The tickler file

Do you know what a tickler file is? It is a set of 43 folders labeled 1, 2, 3, …, 30, 31, January, February, …, November, December. You order them in a way that the current month and day is in front, like this

July, 17, 18, 19, …, 31, August, 1, 2, 3, …, 15, 16, September, October, …, May, June

Then, at the start of the next day, you take the preceding’s day folder and move it to the next month and take out the content for today.

July, 18, 19, …, 31, August, 1, 2, 3, …, 15, 16, 17, September, October, …, May, June

If you have material that you only need on a specific day, you put them in the respective month folder or, when the day folder is already available for that month, directly into the corresponding day folder. At the beginning of each month you distribute the content to the appropriate days.

There are other ways to organize content that you need in the future, for example you can just have a file with a number of slots and note access to that slot down in your calendar. However, I find a physical tickler file less brittle.

Last time I looked there was a comprehensive PDF by David Allen on the https://gettingthingsdone.com website.