Hipster PDAs (a stack of index cards with a binder clip) were all the rage before people even had smartphones. I used something like it for a decade.

My extravagance was a corner punch.

Even more hipster: A nicely machined piece of walnut and bespoke pre-rounded cards:

https://ugmonk.com/collections/analog

I love it! There's a disc-bound version for on-the-go as well.

Love how the French clips ("discbound") version is "only" $29.

I get them at my local stationery shop for €0.80, but theirs don't have brass discs.

I prefer A4, but yeah. I adopted something roughly based on Bullet Journal about 6 or 7 years ago and now on my 4th book.

There's something about manually writing and copying over TODOs to the next month that makes you really question if you still need to do it, and if you do, gives you a reminder that you still haven't done it.

I use a few basic markers copied from standard bullet journal, which work well as a dot can be promoted to all the others. A dash "-" for informational stuff, a centre dot "·" for a task, which turns into a slash "/" for partially done or a cross "X" for done, ">" if I carry it forward to the next month and "<" if I copy it into the future log (I have pages at the front for about 4 years of future events, 3 months per page). I also have a leftmost column for the date when something needs to be done or for meetings/events.

Surprisingly, even when doing a whole page of notes on something, it's not excessive to leave an inch margin, and sometimes you want to star a key point or attach an action point market.

I've got really used to this way of journaling, and appreciate the ability to do different things, like calendar views - such as 36 week views with one page for weekends and the other for mid week - which are great for planning holidays, weekends and significant events.

I never really got into the monthly reflection aspect, but I do like doing that around end of year and other inflection points through the year.

The only issue with paper is links. Hyperlinks are nice and makes notes (and task list) a true knowledge base.

A4 maxi. surprised to find this here - and yea, you can 1) take photo 2) easily index later via vision llm types cheap now etc even local (99% time never do, essence of todo lists ie ack wont ever need to index most items)

If there's really a hyperlink I need, I might e-mail it to myself, add it to a text file in an appropriate place in the appropriate project, leave the tab open in my browser, or just do the task now.

But IMHO none of that is related to the todo list, which is stuff like "7 · Fred's birthday". It's about remembering things that I need/want to do, and in a way that's tactile and I can reflect on it whether I'm using the computer or not, not trying to maintain a knowledge base of everything.

For me, it’s not about remembering what I have to do. It’s mostly about capturing the context and track what I have done.

I recently tried out Task Warrior for tasks and this is why I switched back to Obsidian + DataView.

Forgetting to check TW is the big reason it didn't work, but the secondary reason is that I take a lot dev logs on context and the `annotate` command is too clumsy to be practical for that.

I like the idea of a CLI tool for todos, but it needs to integrate with my notes.

> There's something about manually writing and copying over TODOs to the next month that makes you really question if you still need to do it, and if you do, gives you a reminder that you still haven't done it.

This is also key for me. Striking through an item that's on my list for some time and that I just decided doesn't matter feels just as good as marking some item as done. Undecided items indeed go to the next list, and just the act of writing down the same item on a new list forces you to reconsider it.

List done? Timestamp it and throw it in the archive box.

I do this. I love good old fashioned pen and paper.

I've tried, many many times to use digital for both Todos and note taking and nothing ever stuck. Even tried using an iPad with GoodNotes & the Apple Pencil. Pen and paper is the only thing that has ever worked for me still. Plus I enjoy the physical sensation of writing things down physically, with a really nice pen and a high quality notebook.

So I always keep a notebook open on my desk, I intermix Todos and notes on sort of a "daily page" format, and I also carry a little field notes flip pad notebook with me everywhere I go. On the go it's also, oddly enough, less friction to write in my field notes book than it is to take out my phone, unlock it, and suffer through the horrible experience of typing anything out on a virtual keyboard.

OCR is readily available everywhere now so digitizing your handwritten notes, if you have to, is trivial.

It's like Rumshpringa for TODO apps. Everyone wants to rebel from the old norms and go do something different, only to end up returning to the reliability, clarity and comfort of a good pen and pocket notebook.

Big fan of the Rite-In-Rain notebooks, myself, and Fisher Space Pen's Click-o-matic.

> Big fan of the Rite-In-Rain notebooks, myself, and Fisher Space Pen's Click-o-matic.

I carry this combo everywhere I go. Way less friction than taking out my phone, unlocking, and suffering the horrible experience of typing something on a virtual keyboard.

I do enjoy the looks I get from friends and family sometimes, as they all expect me to be high tech everywhere in my life but I'm probably one of the most low-tech people outside of work.

The only productivity I do from my phone is reminder alerts.

Interestingly enough, this just shows how different people like and hate different things. I personally can’t stand writing with a pen, and am very fluent and fast with a virtual keyboard and would never describe the experience as horrible. I’m writing this on one right now, and it’s great.

I also don’t want to carry an extra thing in my pocket when I already have a phone.

But I’m glad what works for you works for you!

Did you mean Cap-o-matic?

Yep, thanks for the correction

Just making sure I didn't miss a new pen coming out of Fisher.

Meme on why Rite-in-Rain is de rigeur: https://www.reddit.com/r/tacticalgear/comments/u6dq3i/fuck_y...

I'm a pencil person, though.

Don’t forget scissors, glue and a photocopier!

I prefer scraps of paper that eventually get spontaneously disposed of, regardless of whether I crossed all of the items from them.

[delayed]

Even so, I feel that much of the point of writing things down in the first place is to put the information into the mind (where the subconscious mind can work with it and do its jobs) and, ultimately, so you won't need to be reminded about it later.

Very true; I've noticed the same thing myself.

Yeah... that's really weird, I very rarely read what I wrote down on the TODO list ... I just write it there and cross it off later.

If we're being fair here then this must be the place to list the problems with the note card/pad system. For me, I ultimately settled on using a GitHub repo of todo lists w markdown as my solution, viewable on desktop & mobile.

The problems with a physical note card system are:

- I have to use the computer & mobile phone to enter and receive all my work, so it makes sense to consolidate the todo list(s) into those systems, instead of adding a third one. Having to remember to keep a physical bundle near me all the time, with a working pen, feels clunky.

- My handwriting is messy and this causes various problems. I can't really read it at a glance; longer messages take longer to decode; something about the non-uniformity of it also throws me off. I don't relish the thought of consulting a pile of my handwriting multiple times in an hour.

- I frequently cross off old items and add and/or modify new items. This is very easily done with a text file but sounds like a mess with note cards: keeping the empty cards around, scratching off or erasing existing ones, etc. With GitHub's commit history, I can even get a holistic view of how it's changed over the day, not possible with physical cards.

- A LOT of the value of my system comes from being able to view past days todo lists, to see what's getting done and what isn't; I do this daily. Obviously keeping up w/today's tasks stretches the physical card system to its limits; extending that to the past 7 days sounds like a nightmare.

The moment you will start burying old tasks in new tasks, you will find out that it is not a good idea.

If only I could read my own writting. (Dysgraphia - slowing down does not help)

Are people not doing Hipster PDA on 3x5 cards??

FriXion erasable pens FTW