How to build your perfect planner system? Week 16: Which calendar to use and which monthly format?

As we finished with the basics, we can move on, and adapt your system to your needs. First: calendar. If you have not too much appointments, monthly calendar can be enough. If you need more, use weekly also. Or only weekly. If you want more together, you might want a yearly insert for wider perspective (for holidays, travels), or even more, there is also 5 year overview! Let's see first the opportunities for the monthly calendar.

Monthly calendar

Monthly calendar has small space for the days, so if you have tons of appointments it can be small for you (another question, what size of planner you use...). But I never met before someone who would have so much. Why is a monthly calendar worthy? You can see at a glance your month. How much things you have in days next to each other? What deadlines? Holidays, etc. I use the monthly calendar for organizing my appointments, I write everything here what I know about the future, school stuff, doctor appointments, holiday, etc. In weekly layout come only copies from this. Because you have not too much space you might use shortcuts, as stickers, letters. You don't have to write here everything, find a place where you keep the connected informations, and mark those appointments somehow (I use a +), where are additional informations (like where, what to bring, what's the name of the doctor). If you use color coded stickers, or drawings for repeating things, you don't have to write anything. Like: paydays, swim course, cleaning...

I keep maybe a year of the monthlies in my planner.

Format:

1. mostly used the mo2p, this is what I also like (see mine above).
2. Filofax has this format, also month on two pages, what I do not prefer, because the visual clue is not too strong when weekend is.

3. Mo1p - you can find a lot on the internet, but you have less space to write. This one from Philofaxy:

Source: http://philofaxy.com with permission

4. Horizontal version from Filofax, here you have place also for planning, or note taking:

5. Horizontal mo1p is a good choice, if the rings disturb you. - example from Scattered Squirrel

Week start?

Not too much to talk about: decide, what works for you, Sunday or Monday.

Homework for next week

Think about if you need a monthly calendar or not? What format would be best for you? Maybe download some free versions for the internet in different formats and use it for the next couple of month to see, which one you like.

(You can download a lot different format from Philofaxy Blog.)

Next week I will write about weekly calendars.

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If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask in comment! Share your experiments in our Facebook group, and get more help!  

Find here the whole series.

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