Have you noticed, I left a week out! We were in Paris :) I'm back again, and ready to continue!What do you have now?
If you have going with me, you have calendars, to dos, list, informations, someday/maybe section, or 17 dividers, notes, planning section, goals, projects. OMG, what a chaos! Do you need all? Where? What is important? From what you have a lot, and what is only a piece of paper? You might not need notes sections, because you don't make too much, or you use daily pages, and it's enough. You might not need to keep any information in your planner. Think about that, when you move on and plan, what to keep in your planner and how to organize all that stuff.
Stay by the logic we followed until now
But you don't have to have too much sections. What was the logic? Stuff comes in: Inbox. Time related stuff goes to: Calendar. Tasks are going to: Projects and Planning. No task, no time related is: Information. Notes are also Informations, isn't they? Goals belong also to planning. Lists are interesting things. They can be informations, like a wish list, or they can be also tasks! If you use only the bold sections, it will be only 5, not too much.
Keep it simple
The simplest way is if you have a landing zone with an inbox and notepapers, than your calendar(s) and planning pages - together or separated? Is up to you. Until now we kept the two thing in separate sections. I'm now in trieing keeping it together, and I'm very satisfied! I think, this subject deserves a separate post! Than have an A-Z section, where you keep everything else. Yes. No dividers. Contacts are going to C, Informations to the letter what is it about (colors to my homepage are by me by C, routines by R, etc), Projects to P...
Lift out
You have a lot pages from something? Half of your planner is by P, because you have a lot projects? Make for this a separate section. Keep all other stuff in the A-Z tabs.
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| I started here to lift out some stuff, I'm not sure yet, what I want, that's why I didn't created dividers yet. |
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| And my A-Z dividers |
Thematize
Lot of people like to keep sections in their planner like: Family, Work, Home, Finances, etc. Are you one of them?
More levels
It can be also overwhelming, but it is also simpler than a 100 divider system :) Some example:
- Calendar: Monthly/Weekly/Daily section
- Work: Calendar/Informations/Finances/Projects
- Projects: Work/Home/Personal
- Blog: Editorial calendar/Statistic/Weekly planner/Ideas
My example: I started to set up a separate "business planner" for me. For now, I have these main categories:
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| In all sections will be sub-sections |
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| Blog - sub-sections |
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| I added to Blog Planner also monthly tabs. |
Combine
Or combine any of the above mentioned ideas together!
If you have any other organizing idea/logic, please do not hesitate to share in comments below or on the Facebook!
What am I doing here? Using more planners? O, yes, I have a lot! Next time I will be write about why you would want to use more planner, and how to organize them.
Housework for next week
Make a brain dump: what logic is your way? What is heavy in your planner? Use page flags to make your system, and use your planner with it for couple of week. Re-organize if it was not the best solution! If you are happy with it for a while, make your dividers!What am I doing here? Using more planners? O, yes, I have a lot! Next time I will be write about why you would want to use more planner, and how to organize them.
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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!
I have been following your very interesting series.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago I added a set of A-Z dividers from an old planner. I find them useful and overwhelming at the same time. Although I am concerned they are taking up more room in my planner than they need to, I want to give them another month or so before deciding if I will take them out. I do like that I hook store cards and my library card under "L" for library, "G" for grocery, etc. They have been very helpful for issues relating to my vehicle ("J" for Jeep), and my furry/feathered companions.
Besides A-Z I only have 2 separate sections: IDEAS and Cooking. (I am a passionate cook.)
It sounds good! If you don't like it at the end you can use also only tabs on the pages itself without any dividers, what spares you place!
Delete