Tyranny of the e-Majority

There once was a man with a Palm,
To whom, tech was a balm.
Then his hard drive was lost,
All his data was tossed.
Ah, paper: no storm, just calm.

I’m no luddite. I have an iPod; three digital still cameras; a digital camcorder; a cell phone; a personal laptop; a personal desktop; an office laptop; a Blackberry; a desperate, childish desire for a Nintendo DS Lite; a gnawing urge to drop my personal laptop “accidentally” onto a concrete slab in order to justify a new one; and a spouse who doesn’t understand any of this.

But there is one area of my life in which I have rejected technology: My Filofax. I’ve already recorded my reasons for rejecting the Device, and embracing paper. But in the months since then, it has become increasingly clear that paper users are second-class citizens in the workplace. I work in an Outlook office. I used to be an Outlook devotee. And, as long as I spent all my time at my desktop, it worked fine. Handy reminders popped up. Group meetings were easy to schedule. But I found it cumbersome to extend those conveniences away from my desktop. Paper offered a perfect solution for me. I can carry my Filofax everywhere. No boot-up times. No battery exhaustion. Random access, perfectly implemented. Fewer worries about data loss. (I am not so naïve as to believe the Filofax is a “safe” repository. As a human who sometimes exhibits unusual levels of cluelessness, I can’t discount the possibility that I will lose it, or drop it into a vat of boiling oil, or accidentally toss it from an airplane at 30,000 feet. However, I am comforted by my awareness of my weaknesses, my ability to compensate for them, and the fact that I no longer fear the vicissitudes of a hard drive platter that could turn one degree off-kilter at a moment’s notice.)

Paper is my way. Why can’t my office let me be?

Since I work in an Outlook office, I often receive invitations to meetings, which upon acceptance are automatically placed in my Outlook calendar. That doesn’t both me too much. I can simply ignore the Outlook calendar and write the data in my Filofax. (Although the off-handedness of the widespread assumption that we all use Outlook reminds me of my fourth grade teacher, who offhandedly told us to gather in a circle in our public school classroom for prayer. “What’s the big deal?” she probably thought.)

What irks me is when people say, “Oh, yes, let’s have a meeting. Philofaxer, why don’t you send around an Outlook appointment?” Look, I don’t use Outlook. I don’t want to use Outlook. I really don’t care if you do. You manage your appointments however you want. But don’t force them on me. I am a paper man. I will write down my own damn appointments. You can inscribe yours on a tablet, or memorize them mnemonically, or hire a personal valet to keep track of them. Whatever. Just let me be.

But they don’t. Nor do I object, since that would require a spine. And I have to create some stupid Outlook appointment and send it around, and then deal with automated responses as people “accept” it.

I can’t believe the drafters of the Constitution forgot to include Freedom of Personal Planning. Time to start lobbying Congress.

You Can Quote Me

Seems a lot of folks I've met on this blog are using Pocket or Mini size 'faxes. It stands to good reason: The Pocket is the Moleskine of Filofaxes. What does that make the Mini...the Cahier?

Then there's the Volant, which n'est plus.* Hmmm...has a Filofax size ever gone extinct? In fact, didn't Moleskines disappear entirely for a while there? Fads have come and gone, but the Filofax has never gone away.

Funny how, while 'skiners are more likely to affect black tees and black jeans, it's us 'faxers who are the iconoclastic bohemians these days, having our esoteric thrills here on our relatively undiscovered blog.

* If you know what this means, it means you've actually bought a Moleskine and read the little history sheet, printed in four languages on that smooth, cream paper...droool... Ahem. Sorry. Seriously now, can Moleskines actually say they were invaluable during the blitz?

The BS

OK, I've eliminated the index cards. I've got everything I can think of on some neat list in some neat Filofax somewhere. So why did I just miss paying a bill on time? Why do I look at a To Do list, even on a little pocket size page, and feel overwhelmed? Who wrote that list, but me? How can I be overwhelmed by a list I wrote of things that I want to do?

So, should I write them all on index cards, because I find them less intimidating when I only have to look at one at a time? Well, I could do that...except that some of them started out on index cards in the first place.

Or, I could cut the BS.

If I have a phone call that's not getting done, is it because I feel awkward talking on the phone for other reasons? Or because I get overfocused sometimes and forget to pick up the phone? Or is it because a phone call isn't the best way for that particular communication, and I need to wait until I see that person in person next week, or see whether I have the person's email address so I can write my thoughts out clearly?

In any case, the list isn't the problem. Me is the problem. My system is as perfect as it's ever going to get. Deal with it.

There, I've said it.

P. S. You can read my notes about the above photo, and view all the philophotos I've posted to this blog on my flickr page.

Done!!

I've finally finished rescuing the valuable information I captured in a reporter-style Moleskine earlier this year into my nice, roomy A5 Filofax.

As you can see in the picture, I didn't have any trouble writing in a 'skine, I just didn't like have having info, well, captured in there. Sure, I like the way 'skines look and feel and smell. And I can't honestly say I use my 'faxes any better than I used my 'skines. I'm still finding my way. I just decided that the best decision for the long haul would be to commit to a size (A5) and style (looseleaf) of paper that would give me maximum flexibility, interchangeability, legibility, and utility as the months and years went by.

Ah, but I hear you asking, can you draw nice pictures in your Filofax?

Well, in my case, that's a moot question. I couldn't draw for beans in my Moleskine!

But I've got some blank white paper for my pocket 'fax. One of these days I may surprise you with a sketch. Just you wait.

Hmmm...come to think of it, a little birdie told me that the 'skine watercolor paper really isn't great for watercolors. Not everyone finds 'skines to be the best drawing medium. What's stopping artists from cutting and punching their favorite sketch paper for a Filofax? That's what I want to see more of out there!

It's Working...

In an earlier post, I talked about how I transferred a backlog of information from other systems into my new A5 Filofax. For a long time, I had fretted about that big file envelope. It hung over my life like a cloud. And as I started processing it, I was surprised how few original ideas I really had. It all seemed like variations on 2-3 themes. I think I actually stopped coming up with new ideas since I had no place to put them.

Well, I'm just about through the backlog. I say "just about" because there's just one little reporter-style Moleskine left that seems to still have usable stuff in it. I spend a little time every weekend going through it. And now something really cool is happening. New ideas. My brain is taking information it's had for a long time and finally putting 2 and 2 together, if that makes sense.

One of those new ideas was contacting Philofaxer and ultimately getting on this blog. I actually had a pretty good idea, it seems.

P.S. I've also processed those index cards I was talking about. Now I just have one Filofax To Do page in the middle of the weekly spread in my Pocket Filo. I have extensive To Do and Maybe Do lists in my A5, but one Pocket size page seems to be all I can actually do in a given week.