “smart groups” –basically, agents to collect items automatically based upon their content or properties– but I’ve always found that its real power starts to show with things like concordance (estimations of related items — see Berlin’s article), offline archiving of web pages (very useful for changing sites like the NYT), sheets and records (think about a database), Dashboard widgets for quick access, and a teeming horde of AppleScripts. Those starting off with the software might not appreciate all these functions, but I can assure you that they all come in very handy, very soon. And the fact that DT/Pro gets “smarter” as you feed more information into it translates into a more powerful application every day.
Those needing to dig up knowledge on a constant basis can take the application a step further, though: I’m just now exploring DEVONagent, an “intelligent research assistant.” For a long while, I resisted: I’m definitely a Google power-user, and it seemed to do everything I needed it to do. Or so I thought. It turns out that DA has increased my research abilities many-fold. It scours not only the web in general, but also specific online databases to collect and collate information, compiling a useful text-only preview of all those tidbits it thinks I might like to know. With one click I can view the full pages in an integrated (tabbed) browser, or add the information into DTP. The new version also adds an interesting “visualiser” to see how other words and topics relate to your current item. The application takes a little getting used to, but it really pays off after a week or two.
So much information, so little time. At least with the DEVON gear, I can generally make the most of it.
May 23rd, 2006
Whew. That was a tough one. Life can get to normal now.
May 6th, 2006
D*I*Y Planner 3.0 (Classic/A5 Edition) is out, complete with a decidedly clever cover illustration by my long-time best friend, illustrator Brad Reid.
Whew. Regular blogging will re-commence soon, once I’ve caught up on a few weeks’ worth of sleep.
February 12th, 2006
Well, I’m hard at work on the release candidate of the D*I*Y Planner, version 3.0, and I decided to ask for volunteers to help proof the templates, edit the handbook, and write new sections for the (already fairly copious) documentation. Seeing that DIYPlanner.com was set up essentially as a community-driven project to focus on paper-based productivity and creativity, centred somewhat on the ‘Planner, I thought it only right to invite those interested to participate in its development.
So, was that a smart thing? After all, the ‘Planner has been my little baby since its inception, and I’ve guided every line, checkbox and uneven margin via my “benevolent dictatorship.”
The response has been amazing, with about three dozen talented people coming forward out of the woodwork in just a day or two to volunteer their valuable time and skills. We’re just getting started, but already I have a great feeling about the contributions that these people will be making. We’ll not only be able to overhaul my rush-job handbook, but add helpful sections on planning in general, the uses of each of the forms, how to handle printing issues, getting started with your own custom-built D*I*Y Planner system, and so on. That’s not to mention all those eagle eyes proofing the templates and offering ideas and feedback, which will make this a far more professional release than version 2.0.
My friend asked me, “So, why are all these people working for you for free?” He’s a business guy, so it just doesn’t make sense to him. I spend a lot of time in the Open Source world, and I’ve worked for community-based non-profits, so I think that I inherently understand the intrinsic motivations of most volunteers a little better than that. I don’t figure they actually see it as working, no more so than I see my own project time as working. Many of the people putting forth their efforts are users of the non-profit D*I*Y Planner system and site, and from them, they’ve gleaned some advantage, such as enhanced productivity or ways to be more creative. But it’s not only a form of payback, it’s also a chance to pay it forward, to let the next generation of users derive some benefit, and just maybe earn a little good karma in the process.
The D*I*Y Planner has become a community affair, and the community has offered to help. I’m certainly proud of my part in the project’s creation, but these people –and all the creative and dedicated folks that post on the site, especially the volunteer writers– should be just as proud of the fact that they’re helping so many others. The daily letters and posts of thanks stand as strong testament to that. I don’t like to get too sentimental, but despite the hard times I’ve faced in the past few years, these continual acts of sharing and support are the sort of things which consistently renew my faith in the human species.
