Getting Things Done with Sidenote

After many freelance projects, wedding stuff to get ready for, class teachings, and a full time job that is suddenly overwhelming, I decided to get organized. I should say that I have never claimed to be great at organization. So now that I am 28, I decided, maybe I should start working with a system.

I'm a big user of sticky notes, whether I doodle something or write some meaningfull content on them they have always enjoyed them. I was even using the digital stickies for a while. The problem with stickies though is the difficulty managing them. So I found a nifty little program called Sidenote: Stickies on steroids.Pardon the tagline, as I added that. It's pretty slick, as it captures the stickies spirit in a multidocument, scrolling, easy to manage, conveniently stored away manner. It pops out of either the left or the right of the screen, and has many hotkey features. It also works well with dual monitors.

I tried Sidenote a few months ago, but hadn't put it to full use until I recently started reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, you should at least give it a quick look through. Or check out Merlin Mann's site: 43 Folders. He has a podcast, and numerous other tips and tricks to get you going on get things done. So far I feel more organized. I made different "Next Actions" notes, Project notes, and a Tickler file. It has helped me push it out of my mind and onto something tangible in a convenient easy to manage way. The important thing is following through with your list of items and reducing the amount of "clutter" in your bucket. These two items working together has worked surprisingly well thus far. I'm hoping to stick with it, no pun intended, okay maybe a slight one.