My Day Planner – part 1
May 27, 2007I don’t know about you, but I have great difficulty really grasping the concepts when someone tells me how to keep a day planner (or about any other organizational/time management skill/task). I just can’t envision it if it isn’t something I’ve actually seen. As the years pass, I am gradually learning to adapt my Day-Timer to my needs and, since I like seeing concrete examples, I thought maybe someone else could benefit from seeing what I do. (My system is definitely not “perfect”! There are some definite gaps where I just haven’t figured out yet how to make things work for me. However, the parts that are working, seem to work pretty well.)
I’m going to start with my main daily planner. I use this. Honestly, I rather prefer something larger – a 5.5″x8.5″ ring-bound book – because it’s much easier to add other information to. I’ve discovered, though, that I simply will not consistently carry something that size. (This is part of my angst in putting together a system that works for me! It’s trickier to figure out how to add all I need to what I have, but the size is terrific. It’s a balancing act. 
) These pages are only slightly bigger around than a checkbook, and the daily pages are bound together in 2-month spiral booklets, so they’re very streamlined. This is small enough that I can easily carry it around. In fact, I have them in a large wallet, so my credit cards, ID, cash, etc. and my Day-Timer are all together. I can’t not take my Day-Timer with me when I go out, or I don’t have a driver’s license! This size is available with a 2-page-per-day format (I suspect it’s only one month per booklet.), but the 1-page-per-day is sufficient for me. (I will describe the other components of the refill pack in later posts.)
The downsides to this size/format are that, as I mentioned, it’s harder to add additional information to. Because it doesn’t have rings, I can’t just punch my own computer printouts and stick them in. (It does come with a few add-in pages that are specially punched to attach to the spirals.) There aren’t as many accessories available for this size as for the other sizes. And the pages are kind of boring – none of the pretty backgrounds are available in this size; it’s just corporate green and white. (These ideas could help jazz it up, though.)
So, here’s what my basic planner layout looks like:
(For a larger image, click here.)
The daily page has three sections. The upper portion of the page has times written down the left side (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.), and a light line dividing it in half vertically. (You could ignore this line, if you chose to, and use the entire upper portion as one section.) The lower section (maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the page?) is a to-do list.
Stay tuned for more (so this page doesn’t get too long )…
(reading chronologically)
[...] Let’s start with the photo from the last post as a frame of reference. [...]
[...] Previous posts talked about my daily pages and my monthly pages. This post will describe my “long-term” to-do list. [...]
[...] The advance planner I discussed in an earlier post. My use of it has not changed. The daily pages were discussed earlier, as well, and my use of them has not changed, either, except as described in my GTD post. I do have some add-in pages in it, which I will describe later. The address booklet is pretty self-explanatory, I think. (I don’t keep all of my contacts in there, just anything I might need while I’m out. My main contact-management system is a Rolodex on my desk.) The notebook contains my next action lists, project lists, someday/maybe list, and waiting list for my GTD system. (I am “test-driving” this format to see if it is a workable method for keeping these lists. It’s working better than I expected.) [...]