January 19th, 2006
There’s a well-known maxim in advertising circles that you have approximately three seconds to hook your viewing audience with an ad. Within that time, a lot has to happen. Your viewer has to see the ad, assess the overall image, be influenced by the colours, drift to the area of main importance (the “heat”), zero in on the central visual or text message, absorb that, identify the significance of that with one’s own experience in some way, and then make a decision to carry on investigating the message or text. Now, no one tells you how to do this. The human mind is an astonishing contraption, capable of incredibly complex procedures and analysis within milliseconds, and it does all this automatically. The patience so advocated just a half-century ago is a rare commodity, and our little grey cells have been trained, as by a crack military drill, to disregard those advertisements that require more than three seconds’ investment.
Harken back to novels written in Victorian times and compare them to those today, and you’ll get a similar appreciation of how our minds are beginning to change when faced with a rapid-fire deluge of information. Way back when snuff was fashionable and the glimpse of a woman’s ankles was grounds for marriage, novels and stories often began with long and arduous descriptions of setting, delving into the intricacies of weather, tree branches, rock formations, the collapsing of a farmer’s wall down the road, and the progressive deterioration of several generations of day lilies. Today, we tend to favour in media res, beginning in the middle of things. The first paragraph of the first chapter, and we are already on the roller-coaster, holding tight. (Yes, literary pundits will think of a million exceptions here — I’m speaking in generalities.)
And then there’s incoming information, such as news. When you look at century-old newspapers (well, all but the most lurid ones — the Illustrated Police News‘ graphic and gruesome depictions of crimes such as those of Jack the Ripper are a notable exception), you’ll find many long-winded though inconsequential paragraphs that are polite to the point of verbosity, and verbose to the point of inducing sleep. Nowadays, we have approximately two seconds per headline, and –if we’re still interested– approximately three seconds’ reading to decide if we want to carry on with the rest. Hence the snappy, terse and oft-sensational writing of many modern papers and tabloids.
And then there’s that darn source of endless interaction, distraction and inaction, the Internet. How is that affecting the way we take in and process information? A few months ago, I posted an entry here called Who Would You Phone?, wherein I gave the example of a quiz show contestant with a choice to phone either someone with a good general knowledge-base, or someone well-versed with Google; I suspect that most people would choose the latter. This post was just picked up by my favourite educational blog, Weblogg-ed: go there and read Will’s lucid commentary, along with some very interesting ideas from his readers. Meanwhile, I’m just going to follow up with a few more thoughts here on my own little venue.
I’ve always maintained that folks today (and especially children) living in a technological society are being forced to adapt to a new way of learning and understanding, one that puts into place a number of “filters” to sift through vast quantities of information, gather the pertinent items, allocate a certain importance to each nugget found, and then bring these often-disparate items into some sort of tighter and holistic focus (which is quite close to the “vetting, synthesizing and recognizing patterns” that Will mentions on Weblogg-ed). Faced with over a thousand pieces of significant information per hour, how would we not? Bloglines, del.icio.us, DEVONthink/ DEVONagent, Tinderbox, Zoot, Copernic, and other web-based and client-side applications are there to help us, of course, as is the ability of Google to present results by way of both popularity and pertinence (well, depending on your search skills, of course).
And while we can teach people about acquiring and fine-tuning certain of these filters, most of them will come naturally over time as we learn to deal more effectively with the deluge of data. It’s similar to how we’ve learned to implement a “three second timer.”
Now, while it was never my intention in the original article to propose a return to yesterday (I definitely prefer the instant access of online library catalogues over their card brethern, and I use Wikipedia far more often than its two-hundred pound cousin atop the bookshelves), my main concern was how we were displacing knowledge with information retrieval. That contraption inside our skulls is a far more powerful computer than any search engine, and its primary strength relies upon its ability to analyse. Chief, then, is the comprehension of an undercurrent beneath the facts, upon which the facts can be seen and understood in their proper perspective. For example, while we don’t need to remember all the gods atop Mount Olympus, we should be familiar with the notion of myth and how it applies to our understanding of culture, history, religion and science. The dates pertaining to the rise and fall of the Third Reich mean little without realising the how and why. It’s the age-old and interdependent cycle of analysis and facts: facts, by themselves, are quite useless. Information retrieval, in itself, means nothing without the ability to process that data.
