I’ve been the owner of a few personal organisers over the years, particularly a Hewlett Packard 200LX and a Psion Series 5MX that lasted for several years each. Although I preferred the HP as a pure organiser, the Psion carried the distinct advantage that I could play Ping Pong for the ZX Spectrum on it, thanks to a very impressive emulator. I’m still getting over how strange and cool that was. I remember quite clearly all those Java development plans I had for the Psion, too 😉
Next I moved on to a combination of a laptop (not very handy for my pocket, but fully-featured) and my mobile phone (although I bought the data cable, I never really persevered with the organiser functionality).
However, between the various PCs, the PDAs, the mobile phones and so on, I became a bit sick of messing around with data transfer and conversion when all I’m really looking for is a diary, address book and notebook. Recently I decided that enough was enough and that I would buy myself a Filofax and go back to pen and paper. More fool me. The problem with pen and paper is that there are no backups so, *if* you’re stupid enough to lose the bag containing it, you’re in trouble.
I’ve decided I might as well bite the bullet and try going back to a PDA that interfaces with Windows nicely (preferable wireless, too, so I don’t have to mess around with cables and docking stations), fits in a (big) pocket and gives me basic organiser functionality. I don’t expect to be watching live football (soccer) matches on it. I have my own ideas but I’d really appreciate some opinions (good or bad) on what others use themselves.
I’ve sworn myself to use a nice pen and paper agenda.
After using lots of electronic organizers, and forgetting to connect them, not being able to connect them, growing tired of typing on a keyboard the size of my pinky nail. Just paper for me. And it actually holds more info already than the whole pile of organizers together.
That’s apart from the nice side-effect of people addressing you, because they’ve never seen a techie with a leather-bound paper-based agenda.
My sentiments exactly and I really enjoyed the few months I went with pen and paper, but the experience of losing it (through my own actions, of course) is painful. Really painful.
I have a strange feeling I’ll change my mind again in two or three years, though 😉
Aging monochrome PalmPilot. Wiki on a stick. Thunderbird address book. Google Calendar & Gmail. Pen and paper. ThinkFree Web storage. Disconnected silos. You name it. I use it.
I have to admit I’m a pen and paper girl.
I take my trusted, battered filofax with me everywhere I go.
And yes, I’m fully aware that it’s probably because blonde females shouldn’t try and use technology.
😉
Well, not much so far, although I appreciate your efforts. (I was kind of hoping that some of the uber-geeks would have turned up to tell me about their latest favourite gadget.) Then again …
“Google Calendar & Gmail. “
I have been becoming more dependant on Yahoo’s web apps, so maybe I’ll give it a go. Then again, I’d need a phone that can browse that stuff properly.
I have a TI Personal Organizer that I’ve had for nearly 12 years now. It isn’t wireless, but it suits my needs (only 128k but back then it was pretty sizable). Unfortunately they no longer make organizers anymore (as I found out when I needed a new driver for a new computer) as it has withstood the test of time.
I agree with Arian though – usually if I have appointments to track I do it in my time management book – it’s easier to update and is always connected ;-D.
verification (apropos if you ask me) : eyfdt (I forget dates & times)
A filofax (in conjunction with a photcopier and a printer that can print on f-fax paper) works for me.
The sort of stuff I most need to have backed up I store on my desktop PC, then sporadically print it out for the filofax
You know, I was quite happy with the Filofax until I lost it and I suppose that’s just down to me.
Looking at the wide range of gadgets out there, there are no easy answers, even if you spend a lot of money.
I’m still thinking this over