I’m 40 years old now, and I’ve realized two things:

1. I’m much wiser than I was when I was 25, or even 35.
2. My raw talent, ambition and enthusiasm only carries me so far.

Toward that end I’ve made some changes in the last couple of years. I’m exercising, I’m trying to keep more regular sleep hours, and I’m trying to become more organized. When the Palm Pilot first came out a few years ago, I bought one, and tried to use it. After a month or two it sat unused on my shelf. It was just too much of a hassle to keep it up to date.

My friend Tom keeps a “poor man’s PDA”: a small notepad and a pencil. He’s constantly jotting down little notes to himself which get acted upon in seemingly random order. Not a bad idea.

Over at 43 Folders a similar idea, The Hipster PDA was presented, with some additional hints. I’ve used stacks of 3×5 cards during long weeks of debugging to keep track of individual action items, discarding them as they are processed. I’ll probably try this when I’m back to work (on Monday, sigh, vacation almost over).