So, yes, filters are important in this age. But I lament the situation of many students I know who believe that finding information quickly is an excellent substitute for knowing or understanding it.
To be sure, we gather and we filter more effectively each day. And our power of analysis is just as robust today as ever. So where does the problem lie?
The missing link today, I maintain, is the ability to focus. This is the private time, the breathing space, that the mind needs to assimilate and digest the information. Think about cramming for an exam — spending a day or two of intense study– as opposed to paying attention to the material all throughout a semester and learning it slowly, incrementally. One results in a quick but lacklustre pass, while the other leads to long-term understanding of the subject. Each day we cram more into our skulls, and understand less, because we are devaluing the notion of focus.
How to focus, though, is quite another matter, and one that differs so much per individual, circumstance and subject matter that it becomes impossible to produce a one-size-fits-all answer. For example, I find I can focus better on productivity issues –on gathering facts, analysing them, and making decisions– with a paper-based planner system. I learn facts better by sitting down in a nice cozy chair, in a room free of distractions, with a real book. I focus upon digital data by gathering all the important stuff into DEVONthink, letting it come up with correlations, and musing upon how it all fits together. And I’m far more creative when I can focus on a piece of paper or a whiteboard for extended periods in a room with creative individuals, instead of a solitary computer screen. That works for me — other people will find better tools for the job.
Really, it’s all about learning to think through the noise. Gathering, filtering and analysing are skills learned by exposure and experience, but focus is the only thing we must try hard to achieve. Lack of it is the single greatest obstacle to productivity and education today, one that can’t be solved simply by throwing more technology and data at it. Indeed, those three seconds may become two.
January 8th, 2006
I’ve lately been coming to grips about why so many people (myself included) spend so much time constantly tweaking their productivity systems. This is an evolving thought, so bear with me while I let my brain leak for a bit.
While the most apparent reason, of course, is procrastination –tweaking our systems makes us feel like we’re somehow accomplishing something while simultaneously avoiding any real work– I’ve noticed that there are four chief archetypes of people that obsess about their systems (although I doubt that anyone of us is wholly one or the other). I’m calling them Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy.
- Tinker
- The Tinker is the consumate tweaker for tweaking’s sake. This type of person likes to pry things apart, bolt or glue things together (often enshewing instructions), modify existing setups (even if they already work fine), and apply his or her mind to figuring out exactly how to squeeze out one final ounce of power, usability or adaptability from the item or task at hand. Often considering intelligence to be their strongest virtue, Tinkers are far less concerned about using the system than the idea of creating it, since this is where the real intellectual challenge lies; actually using something for pragmatic purposes is usually quite boring. Fascinated by planners, bags and utensils with multiple uses, hidden compartments, and a overall sense of utility rather than style, the Tinker might also carry a Swiss Army Knife, Leatherman, or other multi-tool “just in case.”
- Tailor
- Tailors have more refined tastes than the others. They find that the image of their system not only reflects upon their personality, but helps to motivate them, like an Armani suit might suddenly help a business person gain much-needed confidence. These people may snub their noses at $1 notebooks and hold out for Moleskines or artisan-made Italian journals, or walk away from functional G2 pens or Faber pencils in order to find an exquisite fountain pen or French grapevine charcoal. After all, these are things of beauty, and one can never experience too much beauty. However, when it comes time to actually use these tools, they’d prefer not to sully their cherished possessions with something so banal as to-do items or grocery lists. So then the complicated affair of fine-grain leather card-holders, bronze book-darts, and removable inserts begins….
- Soldier
- Unlike the Tinker or Tailor, the Soldier is a very down-to-earth person tightly focussed on the task at hand. The problem is that it’s difficult to know how to proceed. This is why he or she spends so much time listening to the directives of others, trying each new technique in an effort to find what works. Soldiers carefully review a dozen productivity blogs, slog through several mailing lists, and faithfully work through the links on 43 Folders, LifeHack.org and Lifehacker. Loyalty is a prime virtue, and this is manifest in how they follow certain bloggers, authors, applications or setups. Their heart truly yearns for a system that works, and once they find it, everything will be well. Till then, however, the Soldiers march on their weary way.
