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My Hipster PDA

My Hipster PDA

Last modified on 2009-05-30 07:42:16 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

OK, I have mentioned it before, and promised an explanation, so here we go.

((Images are linked to full 1000px res versions!))

The easiest way to explain what it is is the give this link, to the original, the creators site; 43 folders. Basicaly;

Introducing the Hipster PDA | 43 Folders

Beauty & Simplicity

The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is a fully extensible system for coordinating incoming and outgoing data for any aspect of your life and work. It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and “beaming,” and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain. Let’s make one together.
Building your first Hipster PDA

1. get a bunch of 3"x5" file cards
2. clip them together with a binder clip
3. there is no step 3

Settings & Preferences

Assembling your Hipster PDA

For you hotrods who like to tweak your equipment, I’ll note a few mods you might make to the basic configuration.

* Consider picking up some different kinds of cards—different colors, lined and unlined.
* Personally, I like the really small binder clips and a stack of 12 or fewer cards; experiment for the combination that suits you
* Try using a single different-colored card as a visual separator between used and fresh cards in your stack (helps you from accidentally giving someone an old, written-on note)
* Buy yourself a Fisher Space Pen. I’ll post more on this later (since I’m a bit obsessed with them), but The Fisher Bullet model is tiny, sturdy, and surprisingly comfortable to use. And, thanks to its famous nitrogen-forced ink well technology, the Space Pen writes upside down, underwater, and—yes I’ve tested it— through a pat of rich, creamery butter. It’s the perfect stylus for your new Hipster PDA.

Now, the system I am useing is this one from D*I*Y Planner;

http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official/hpda/

Plus some templates and cards from others, and a few cards I did up myself in Open Office, GIMP and Inkscape.

I am printing on 8.5x11 card stock and cutting to size by hand. A little time consuming, but easy while watching a movie, and my only option since my printer won't feed regular index cards worth a darned, nor print to them with 0% margins. And card stock was cheaper by the ream in 8.5x11 than it would have been for the same amount of 3x5s pre cut.

My Basic set up is several reference cards inside a folder like card in the center, the folder card is printed with a 6 month calledar, 3 to each outer side. From there stacking out ward on one side I have one card lined the short way, marked 'story', for any ideas I get for my novel. Next out is 3 or 4 cards the same, marked 'notes', for to-do lists, and done lists, and general note taking.

The other side is stacked out with 2 'item cards' that have a blank drawing space, and lined spaces on them, 2 'agenda' cards, 2 'combined action' cards, 3 'budget' cards; like check registries, 1 each for my credit card, checks, and cash spending. And then 1 'list card', and 4 or 5 cards linned horizontally, or alond the long dimension. This side is for longer note taking, things not nesicarily in list form, where longer lines are easier to write into.

Now, inside the center caledar folder is a stack of reference cards, 1 'conversions card' ; liquids, lengths, dry volums, temperatues etc.(card is custom made by me, customizing a conversion card template from the D*I*Y site). 1 'ruler card' metric, and inch. 2 fraction to decimal conversion cards that I made. 1 other distance/volume conversion card. 1 Temp, conversion scale CtoF. 1 Morse code ref. card. 1 blank contacts card. 1 card listing commonly miss-spelled words. And on comparison shopping chart card.

This isn't the load out I had for 2 weeks in Anchorage, in fact, the teaser pic above has my used cards from then in the back stack... quite a few! At that time it had custom direction/map cards I had made from goole maps screen caps, several to-do cards pre made, and several as I went day to day, then there were agenda cards keeping track of doctors apointments, and car sales/look at times and directions as we acquired them... it was over 5/8" thick when I started, a real pain getting the binder clip onto it. Afer a few days though, it thinned out as i used up tasks and cards.

The load I am using now is only about 1/4" or 3/8" thick, and seems extremely light compared to what it was. And I never did think the thick load was too big to carry. it was fine in pants or shirt/vest pocket the whole time.

The binder clip wing/handles are great to clip the pocket clip of a pen through, and since I carry a collapsable Zebra pen that is shorter than the cards, its quite compact and easy to carry like that.

The next time I re-print top note cards, I will list page numbers with-in the DIY templates, and will re-reference the other templates I have, so I can give credit to their creators. -- until that point I won't post my modified versions for download, but afterwards, I intend to.

Some are from here, one credit I can find right now;

http://www.avwrites.com/downloads.html

I love going analog!

G.