How to build your perfect planner system? Week 20: Use more planners!

In the last post I summarised what everything you can have your planner and how you can organize it. I mentioned also, you might have use more planner (as I do). Why should you want to use more planner? The best way is to keep everything on the same place... I will try so much possible scenario to collect as I can.

You are a lot away from home and you don't want a big and heavy planner with you

Maybe you are using public transport, and you need your schedule with you. You can have to planner, one which you carry with you and one what stays at home. What size should you use? For "Home" planner you should have an A5 and for "On the go" planner a personal. Or pocket size. But if you fit to a personal size, both can the same size. I tried to use personal size, but it is too small for me. So I take my A5 planner with me! It's up to you. Keeping all planners in the same size have a very strong benefit: if you change your mind and want to move something from one planner to the other, you can do it easily! But it is not a must. What to keep in which planner? It needs a brain dump, what should you need on to go? Calendar for sure. Some informations, but not all. Phone numbers, if your phone is going dead. If you are going to work, work projects. But you might have also a work planner, what you leave on the workplace. Lot of people use Filofaxes as a wallet. You can have here all your cards, receipts, finance stuff, and calendar. Of course note paper and post its are must :) You can leave home most of your informations, home projects, yearly plan, etc.

Work and Personal planner

You might divide your stuff for work and personal. Here I have a very important advice: even if you have two planners, you should have only one calendar! If you have two, it will be cause a chaos one day. Keeping everything synchronized is an impossible mission. Ok, not 100 percent sure. There are some things, what you don't have to know on the other situation. If you have a blog planner why not to have an editorial calendar on it? You don't need that information what blog post you want to write, when you make a doctor appointment. But if the assistant offers you an appointment for working hours, you have to know, if you have that time a meeting, or it is possible to go later to work. If you have this informations in two planner, it makes a chaos. Also you can have work deadlines only in your work planner, because it should not influence if you can go out with your friend on Friday evening. 

Something is too big or important in your life

Do you have a hobby? You might have a separate planner for it. To keep track you make, have, want, idea, brainstorming.... Do you write a blog? You can have a blog planner. Do you go to university? Have a study planner! Fitness planner.

You don't have enough space

If you like write and keel by hand so much stuff as I, you should have take out some sections from your "Main" planner. Have a separate Projects, Informations, 17 dividers ... planner. Why not?

What do you think: do you need more planner? What would you keep separate? Why? Share your thoughts on Facebook or here in comment!

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 19: What to keep in your planner and how to organize?

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. 

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.

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:

In all sections will be sub-sections

Blog - sub-sections

OMG! Subsections in subsection!

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!

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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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 18: Calendar combinations and more about the dailies

Last two weeks I wrote about monthly and weekly calendars, today we arrived to the daily insert. Until now I was asking you to use daily pages, but from now on you can decide if you need it or not. It depends on, what other calendars you use.

I can imagine some combinations...

- Do you have only a few appointments and time related tasks? Use monthly calendar to write your appointments and one or more running tasks list.
- Do you have a lot of appointments and not too much time related tasks? Use only weekly calendar and write here all appointments and your time related tasks. Have some tasks list for not time related tasks.
- Do you have only a few appointments but you need detailed daily task list? You might need monthly calendar for appointments and daily dockets for daily planning.
- You might like to see the big picture in the monthly calendar, more details in your weekly and also need more place for daily planning. Use them all!

How to organize those calendars?

There are two options here: 

1. Have a section for all type: monthlies, weeklies, dailies. This is the common way. Most of calendar you buy in print contains the months, weeks after each other's back.

2. In time. You might find some monthly calendar, which is printed on 4 pages, something on the first and last side, and in the middle is the calendar itself. In this case you can place your weekly, daily inserts between two monthly insert. I like this way much better, this is how I organize my planner. If you don't buy inserts you can also make yourself that's way.
Where to put the dailies? By 2/4 pages per week, I have no better idea, only between the two half of the week. But if you have your all week on one page, and the other is for notes, you can place it after that page.
What if you don't need a daily insert every day, but sometimes it would be good? You can stick a post it to your weekly calendar, and plan there your day. Or a notepaper. Or take an undated daily insert. Keep some from them in your planner, just be by your hand if you need one. 

I think, I already wrote this, but here I want mention again: keep couple month monthlies before and after the current month (I like to keep a whole year for the future, but I didn't printed yet for the next year... I should, shouldn't I? :)) Keep couple of weeklies (3-4 is enough I think), and only 1, maximum 2 week dailies in your planner. It makes no sense to make it too heavy. I remove Sundays always the whole week.

