The Team John Post-It Organizing Method

My roomate has a wonderful, conversational method of organizing–he writes notes to himself on Post-Its. Here are my notes from interviewing him about his method:

### Post-Its

* Often he puts the notes directly on the things they are related to; or more accurately, on things that will be in a place he can take action on them in–on his wallet, computer, car dashboard, etc.

* The trick is to get it to _bother_ you repeatedly

* Best for short reminders

* He has a nice PDA, but doesn’t like recharging it and carrying it around

* Events with a specific _time_ are best suited for a calendar; post-its are for to-dos

* All notes from a session are usually contained on one note

* Discrete nature of the notes allows him to stick several together when going out to do them

* _Must_ be able to crush the note and throw it away when done; crossing items out just _adds_ messiness

* If only one item is left on an otherwise finished list, it gets added to an unfinished list and the other one is thrown away.

### Using calendars

* Uses the Microsoft Outlook calendar at work to schedule events

* It has a “private” flag, but people are “too lazy” to use it

* Instead, uses midly ambiguous language for personal items so he knows what it is but not his coworkers (“Go to San Francisco” instead of “Happy hour with friends”)

* Also, the “private” setting just creates suspicion; “So, what’s so private at 5pm?”

* The calendar is only at work, but it works because he can count on being at work every day, and doesn’t need to see it more often than that

* Public work calendar should look full to people at work; a responsibility felt to keep it full, otherwise people won’t feel you’re pulling your weight