Really, I have nothing against PDAs, they just didn't work for me.
Guess I"m just trying to get a rise out of the gadget freaks amoung us.

I tried the Apple Newton, MP2000, Palm Pilot..

I posted earlier about my tendency to scatter, or duplicate my files among too many apps, but during my PDA phase, it was among media too. Desktop software to PDA, then to my 'book'.. Franklin Planner. Something had to give, I was wasting more time trying to come up with the perfect system and the redundancy was stupid. I tossed the Franklin Planner and ditched the PDA. Now, when I'm going on the road, I print out my To Do List, and that's all I need. The number 1 item on my To Do List is.. to update and print out.. my To Do List.

Can anybody explain why they'd rather spend 60 seconds entering some graffiti into a PDA when they can scribble the same info on a scrap of paper in 5 seconds? Unless it's some kind of pager, cell phone, etc., all rolled into one, that your company as paid for and mandates that you carry... Do you (we) really need to be messing with these things, or is it just the gadget-o-phile in us? As ADDers, isn't the goal to simplify, streamline our lives and processes, not complicate them... isn't a PDA just another time-killing distraction? It was to me.

Well I know many of us hate paper...I have a very simple electronic organizer which I sync with outlook. So most of the stuff is entered through the computer instead of the organizer.

Also my scraps of paper don't start beeping from my pocket book to remind me of things...lol

Have to agree. Writing stuff on my wrist is much faster and I don't leave a scrap of paper laying somewhere I won't see it.

And the reminders function on my phone I use, but a PDA? It's neither fish nor fowl. That is, too big to be easily portable, and not big enough to do what my laptop does.

The PAPER, that is what I hate! And like Tara said, the beeping reminders. But, I will admit, the PDA appeals the the gadet-o-phile in me.

I used to have a Franklin Planner, but I would close it and leave in my backpack, out of sight out of mind. But the Pocket PC it beeps and syncs up with Outlook, not email for me, but the Calendar and contacts. Also, for me I can store poems and inspirational things on my PDA. I don't think my system is perfect, but I like it, it fits in my pocket and no paper clutter. It can be a time killing distraction but I can turn anything into a time killing distraction depending on my state of mind.

Everyone basically has to find their own system to function and be as organzed as necessary to get through each day. PDA, Daytimer, Franklin Planner, Yahoo Reminders, Outlook Reminders, To Do lists, nothing, 3 X 5 Cards, a combination of things......

I agree, James, for many ADDers, "Out Of Sight Out Of Mind" is a way of life. Maybe I'm having an allergic reaction to carrying computers around, and fillling my life with yet more gadgets. It's truly a love-hate relationship.

You're right, just about any system can work -- after watching the movie 'Memento', where Memory-Loss-Man Leonard resorts to snapping Polaroids of everybody and everything, scribbling names, notes, and numbers on the back of them to himself.. as well as tatooing the most important stuff on his body.. I was inspired to take my cheap little digital camera and try this. I stuck a nice big 256MB Compact Flash card in it, set it to Basic mode so I could take about a thousand photos if I wanted, and just photograhed EVERYTHING of importance, and I organized the photos by day, week, rank... it worked! Snapshot of my To Do list (macro) Address Book, Weekly Schedule, Grocery List, and hundreds more. It worked.. I can see how you can adjust to any 'system' that you can dream up, and if you 'work' it, it'll work.
I did this for a couple of weeks, just to prove to myself that my hunch was do-able. Whip out the little digital camera, hit 'PLAY", navigate through my menus, and there was all my info, zoomable, sorted, prioritized by photo grouping.

If I ever get too old or forgetful to use something like this, I can always revert to tattooing my body.

Just like Leonard.

Memento was a bizzare, yet fascinating movie.

I have a pretty basic one that sums up expenses has a date calender phone book memo planner, I dont use the phone book, that is on my cel phone. I have a paper note book for lists cause it is faster, but the expense summer uper is great. It is a royal extreme, the software for outlook that came with it seems to be for the lower version and I never got it to work. I may get a better one later. I think though in time the phone and pda will sort of combine into one product. Maybe that is what I will get later. I think the important notes I write on paper and on the pda so it will beep.