- Spy
- Agile, flexible and thrill-seeking, the Spy is unlike any of the others. Speeding onward by sheer force of their curiosity, they leap from site to site with a keen eye towards getting and implementing the latest and greatest. Like James Bond securing the latest high-tech creations of Q, the Spy quickly puts together kits for deployment involving all the fashionable equipment and methods. These oddball mixtures might include digital PDAs, various types of software, web applications, Hipster PDA cards, Fisher Space Pens, printable templates, Moleskines, and anything else that strikes that moment’s fancy. Then, once mundane practicality (like making a to-do list or appointment) intrudes upon their otherwise thrilling lifestyle, it’s time to move on, mission seemingly completed. And so the cycle begins anew.
Hello, everybody. [Lowers head and clasps hands.] My name is Douglas Johnston, and I’m a compulsive Tinker.
Update: In case you’re interested, there’s a poll going on over at DIYPlanner.com. What type are you, or are you something completely different?
January 4th, 2006
Perhaps I’m just hopelessly naive, but I normally try to assume the best intentions from people (at least, most days… sometimes an ill wind has been known to blow from my direction, however briefly, and I try to make amends when that happens). I tend to believe that everybody is intrinsically good, but that folks often make mistakes, take a wrong turn, or lose touch with their nature. As such, I’ll try to take someone at their word.
Which is why I’m a little confused by a post from Lee Phillips, who suspects a hidden agenda behind my recent review of Tinderbox as a brainstorming and writing tool. I can’t imagine I’ve personally slighted him, so I can only assume a sort of paranoia at work. (He runs a mailing list about the product which he calls “uncensored,” which is a little unusual in itself.) Now, I’m not going to get all kumbayah here, calling for peace on Earth and all that (it’s been done), but I would like to set the record straight on the back-story.
One of the little D*I*Y Planner side projects I’ve been playing around with lately has been a way of using OpenOffice.org templates to import (via macros) some external data, essentially populating the forms and prepping them for print-out. I’m only at the early stages of it right now, but I wanted a nice self-contained tool for experimentation that would let me structure information in various ways and export ready-to-use data for OOo. After trying a few dozen alternatives, I decided that Tinderbox –with its outline stucture, agents and high-powered export template language– would be a good choice to start with.
I contacted Tinderbox creator Mark Bernstein about the project, asking for his opinion about how his software might fit the needs of my crazy scheme. He said that it could probably work, and offered to donate a copy of the program for our little non-profit project. Now, where I live –eastern Canada– one good turn still deserves another, even in this day and age, and so I offered to run an ad for Eastgate on my sites for the month of December, free of charge. Eastgate not only carries Moleskines, which would appeal to many of my readers, but also index card briefcases and Florentine journals (that, alas, I can only drool over right now). I thought the fit was apt, and I could return his kind consideration.
Now, my review came, as they all do, as a result of the dedicated usage of the product for a few weeks. The fact that it was favourable is simply because… well, it’s a damn good product. That’s it, really. No money exchanging hands, no Eastgate conspiracy, no grassy knoll, and no little red guy sitting atop my shoulder with a pitchfork. It shouldn’t be that boring, but it is. If I hadn’t liked the product, I probably wouldn’t have bothered reviewing it at all.
As for the “smell,” I do try to wear a strong deodorant and take a shower daily, but I am a really big, hard-working man who spends a lot of time in the woods with a dog. Sorry, Lee, but I’d advise standing up-wind….
December 23rd, 2005
Today you’ll find a guest post of mine on Dave Gray’s Communication Nation about the “back-to-paper movement”:
Dave has mentioned the back-to-paper revolution here, and he’s right. Strangely enough, it’s mainly a revolt of tech lovers against their favourite toys, junkies eschewing their drug of choice. It’s painful, it’s heart-wrenching, it flies in the face of our own self-identities, and it makes all our high-tech podium-thumping and evangelising suddenly look hollow.
