My Own Agenda

I’ve spent a lot of time switching between various GTD approaches in my life.  As I’ve probably explained before, my brain rejects the various forms of organisation I try to put upon it after varying lengths of time like a transplanted nipple.  Too smart (or do I mean lazy) to be hoodwinked into keeping ordered lists of items to work through, the process is sabotaged by waning enthusiasm and resolve in my mind and I am left scratching around helplessly in the dark like those early days of sexual encounter.  And the rest of the encounters then on for that matter.

The ones that I tend to gravitate too most frequently were either a very basic Bullet Journal (strictly no unicorns or artwork more complex or time consuming than the the task I was documenting) or some form of kanban.  I have tried various times to just use Apple Reminders and Calendar and I have even tried using Amazon Alexa.  But I would admit even during that, this was something I was trying with full expectation of it not working for me.  I still feel deeply awkward addressing Alexa and, when it comes to trying to organise the various aspects of life, it felt more like she was a slightly deaf and easily bamboozled personal assistant that I really should’ve let go many years ago but she has five kids and two of them have ADHD and her ex-husband pays her nothing by way of maintenance because he is a mime artist that can only do the invisible wall routine to any degree of credibility and, since Brexit, no Croatians (who LOVE that routine) are around to pay good money to see that.  You know what I mean?

Enter Agenda.  That sentence works better with Agenda.  “Enter Alexa” however is probably offensive to AI, and they’re the only ones I really don’t want to upset.

Agenda touts itself as a date focused note taking app, with layers and layers of features that allows it to be pretty much anything you want it to be beyond that.  Offering those features across all of the Apple devices you might find yourself in front of, it actually makes itself viable for various different use cases at the same time.

This is the first electronic solution I’ve found that can come close to being as straight forward as a bullet journal.  But its stackable.  It's like you’re a bullet journal salesman from the sixties.  If you can just sell twenty more journals, you’ll see your kids this Christmas.  An entry into a project can be considered to be a day in your BuJo (yeah - I said BuJo, deal with it) and it can neatly be tied to that day.  I use the checkbox mode to replicate the essential task structure, adding a “>” to the ones that I intend to move forward to another page.  For event items I simply use a bullet point symbol prepending the line.  

By using the “On The Agenda” overview you can opt in different projects and then switch out less relevant ones in different scenarios.  For example, don’t show me work related items at the weekend because I will burst into tears.  In the same way, the “Today” overview, you can see only what is relevant to now.  Don’t focus either on the present or the past.  Be more in the now, or something, yeah?
I tend to work with a Work Bullet Journal and a Personal one, that seems to do what I need for the most part.  In addition though I do like to opt smaller projects in like Travel plans (for those who travelled under the Coronavirus Amber list restrictions will now that being organised was rather important in that hell).

I am also toying with the notion of actual journal-journalling but I am english and find such things fairly cringeworthy.  I will try continue to combat my inner-eye-roller.  It remains a blank project up until now.

There are lots and lots of other features and functions that Agenda can do for you, but I’ve stayed intentionally basic for the moment.  Whenever a bullet journeller shows me a beautifully crafted to-do list, or an extravagant “this month I will” page, I see a person who probably spends a damn sight more time considering doing something than actually doing it, if indeed that is any time at all.  Life has enough temptations to procrastinate.  See also Arnold Rimmer’s revision timetable.

I look forward, however, to using more and more of Agenda's functionality.   It's on my to-do list.