Print to 3 x 5 cards in ThinkingRock

Problem

About 2 months ago I had a near GTD meltdown. I was using Outlook pretty effectively but I lost the meaning in my lists. Every item on every list looked exactly the same. Part of the problem: I am always near a phone and a computer, so those contexts became meaningless. Plus, it was just too easy to process all my thoughts into their neat little e-cubbies and not have to look at them again. I became awesome at processing my inbox and terrible at getting anything done. I needed something new.

I figured I needed better lists and a good way to manage those lists. And, I needed to keep those lists in my face. So, I decided to use paper lists each day. With that in mind I went in search of an app that would help me manage my lists so I could print out exactly what I needed, when I needed it.

One other thing: I hate redundancy. I wanted something that was flexible enough to move a thought between projects or contexts without having to type it out again.

Solution

I found a great solution in ThinkingRock. It’s simple, straight forward, and built with GTD principles in mind. I can run it from a USB drive which means I can effectively us it at home and at work. And I love that I can run a variety of reports and then print out the info I need to keep at hand.

Although…

But, I own an HPDA and ThinkingRock’s reports don’t have a 3″ x 5″ format. I’m sure they’ll get around to it someday. In the meantime, I did some looking around myself. It appears the reports are some flavor of XML and so I was able to tweak my favorite report to print nicely on a 3×5 card. I’m not a programmer, so this won’t be a perfect solution. But it is a suitable work-around. Here are some of the details.

I like the “Actions by Context” report. I found the XML file for that report in the C:\ThinkingRock\extract\report directory. I just opened up “actions-by-context.fo” in WordPad and tinkered with some of the arguments used to format the report. Of course, I saved the original report in case I really messed something up. Then, I just made sure my new .fo file had the name of the original so the app would see it. Now, when I run my report, I specify all the same parameters as before and it prints to a 3×5 card.

Ah ha!

I believe just about anyone can do what I did. But if you don’t think you can, or you don’t want to, I’ll email you the report I’m using with more detailed instructions for deploying it. Just shoot me a note here or leave your contact info in a comment.

Update 7/23/07

I forgot to mention earlier, I’m using v1.2.3.  I don’t have a solution for v2.0.

I found transparent coverslips.

I stumbled upon this great post at 43Folders about handling paper. Quite literally “handling.” It spotlights a great project management system that keeps things simple, helps you focus, and just makes a lot of sense.

I won’t go into detail (you should read the original post) but I want to mention one aspect. Martin Ternouth, the originator of the system, refers to “transparent coverslips” for holding stacks of paper. He describes them as “closed on two sides only so that the contents can be extracted as easily as possible.” Makes sense but I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that before. So, it’s off to the office supply  store.

I went to Staples today to browse. While there, I happened upon these beauties. They’re made by Pendaflex and fit the bill perfectly. Each one holds up to 30 sheets of paper. Or, Pendaflex makes expandable jackets that hold 150 sheets. There’s even a tab at the bottom for a title, if you so desire.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with the principles of Getting Things Done you’re probably not as organized as you could be.

via Lifehacker