Communication Nation: Why techies are leading the back-to-paper movement
November 19th, 2005
Well, the new site DIYPlanner.com has launched, and this blog now seems to be inexplicably small and lonely. In a way, it reminds me of cleaning up after a party, and I’m vacuuming the ashes, wiping up the beer stains, and wondering what noxious substances found their way into the potted plants. Being left by myself, under normal circumstances, would normally be cause for rejoicing and watching a little TV in my underwear, but after a bash one always feels more alone than ever.
Of course, this could be just the mental equivalent of a hangover.
A few people have asked me why I actually took the time and effort to create that full-fledged community site when I had originally envisioned a simple wiki. The truth is, after a lot of thought, I realised that a wiki wouldn’t have been the best format. Organising such a creature to stay fresh and intuitive is quite a lot of ongoing (and potentially boring) work, especially if it all falls back on one or two people. And I get lost in wikis, I admit it. Even on the 43 Folders Wiki, I often forget where things are located, and my incessant brow-furrowing leads to forehead cramps when I try to retrace my path to something I glimpsed earlier. This is not to say I don’t think wikis are the greatest thing since Cheez Whiz. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised I wanted to achive something different.
First, there needed to be a constant feed of new “stuff,” essentially a recharged page each and every day, a stream of new material that might carry a ship to a thousand ports –not just the same old links regurgitated from 43 Folders, LifeHack.org, Slacker Manager or one of the other excellent dedicated sites. I realised that producing this original material was not something I had to do alone… there are a lot of talented folks out there swimming in the Sargasso who deserve to call out and be heard, and whose perspective is entirely unlike my own. Why not work with some of these people?
It also had to be about more than just productivity (which, honestly, can get boring at times), and so I devised to place an emphasis on the more creative approaches to planning, living and recording one’s life. While the focus would be placed upon using paper, its usage is not a foregone conclusion, and there should be plenty of ways to apply many of the same ideas to digital tools and methods. (However, that is a post for another time, another place.)
In the end, the new site was a heck of a lot of work, and a lot of coordination with other writers, programmers, template designers and friends. It finally all came together in one three-day sleep-deprived bug-stomping juggernaut launch with tonnes of content (well over a hundred pages, I seem to recall) to greet people wandering in through the door on the very first day. We got some good linkage, a constant stream of visitors and registered users, and quite a number of people volunteering contributions for the future. Which, by my reckoning, is the sign of a successful party.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to hoist my feet, relax a little, and watch a little bit of my Belgian friend Poirot and his (tap forehead) leeetle grey zells. My pants, however, will remain on, since I shudder to think of what might appear in the Google ad if I removed them.
September 9th, 2005
Well, this is a bit of a treat: a web application that will take your uploaded photograph and contact information, and then produce a beautiful PDF suitable for wrapping your Hipster PDA. Great job, Ryan!
August 30th, 2005
Note: This is probably the one and only cross-posting I’ll ever do with a million monkeys typing and DIYPlanner.com. It might help to clear up a little bit of confusion as to the focus of the new site, which is due to launch on Saturday morning.
About two months ago, I was sitting in a Tim Horton’s (as many Canadians are wont to do), sipping on an extra-large double-double and pouring through my Day Runner. I was processing my Inbox, correlating my notes, jotting down ideas for this site, making little sketches for layout, and generally chilling out to the rhythm of the air conditioner above my head mingled with some half-remembered tune. Three tables away, a 20-something was tapping away at his Sony Vaio, and every now and then, he would stop and stare ruefully at the laptop’s screen, as if he were pondering where next to nudge the direction of world affairs. During one of these pauses, he stopped and looked in my direction. The sight of my old-fashioned planner seemed to evoke something akin to haughtiness in his cocked eyebrow, and he resumed his imperial air whilst he turned yet again to the grave matter before him.
One hour, another coffee, and a cranberry muffin later, I had a plan for this site. I now knew what I wanted it to be, I knew how I was going to approach it, I knew what sort of team I wanted, and I even had rough sketches for its design. My mind was still reeling with all manner of ideas, many coming so fast I couldn’t write them all down fast enough. The accomplishment spread through me like a warm glow, much like the day when you finally conquer your greatest fear and nothing seems impossible. I jotted down some last-minute ideas, tucked away my pen and pencil, zipped up the planner, and got up to leave.
