Kinkless and my Hipster PDA

[update...2/4/06...I have finally written the Pocketmod from Kinkless tutorial I have promised many of you. Enjoy]

I have, up to this point, not posted any of my new found lifehacks or techy kind of things on this blog, but due to the overwhelming need to share this (plus me promising to do so in a comment on www.kinkless.com), I am going to do so. Unfortunately, I am going to share just the little part that is stuck in my head, so this is somewhat like jumping into the middle of a conversation (I’ll try and catch you no GTD/mac people up). If you do not use a mac or the incredible Getting Things Done system by David Allen, then none of this will really apply to you, BUT…I would encourage you to look into Getting Things Done, even if you do not use a mac, as it is probably the best organizational system I have ever messed with (in other words, it is the only one I have ever messed with that I was actually able to use consistantly).

Getting Things Done (GTD from here on out) is about taking all your stuff, and putting it into one place so you can do it. There is a lot more to it than that, or else David Allen wouldn’t have written a book about it. Basically it is putting everything into lists based on the context of when/where you do them, rather than the ways other systems handle lists, which I never got.

The Hipster PDA (hPDA) is basically a stack of index cards with a binder clip holding them together. For those of you who know me well, this will come to a shock. I now carry a stack of index cards in my pocket with all my next action lists (what to do lists are called in GTD), and blank cards for writing notes on. This replaces the countless expensive PDA’s I have owned. Admittedly, I am considering buying another “real” PDA, but it will be a cheap Palm if I do.

If you have any questions about either of these things, refer to smarter people than me. 43folders.com is a great resource for all things GTD and as best as I can tell “invented” the hPDA (probably not, but they seem to be THE resource about them).

On to the Point (this is where I might lose you if you aren’t a mac user)

I use Omni Outliner Pro with a collection of scripts called Kinkless to organize my next actions and sync with iCal. It is a great deal more functional than using just iCal and more useful to me than a pure paper system since I can set alarms and due dates for certain Next Actions. Plus…when I do buy a Palm I will be able to sync to it with my existing system and not have to start over.

When I first started looking at making a hPDA, there was a lot of talk about printing directly to your 3×5 cards and using them that way. Some people were printing templates to make a pure paper system more functional (these would be the old school paper planner people who switched to a hPDA) but a few were printing current data. It’s great having all my stuff in iCal (one of the programs that was on my pros list for switching to mac), but having paper todo lists has been one of the few lifehacks that I ever used that I actually liked. So I’ll just print them out. Merlin Mann is doing it on his new HP printer so why can’t I.

I’ll tell you why! Neither of my epson printers (Stylus Photo R200 or Stylus CX4600) will print on 3×5 cards. And 4×6 cards don’t fit in my pocket. What am I to do?!?

I tricked the printer, that’s what. I told it I was printing on a 4×6 (which my printer will handle) and then I set the top and left margins to .25″ and the bottom and right margins to 1.25″. I started doing this in Word, copying and pasting stuff in and out using a few scripts off 43folders, but then I discovered Kinkless. WooHoo!!!! (imagine me screaming that at the top of my lungs. You probably can’t imagine that since I hardly ever scream, but try).

So now to the real point!
How to format Omni Outliner to print your kinkless document onto your hPDA.

First open your KGTD document. Click File–>Page Setup.

Switch to the Omni Outliner Pro settings.

Match your settings to mine (or do whatever you want). The only key one seems to be “scale to fit page width“. Otherwise, the font size is huge and it bleeds onto multiple cards.

Headers and footers is up to you, I do [page #] of [total pages] on my cards.

Margins are important!

I set mine to use every inch that my printer will give me. I could actually change the paper type and tell it is a borderless 4×6 photo paper and get a little more, but why be greedy. The .4″ top margin is enough so that my small binder clip doesn’t cover anything up. My page numbers are in the top right corner, so just a little flip of the corner gives me those.

The last section is columns.

I found that selecting any of the columns beyond just the Actions column made it too small for me to comfortably read. Adding the projects column was a nice reference for me (and saved cards since the font was smaller) but it was too small for me.

That’s it. Hit Print and kinkless is on your hPDA. I only print from the Actions Page since that is GTD and the projects part of Kinkless is just a good tool for planning. You of course can do whatever you want. I have not tried out this technique on anything besides my epson printers. We have a couple of other brands in the office, but one is Parallel and the other is a Dell printer and I don’t know where the drivers are (nor do I want to install them on my mac).

Thanks again to David Allen and his excellent book and to Merlin Mann from 43folders. Your site has taught me a lot about GTD, but unfortunately, all the time I have saved from using tips found on your site, has been wasted looking for more on your site. Thanks also to Ethan who wrote and is writing Kinkless.

It’s amazing how something as simple as searching for some mac tips (which brought me to 43folders) has changed my organizational life so profoundly. Hope this tip works for you.

[update...2/4/06...I have finally written the Pocketmod from Kinkless tutorial I have promised many of you. Enjoy]

Tagged as: David Allen, Dell, Koss R-200 Consumer Headphones, Merlin Mann, PDA, planner, ways other systems, www.kinkless.com