I like to organize my life in an old-school kind of way. Hipster PDA style.

And check out that phone! The battery is so old that it now has a daunting 3 to 4 hours of talk time. Look out!

But the system works. I use the legendary Moleskin notebook. The same notebook used by Van Gogh. I have been inspired by Van Gogh’s paintings for years, so why not try out his notebook.

The system is simple. Working front to back, I keep daily or weekly to-do lists, depending on how busy I am. I hand copy things forward that I don’t get done. Working back to front, I keep lists of blog essay’s I want to write, and similar kinds of notes.

Up to a few months ago, I thought I was being defiantly different. But recent meetings with the teams of a whole bunch of Web 2.0 technology companies has…well…totally shown me up to be a complete follower. I went to one meeting recently where literally everyone in the room broke out a moleskin notebook.

No Treos, no blackberries, no tablets or laptops. Just a 200 year-old design based on pencil and paper.

If it works….

Actually, this is an important way of demonstrating the Agile, Anti-Waterfall, Scrum based, KISS ethos that is powering the success of tools like Joyent and Basecamp.

Get it done in the most elegant, simple way possible.

Getting Real means keeping projects small and simple.

And getting organized, shouldn’t be complicated.