I've got to get organized.

[Jim Kuzdrall]

On Monday 13 August 2007 09:17, Steven W. Orr wrote:
> A great line from "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!"
> was when Fendall Hawkins (played by Paul Ford) was yelling "We've GOT
> to get ORGANized!".
> So after that prep work, what do people use to keep organized under
> linux?

    My needs have been crafted to be quite different from those of most 
people, but some parts may be of use.

    The best personal information manager I ever had was SideKick for 
Win3.3/95.  It came with the WordPerfect office suite.  (The later 
SideKick versions stunk.)  I have been trying to piece together the 
functionality I miss from Linux utilities (mostly KDE).

    For regular warnings, such as "Its Monday, pay the bills" or "Only 
one week until wife's birthday" or "MerriLUG notice due", I use Kalarm.  
It pops up on screen.

    For ToDo lists, I find Knotes easiest to use.  Two lists serve my 
purposes best, personal and company.  The entries are numbered in 
sequence (forever): ###. and ###).  Click in the date when ToDo added.  
Transfer (drag) the item to KOrganizer Journal when done.

    KOrganizer has been getting better over the years, but still doesn't 
fit all my needs.  The ToDo facility is fair, but I like the 
informality of Knotes better.  Knotes is much closer to scribbling a 
list on paper.

    I don't bill by the hour, but keeping track of whose job I am 
working on is important for long term records and bidding estimates.  A 
recurring one hour "meeting" in KOrganizer serves as a marker and shows 
up nicely on the monthly calendar.  The KOrganizer format accommodates 
job keyword, contacts, description, etc.  The hour of the day doesn't 
matter; I just put the first at 8AM, second at 9AM, etc.  I rarely work 
on more than 2 tasks at a time.

    The recurrence for this misused one-hour entry is set to 
"indefinite".  I enter skipped days or terminate the task as 
appropriate.

    What about telephone calls?  Hate them.  I insist on email.  There 
is no record of what was said on the telephone.  The parties can come 
away with completely different impressions of what was agreed.  Email, 
FAX, or real letters solves that problem.  

    Meetings?  Hate them.  For year I have been stubbornly refusing to 
travel.  If people feel it in absolutely necessary to talk in person, 
they are welcome to visit.

    Coordinating meetings?  The few meetings that I am willing to attend 
certainly won't start without me, so I let the rest of them worry about 
schedules and conflicts.

* * * * * *

    For those who are wondering what such a grouch does for a living, I 
do fixed-price instrumentation design and product design.  Since nobody 
else (that I have heard of) takes on the fixed-price risk, I can call 
the shots.

    When my career started, I quickly found that being a slave to the 
telephone, meetings, or the calendar destroyed my productivity.  I need 
uninterrupted time to get into things deeply enough to do my best work.  
You might be the same.  If so, free yourself of all unnecessary 
communications.  And yes, stay very, very organized.

Jim Kuzdrall