As I walked past the Vaio user, I couldn’t help but to take a quick look over the lad’s shoulder at the screen, wondering what manner of work could so engage a person. Well, he was directing a civilisation or two, it seems. The game was Age of Empires II, if I don’t miss my guess.
Now, I’m not belittling the need to relax by playing games; I can jump into a good strategy game with the best of them. Nor do I have anything against using computers; I am not a Luddite, and I have been an IT professional for approximately half my life. But it was the look. It was the type of condescending stare that transmits a million base thoughts: he’s afraid of technology; he’s using the same antiquated things my grandfather used; he’s living in the dark ages, never to be brought into modern times.
Okay, perhaps I’m paranoid.
But the look figured into the creation of this site, you see. It helped me see that the use of paper was fast becoming a lost art.
Now, I hear you say: “But billions of people all over the world are still using paper… how can you claim it’s a lost art?”
I became “all-digital” in the late 80’s. From there on in, I attempted to use the computer for everything, including writing, time management, graphic design, communications, photography and teaching. There was nothing I did that didn’t have a digital component, it seems. Nowadays, I look around to see that my friends and family have finally been swept into this modern paradigm. Outlook is often the productivity tool of choice, and nothing is sent from one place to another unless it’s a steady stream of bits and bytes. Even to a casual observer, the implications are obvious: computerisation brings civilisation into its fold, and the more the world adopts PCs, cell phones and PDAs, the more it blots out all traditional and organic means of living and working. The use of paper is slowly being replaced by digital media, and –at first glance– it appears that those people still finding paper useful are adopting a dying art.
Or so it would seem. And so the look in the coffee shop told me. It was then I decided to expand the range of the new site. I had originally been thinking of it simply as a place to offer D*I*Y Planner kits and advice, to leave my poor little blog with something else to discuss, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that there seems to be a renaissance in the air. People are suddenly awakening to the fact that we can be just as productive with paper, if not more so. It also brings a sort of intimacy back to living, where we can hold a tangible pen, see the spread of ink, feel the texture of real paper, be linked to an art and method that go back millennia. We know the inked quill of John Dunne, the charcoal of Da Vinci, the sumi brushwork of the Japanese, and the fragile gall-iron and ochre marks upon ancient parchment. There is tradition, there is heritage at work. Yea, verily, even unto checking a Next Actions box!
That’s the rub, I thought: bring back that fading connection with paper. The site should take into account much more than just time management, although that is still important: we need to live our lives as effectively as possible in a fast-paced world. But there is no reason why we can’t think of keeping journals again, to note the quirks and happenstance of our days. Why can’t we track our dreams, collect photos and fallen leaves, expand our ideas in multi-faceted webs, create art or just doodle, flesh out our little creations with something that actually feels like life and living?
This isn’t for everyone, of course, and for those people looking for useful templates to organise their month, yes, you will continue to find such things here. But to the many of us who are looking to unleash the more creative and intimate aspects of ourselves, there is room here too. And to those who love creating forms and sharing wisdom and questions, there is a place, and also for those who come in a state of confusion to seek a dash of inspiration mixed with a draught of practical advice. The voices are many, the quality of the many volunteer writers superb, the viewpoints diverse. This is a community site, one that is built to focus upon once more regaining a lost art.
This is a long way of saying, “Welcome to DIYPlanner.com.” But now you know why we’re here.
August 30th, 2005
Update : This set, and many more, are now available free at www.DIYPlanner.com.
The most requested item on my D*I*Y Planner to-do list, even more so than the Hipster PDA Edition, has been a source file so that people can create their own templates. I’m not about to release my mass of Adobe Illustrator and InDesign files (indeed, they are guaranteed to frighten small children and reduce husky men to tears), but I’ve been hinting for a while at an OpenOffice.org template that mere mortals might use without fear of drowning in thousands of vector layers. The time has come for a preview release.