You can take a look into my current system:

Daily inserts

Ok, let's say, you need them. If not, you can wait to the next week's post! do1p or do2p? If you have lot to write, or you have a smaller planner, you might need two pages per day. You might use one side for concrete planning: schedule, tasks lists. And the other side for note taking, doodle, decorating, tasks has to tracked, writing journal, shopping list, keeping post it notes for running to do list, etc. I recommend if you are right handed, keep the planning side on the right and the notes on the left, and if you are left handed, than mirrored. If you have a bigger planner, or you don't want to write too much, you can take a do1p insert. A little trick: if you want to write on this always on the right (left) side, punch the other side too, and flip it over for the next day!
What you need to write on the daily page? I showed you a lot different options before.

Homework

What calendars do you need? How you want to organize them? Reorganize your planner this way! Think about it: do you need a daily page? What do you need on that page? Find/make yourself the perfect daily planner page!

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 17: Weekly calendars/planner pages

Last week I wrote about the monthly calendars. You had to decide, if you need that and which format. This week's post is about the weeklies.

Do I need a weekly calendar?

You might have only a few appointments - in this case for you can be enough only a monthly calendar. What if you have a lot tasks to do? You can have monthly calendar with appointments, deadlines plus daily planner pages. But if you have more time sensitive stuff to remember, as appointments, deadlines, time-related stuff, or you want to write about a thing more details in your calendar, you will need the weekly calendar too. 

How it works together with the monthly calendar?

Keep a whole year of monthly calendars in your planner (nowadays you can already thinking on buy/print one for the next year, and you might take out some months from the beginning of the year), and only couple of weeks from the weeklies. Depending on, how much place you have in your planner, and how much you plan for the future. I recommend to write to the monthly planner very shortly, without any details, you can keep those informations somewhere else. When the time is near, copy the appointments to the weekly, and write there (or to daily page, if you will use one) the details. Where, with whom, telefon number, what you have to bring with you, etc. If you have a monthly planner for an overview, never, never ever organize an appointment direct to a weekly. You might miss that info from the monthly and get trouble. Even if it is the current week, write that appointment into the monthly.

Weekly calendar layouts

There are so many!

Vertical layouts: Timeline or not?

Having a timeline gives you the opportunity to have a visual reference how you spend your time. (I wrote about by daily planning about time schedule here.) Even if you don't write the tasks to the weekly calendar, you can block out your time for "project 1", "client B", "work by computer" etc. 

1. Let's start with the classic Filofax vertical wo2p. This format can be very helpful, if you work busy, and your work is time sensitive. Appointments, meetings, etc. You can schedule your whole day here. But where to write tasks? Hard this way. You might need to add a daily page or a todo list. as you can see, you have 5 columns for working days, and 2 for Saturday-Sunday, lot of people don't like it, but maybe you don't want to plan anything for the weekend, then why not? This way you have more place horizontally as in the next example.

Original Filofax wo2p insert

2. Vertical wo2p with timeline and tasks. Here you have the same place for each day, plus an extra column for - tasks, thoughts, notes, trackers, etc. But you have less space for a day.  If you have not too much tasks per day, you might prefer something like this instead of using a daily planner.

Source: http://philofaxy.com with permission

You can find this here.

3. Vertical wo2p. I chose here an other format without time, here you have sections for the day. You can find from this format in very very different variations! But. This is not really a calendar! Here you don't have place for appointments! But you can use such format as an addition to the monthly calendar as a weekly planning page. Yes-yes, calendar and planner pages starting to mixing with each other. No problem, you only have to keep in your mind: what is what.

This insert is a free download from MsWenduhh. 

Horizontal layouts

There can be some with more or less structure.

4. The simplest is if you have only the days here, like here:

wo2p horizontal from Filofax

This layout don't give you too much clue where to write what. By this inserts can you also find where you have the same place for all days, or less space for the weekends.

5. Horizontal wo2p with some structure. You might write your appointments to one column, and the tasks to the other.

Weekly calendar/planner from Plannerfun

You can download this insert from Plannerfun for free. 

6. I really like this insert from Filofax Clipbook. Here you have all the days in one side, and 3 columns on the right, where you can add sections, what you want. I used this before for menu planning, social media planning and for misc tasks.

7. If you don't have too much to write (I can't imagine this! :)), you might need only one page per week, like this:

This is a free insert from Xoxojinny.

Unusual formats

8. Here you have boxes for the days:

Free download from Scatteredsquirell.

