It took me all of five pages to fall in love with David's Allen's Getting Things Done, but it's taken me a year (and still counting) to master all of the techniques in the book. The single hardest part of his entire system for me is the "capture" phase. It's the tiny things that tend to fall through my cracks. Right now, I have a pair of dress pants that need to be hemmed. It's entirely possible that I won't have a single occasion to wear them over the next three months. But twice a week I do vaguely recall a non-pressing need to call a tailor.
I don't have a hard time capturing (and–truthfully–I never had a hard simply remembering) big pictures items. It's the little things, like altering pants I probably won't wear, that always seem to slip through. My reading list is another example of this. I have many, many books that I want to read. Of course, when your reading list already has several hundred items, it's really easy to miss that one book. You know, the one they were talking about on NPR. Or that other one your friend was reading.
The Getting Things Done system is all about developing a system you can rely on to capture everything, including very small things that you might never even notice if you forgot. The sense of relief that comes from knowing that you have everything–big and small–recorded somewhere is immense. You can finally stop worrying that you forgot something.
This is what's working for me. I created a Twitter account to be my capture device. I can text myself all the little things that pop into my head throughout the day (and vanish as quickly as the came). Any PDA would probably do the same thing, but I distinctly remember saving my money and buying one of the early PDAs (a Visor!) when I was a teenager. I remember the cashier smirking as I uncrumpled bill after bill to pay for it. I barely used it.
I don't have a smart phone. (I don't particularly want one.) I'd much rather get as much use as humanly possibly from what I have now before I get another gadget. I didn't use my Visor then and now I use my iPod shuffle way more than I use my iPod that, well, actually has a screen.
Did you know that you can text updates to your Twitter account? You probably did. Did you know that you can also set it so it's really difficult for anyone but truly devoted stalkers to find you on Twitter? If you combine those two features, you have a powerful capture tool. I can text myself all of the little things that pop into my head. If a well-dressed man walking down the street jogs my memory, I can tweet that I need to alter my dress pants. This afternoon, I was in a bookstore. I realized that I don't have enough money to buy all the books I want, so I tweeted "library card" to remind myself that I need to find mine or get a new one. The only time I ever remember that fact is when I want to spend money for books.
That might not work for you, but carrying a pen and paper doesn't work for me. I found my system, and it's awesome to feel the last pieces of a puzzle slide into place.