Below you’ll find an early release of my OpenOffice.org Draw template kit for creating your very own forms, called –ahem– the D*I*Y Planner Widget Kit 0.3. It requires at least 1.1.3 of OpenOffice.org (free at OpenOffice.org), a touch of patience, and a little bit of knowledge of Draw (or at least a willingness to learn it). It should work fine in OOo 1.9.x, but my Linux box is down for the count, so I can’t test it at the moment. (This kit was created with NeoOffice/J on a Mac, a Java-driven version of 1.1.x.) In the package, you’ll find the Draw SXD file, a sample PDF exported from it, and the very necessary Blue Highway fonts. Please make sure you install these first!
When you open up this file, you’ll see a page with a layout that approximates a standard 5.5×8.5 D*I*Y Planner form, and there are a number of graphical elements that you can copy and paste into your own creation. That’s all there is, really: no elite programming or technical skills required, just OOo and enough time to do what you need. My only tip for you: create a new “slide” (i.e., page), copy the whole widget slide into it, delete what you don’t want, and move around the rest, duplicating as necessary. Be sure to plan out your template first (I do mine on paper), and then start experimenting with the kit. The more you use the elements and the application, the more you’ll figure out what’s going on. Sorry, but I’m offering no support for this kit at the moment, nor am I giving any advice on using OOo — that’s what its help is for, and there are tutorials floating around the Net. So use this package at your peril. 
Now, here’s the clincher. The new DIYPlanner.com site is going to launch on this Saturday, but we’d like to let a few template designers into the hidden development site a bit early so that they can upload their templates into our directory for sharing. So if you already have templates that you’d like to share, or if you create one using this kit, please email me (the address is at the bottom of the menu at right) and I’ll let you in. Just don’t mind the wet paint and sawdust, and be sure to keep the address top secret! (There are certain things the public shouldn’t see, not yet….)
Download: D*I*Y Planner Widget Kit 0.3
This package is released under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- ShareAlike License.
August 28th, 2005
My good friend Steve Sharam, who writes a blog alongside his father called “When Reality Knocks” (that being the name of his blog, and not his father), chimes in with a hilarious piece about How to be organised. Think Dave Allen meets Dave Barry, and you get the idea:
2) Keep a pad by the phone for taking down messages, but no pen. Having a pen would allow people to take down messages, which means you would have to return calls, which just slows down your life. The pad is only for show, as other people think it makes you more organized. Almost everyone who phones you either wants to call your attention to Colonoscopy Appreciation Month or is wondering where their stinking check is. Not worth bothering about.
3) Many people have a ridiculously organized personal planner, which is fine, but you can go too far. I like to keep things fast and loose, to leave myself open to inspirational possibilities. Using this approach, you might well end up checking your bag 15 times before you leave the house to see if you have everything and then walk out the door without any pants. This is part of the reason I have so many adventures.
Apparently there’s a Part 2 coming tomorrow, and I can’t wait to read it.
Disclaimer : I’ve asked Steve to be a weekly contributor to DIYPlanner.com, and he’s agreed. I’m very lucky to have this fellow.
Update : Part II is now up, I see.
August 22nd, 2005
DIYPlanner.com is coming along extremely well, and most of the productivity stuff is falling into place there. The tentative date for launch is Saturday, September 3. More on that later.
In the meantime, I thought I’d release one last template here at a million monkeys typing. If you’re like me, you tote lots of highly personal or valuable information on you, or expensive electronics, or both. I’m always afraid of dropping my kit unnoticed, or misplacing it in a Tim Horton’s (our national coffee chain), or otherwise losing it, so I decided to spend a few minutes to whip up a “kit ID” that contains my name, address, phone number, email address and website. I put one into each planner, bag and case that I use, in the hope that some kind soul will find the lost item and return it to me.
This business-card-sized template is in OpenOffice 1.x Draw format (sxd), which will allow you to customise it to your heart’s content, to make multiples per page, to export as PDF and so on. If you don’t already have it, I highly suggest downloading and installing the free Blue Highway fonts first, which are the main ones I use on all D*I*Y Planner templates. If you don’t have them, the file will substitute another font and the layout will probably look strange. The OpenOffice.org suite, of course, is a free download.
One more tip: if you laminate the cards, they will last a lot longer and stand up to moisture (and coffee stains).
Download: property_of.zip (12 KB)
August 21st, 2005
Previous Posts