9. 5 days on one side, weekend on the other side (this is my own insert, not available yet). I like this format, because I can keep my daily insert always on the right side, and I can see all of my working days at the same time.

10. I have seen a wo4p insert in vertical format, with 5 days plus a task list on two page, and on the next page was the weekend, plus maybe notes, unfortunately I don't find it. It was maybe on Facebook or Instagram?

I would be happy to read in my Facebook group, what you chose and why?

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What to do, if you didn't planned correctly and your plan is crashed?

Nothing serious: no accident, no new stuff, only not enough thinking, that happened with me yesterday. Very carefully written plan, which was wrong. Why? I planned a task for next Monday. But this task was a precondition for a task I planned for yesterday, what have a deadline for tomorrow. How silly. And? What can I do? Reschedule! Put off everything else and make the task planned for Monday, and what a task? A big one, of course.

This is how my yesterday turned out, a lot of tasks unfinished.

This was my original plan for today:

I took two post it notes to write a new list with the tasks I thought this morning I want to finish today. I don't care about the other things written originally here. If I'm done with the post its, I can move on to this.

I have no idea, what I will finish today, so I didn't wanted to schedule the unfinished tasks from yesterday (but I wanted to clean up that page), so I wrote everything only on an other post it. When I make my daily review tomorrow morning, I will decide, what I want to do. I will move that post it until I have on that any task.

Let's go back to my list on the two little post its! :)

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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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What "planner peace" means to me? And why talking about it so much?

Planner is a planner, what an idiot question is what is planner peace? Why is not enough to have a planner? Whatever planner? Or calendar. No No No! It matters, what you have!

Last time I read some posts about planner peace.
In Philofaxy Blog by Anita and Helen
By Weekendwife 
Giftie Etcetera about the inserts
Homemakersdaily is also searching the best solution.

Planner peace is for me:

- finding the right size, what works for me
- finding the right inserts, what works for me
- finding the right binding - I thing, this one is done: ring binders are the best for me
- finding the right binder - what works for me.
- deciding what to keep in the planner.

Do you see? "what works for me". I write again. What works for me. Not what I like. Functionality is the first on the row!

Why I don't know what I want? 

Good question - maybe because there are conflicting needs. I have already written about my preferences here.
Size: A5 is too big, personal is too small - I have make a decision, what is more important: portability or enough writing space? Both is functionality question. In this moment is A5 winning.
Inserts: What weekly format is working the best? How I can achieve to see together what I want see at the same time?If I see more at the same time, than I have smaller space (for a day or something else). If I want more space, I won't see something I wanted. I need a 100 dimension planner, hihi :D Here again: find the best compromise!
Binding: Stitched or glued need less space. But it is not customizable. This is very important for me, so: ring binder.
Binder: Ok, it has to be nice, but this aspect can be never the first. If it has pocket gives the binder bulkier. But to having place for storing stickers, etc.
What to keep in the binder and how to organize? This is again: I want to keep here everything, but it is not possible. If I have too much in the planner, I might not find what I search, I might don't want to bring with me, because it is too heavy. How to organize? Keeping the monthlies/weeklies/dailies separate? Or somehow together? How? (Back to inserts question). Keeping planning and calendar pages together or separate? How to organize all the other stuff? What sections to have? They are hard questions!
I hope you can understand now, why I don't find my planner peace so easily!

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 15: Summary

As I promised: before we move on to second level, a little repetition is coming. I want to summarize the previews posts.

Summary of the first 14 weeks

1. What you need?

First week I wrote, you will need a planner and calendar inserts for writing appointments, I recommended for start the week on two pages version. To take notes, notepaper. You started writing appointments to your calendar, to dos and notes to notepaper. I recommended to have your planner always with you.

2. New sections

On the second week you created dividers for Calendar, To Dos and Lists. (I will mark the dividers with green color.)

3. Inbox

On the third week you added an Inbox folder and notepapers as a landing place. You collected here everything you have to deal with.

4. Organizing stuff

On the fourth week you started to organize the collected stuff from your inbox. You added Informations section for infos, Someday/Maybe for to dos you might want to make one day. You left time related stuff in inbox, until the last week, when you made the 17 folder section or you putted your stuff somewhere else. You might added Notes section.

5. Planning

We started talking about real planning only on the fifth week, you added a Planning section with weekly and daily inserts. I asked you to use day on one page for daily planning, until we are talking about other options.

6. Weekly, daily reviews

You could read on the 6th week about why is a review important, and what you have do.

