My New “PDA”

My New PDA
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by technology and need to unplug yourself? I know I do. I have stuff stored in my cell phone, on my laptop, in an online calendar, and on a clipboard. The bad thing is I have a hard time finding what I need when I need it. It seems like I have all the tools to be organized but the tools themselves become clutter. An example is a simple list of oil & fuel filters I use for all our vehicles. I have it on a piece of paper (somewhere), in my phone (when I can find it), & on my email application. But when it is time to buy the filters I have a hard time getting to the information I need. So last week I de cluttered a lot of stuff. Some crap went on ebay but more went in the trash. Then I went to the Dollar General store in town & picked up my new PDA….. a 3×5 inch spiral note pad (Personal Declutter Assistant). Everything that I need to schedule immediately or remember I write down in this little book and I keep it with me all the time. I also use a pencil with an eraser to write with, something I never used to use except in school. I can hear the giggles coming across the bandwidth as you read this. I used to make fun of older guys carrying notepads with 3 inch pencils but you know what they had very organized & “clean” lives. I am not getting rid of my gadgets or downing technology. I am just cleaning up the life a bit.

The greatest example of this simple lifestyle was when I was right out of high school in 1992 -1993. I was working at a automobile distribution center. We had to purchase our own tools so two different tool companies came around weekly, a Mac Tools guy & the Snap On guy. The Snap On guy was younger with a computer on the truck and some kind of hand held device to enter information. This was the early nineties so high tech is a relative term! The Mac Tool guy was an older gentleman with …… a small notepad and a pencil. Can you guess which one was more successful (at least in my workplace)? The Snap On guy was not there some weeks and rarely had the tool you needed and you had to wait longer to get it. The Mac man was always there every week & usually had what you needed and if not he would get it the very next week. Now if we reversed the guys & tools I think the older guy would have still been more organized. So it really is an attitude & life philosophy more than a tech or non tech thing. I think that we just let our brains get scattered with too many devices to store too much information.