How to Stay Organized in 2013

How to stay completely organized in 2013 or What I’ve learned about the nature of organization

When I was 13, my mother and step father bought me a Handspring Visor PDA for graduating the 8th grade. I don’t think any gift before or after that had ever kept me as continually gratified. You see, I have been a tech geek for a long time, and I was obsessed with my step-fathers more expensive Palm PDA that I would steal away at every available moment to take notes, create useless calendar appointments and play games. I begged them for weeks for my own, I searched the web and Best Buy for the latest models available and when I found the Handspring Visor, which was more of a value PDA at the time, they agreed to buy it for me as my belated graduation gift. I didn’t get it until later in the summer, right before my freshman year in high school began, but I immediately began searching the internet for free applications I could download to my new device. Books, dictionary’s, note-taking and task management apps were my particular favorite. Go figure! 

Once I got to high school, I ended up using my PDA to track everything from my homework assignments to my class schedule, extra-curricular events and social gatherings. I was particularly fond of tracking the money in my bank account, making sure to immediately input any purchases I made into a banking specific app that I used. The school newspaper even featured me in an article during my junior year that was all about students who use new technologies to keep themselves organized. I was certainly one of the few who relied so heavily on a PDA, in fact I only ever met a handful of other students during high school that even owned one. Eventually, I upgraded to a Palm Vx and then a Palm m505 (the later featured a color screen which I considered put me in the big time of PDA users!) during the course of high school. I loved my PDA so much and kept it with at all times. It stayed on my person or in my bag during the day, and after using it to read at bedtime (like the precursor to a kindle), it stayed on my dresser beside me as I slept. 

I would say that this was definitely the most organized I had ever been and that was because for the only time thus far in my life, I used one dedicated device and method to organize my life. Once I got into college, something slowly pulled me away from my PDA. I think it was the lack of a rigid daily schedule. In college I had anywhere from one to three classes in a day. My wake up and bed time varied, and I was provided with a student calendar that was infinitely useful to me as a freshmen. So, instead of using my PDA, I switched to the pen and paper of the student calendar. Eventually, I wasn’t even using my PDA anymore and my entire system had been broken. Gradually, I was turning more and more away from the PC world I had grown up in and instead turning towards Apple products. One day, it eventually clicked in my mind that my PDA was the technology of a bygone era and it was time to search for the next big thing in personal organization. 

However, after college ended, things pretty much stayed the same. I tried to get myself back into the PDA mentality when the iPod Touch first released. It seemed to me like the iPod Touch was the rebirth and natural progression of the PDA I had once known and loved. Almost like it was a PDA 2.0. But, alas, some mixture of lack of early functionality in the device and the touch based input never felt right to me. The Handspring and Palm devices used a stylus input method in which I could type on a virtual keyboard or, more frequently, write with the “graffiti” single stroke handwriting system that felt more natural to me. 

After that, it was all downhill and uphill battles for me in the search for complete organization. I’ve learned a lot along the way about my own personal needs and about the nature of keeping organized so lets run through those ideas now. 

• Its more natural (for me) to ‘write’ than ‘text’. Even though I am a 20-something with an iPhone, two iPad’s and a decent run with gadgets of all kinds, I am not a serial texter. This is probably the main reason I haven’t been able to use my iPhone or previous iPod Touch as a primary means for organization. I like to write. Its more fluid for me, and second only to typing on a full sized keyboard, its my quickest means for data entry. 

• To stay as completely organized as possible, you must use only one dedicated means to capture your data. Whether it be an electronic device like a smartphone or tablet; a software program that syncs through multiple devices or to the cloud; or an analog system like a filofax or moleskine, you can only have ONE. One is the magic number... and the loneliest.

• You must keep said dedicated means of data capture with you at all times. It must be like an extension of yourself, a third arm in a way. It needs to be with you all the time and you need to always use it to capture information of all sorts. Learn to feel incomplete without it and get into the habit of using it to capture more information than needed until its your knee jerk reaction to reach for it. 

I hope in the future I find a means of organization that feels as natural and exciting to me as my Handspring and Palm PDAs did at one time. Maybe its my fault for not trying hard enough to form a habit with one particular piece of technology, but it seems like everyday there is a more exciting and more promising option for organization that its often hard to focus on one means for too long. Perhaps thats the real problem though, a short attention span. These conundrums aside, I do know one thing for certain when it comes to personal organization. The best method for complete personal organization is the one you stick to completely. So, pick a method, stick it out and see what 2013 brings you!