7. Values, 9. Roles, 10. Goals

For seeing, what is important for you, what you really want and must do, you made some exersizes (values, roles, goals).

8. Monthly planning

On the 8th week you added a monthly planner insert to your planning section, and planned your first month.

11. Decorating

On week 11 you got some time to rest, I wrote about decorating the planner.

12. Projects

On the 12th week I wrote about how organizing tasks into projects helps the planning and achieving your goals. In that post I forgot to write to add a Projects divider. Please do it now! :)

13. Monthly review

On the 13th week you made your first monthly review.1

14. Place for time related stuff

Last week I recommended some options to keep time related stuff.

So what?

If you made everything as I written, you have tons of dividers. If you take a closer look on it, it's really 3 different things. Calendar, planning and informations. Calendar tells you when what you can/must do. Informations are in projects, lists, to dos, they are telling you what you can/must plan in your planning sections. This is how the all stuff works together. Now the question is, what sections you need and how you want to organize your planner. This comes in the next weeks.

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10 tips for ADHD people using a planner

1. Write everything down. 

I mean it! You might forget!

2. Find the way to find the place for every little piece of information in your system. 

Not enough to writing down. You have to find it later!

3. Such few distractions as possible. 

It's better to keepyour planner simple and not full of stickers, washis, etc.

4. Separate the informations

In time and topics. In time: don't have to do's on your daily page only you MUST do it on that day (not too much to dos) - if you have more time, pick more tasks from other lists. In topics: have more, than one todo list. For cleaning, work projects, family things etc. What makes you sense. more in time: use the 43 folder system or my 17 dividers system, and move in those projects/todos/infos, what are time sensitive. This way they are out of picture, until they come back, if you will need it. 

5. Use time blocking

In daily planning: use blocks for different activities. Make all phone calls at the same time. make work at the computer same time. housework, or anything make you sense. Write this categories clear separated on the daily page. 

6. Use color coding 

to make visual separation more clear. But only if it menas not visual clutter for you!

7. Use routines 

Create daily/weekly/monthly routines. Write them down! 

8. Have checklist for any recurring activities  

If you have do that thing take out your checklist and you have the steps, you don't need to thinking about it. 

9. Mark the task what you started

If you will be distracted, you will be know, where you have to go back. Mark it with a point, highlighter, arrow page marker...

10. Track your items

Started but not finished tasks, delegated tasks, orders, etc has to be tracked.  Write somewhere in your planner - you can make a tracking section, or take a postit, and write it on. What are you waiting for? When it is started? When should you check it? Place to that date in your calendar or your daily page, if you have already for that day, or in the 17 dividers system. Write, what the other part promised, asked, what you answered...

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 14: Place for time related stuff

As I promised before on week 4, now we will add a section for time related stuff. The idea comes from the 43 folder system, where you have a foder for 12 months and for 31 days. The actual month and day is always the first. All todo-s, projects, info pages is going to this system, to the day/month when it will be important. Concert ticket on the day, project files, when you have to start work with, etc. But we have our planners, where we plan our days, weeks, months... In a planner would be 43 dividers or folders too much.

17 dividers

I simplified this system for months and weeks. If you like the idea, create 12 monthly dividers, first comes September, the actual month. Plus 5 weekly dividers - you can choose what first week means. It can be from the first day of the month to Sunday (Saturday?), or decide where the mixed weeks are going (I use this mostly, 28-3 is the last week of the month for me).

Put all time related stuff, like information for events, or to do-s here.

Some example:

Letter from school - there is more thing, I will move it forward

Camp packing list for tis weekend

Next year camp reminder by May

A call for submission - I don't know if I want to do this, or not, but I will see, when the time comes

You can keep here reminders for recurring tasks must do always on the same month or week. Events happens yearly, like birthdays.

You can collect ideas for the future, maybe for birthday presents.

Some Christmas marketing ideas by November

I have an envelop also for 2017 with a note about ID-s will expired.

Future section

If you don't want the 17 dividers system, or you maybe have only a few of such things, you can use the future section for saving this files too. Or (what a scandallum!) keep this stuff outside your planner. Create a folder for it, or a papertray, what makes you sense.

Homework for the next week

Find your way to store the time related stuff, and install it. Place here your stuff you already collected. Don't forget from now  to review this weekly!

I think, we have built the basics of a planner. Before we go further - with more ideas, variations of calendars, files, sections, more planners, next week we will make a little repetition with a summery of the first 14 weeks. Stay tuned :)

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