{Planner Maniac} One Book July 2016 ~ One Planner to Rule Them All

I’ve noticed something curious lately. Despite the fact that in the last couple of months I’ve been using digital planning tools increasingly, this has by no means decreased the use that I make of my paper planner. Quite the contrary.

I think I mentioned here and there that lately Todoist, Wunderlist and Evernote have been playing a major role in keeping my life organised [I will definitely post about this in the future]. Nonetheless,  not a day passes without me feeling the need of putting pen on paper to map out my day. Weird, uh?

I think there are a number of reasons for my Filofax to be so successful in my planning system, and the One Book July challenge has helped me a lot realising were I was doing wrong – last year as well as this year.

So here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. planner is for planning – when I first started using a ring planner I loved the fact that I could throw everything in there, from lists of books I wanted to read to my favourite recipes. WRONG. All that I really need [and really want] in my planner is a calendar for reminders/appointments and some weekly/daily pages to organise to do lists. Period. Everything else is not just superfluous, it’s actually pretty distracting – which leads me to point 2 ↓
2. clutter is EVIL – whatever activity I need to carry out [study or work], the first thing I do is to free my desk from any unnecessary item. I need a clean and open space in order to get the right mindset and be productive. My planner works the same way: having loads of papers and sticky notes scribbled over sticking out my pages is never gonna be of any help for me. Brain dump is stored somewhere else – my planner has to be clean, declutter and well organised in order to really help me free the mind and not feel overwhelmed.
3. size do matters – last year one book July helped me discover the wonder of having a planner that was a self-contained world – not just the inserts but the pens/highlighters as well. At the beginning of this year I wanted to upgrade to an A5 so I started off with my Filofax Original in Fuchsia, but I was way too bulky for me and I also wasn’t really using all the space it provided. At the same time the A5 paper format was perfect for me [especially for the monthly calendar] so I didn’t want to let go of that. My current A5 Boston with smaller rings proved to be the best solution, and it’s what saved me in another moment of planner slump.
4. daily planning is not project planning – in case you didn’t quite grasp the concept, no clutter in the planner! I’m still a lot learning about how to manage projects [I quite successful found a way to stay on top of my Chinese studies through Todoist, but surely not everything can be managed there], but what I know for sure is that everything that has to be broken down in multiple steps, being it work or study or leisure activities, I prefer not to have it in my daily planner.
5. stay away from pinterest. seriously – I used to spend *hours* browsing other people’s boards on inserts and bullet journal pages, and I still do it sometimes because, let’s face it, we planner junkies love to see pretty and neat planner pages. This said, I couldn’t resonate more with what Rhomany said here about the fact that we shouldn’t head over on Pinterest in order to find inspiration. Especially when dealing with a challenge in which you’re supposed to go back to basics, pretty inserts are everything but helpful. Let’s keep the foot on the ground and reflect on what we truly need, considering only how our brain works.
6. a planner is a compass – as I don’t keep everything in my main planner but I use other task manager tools for my various projects, the way that I found in order not to lose pieces [and my mind sanity as well] is to use my main planner as the coordination centre of the whole system. I think this is crucial: it doesn’t really matter how many ‘planners’ you’re using, what’s really important is that you have one and unique landmark that keeps all the pieces together.
7. sticky notes are a girl’s best friend – sometimes I found myself not exactly sure of where I should write down a certain thing, especially when it comes to random ideas I want to save in order to process later. In these cases the best thing to do for me is to jot it down on a post it note and to stick it into my daily pages – since my planner is my anchor, I know that I will surely review it and find the note with the idea later on. This gives me the chance to think it over and figure out which place is the best to store it, but in the meantime I make sure I won’t lose anything.

I have to say, every time I write about planners I have the feeling I keep saying the same things over and over again. Which is funny, considering the I’ve changed quite a few bites and pieces from last One Book July experience. But the more I think about it, the more it actually makes sense: as Carie Harling said in one of her videos, when you know how your brain works, not matter which planner you decide to use, your process will remain the same. It took quite sometime to me to grasp this concept but now I couldn’t agree more!

{Planner Maniac} One Book July 2016 ~ Introduction

It’s time for One Book July again! Last year this challenge proved to be a real panacea for my at-the-time chronic planner slump dissatisfaction. One book [which in my case rhymed with one set of weekly inserts], one pen and a very limited amount of highlighters was the recipe for finally being able to make my system work. And honestly since then every time I’ve tried to make things more complicated than that I’ve always failed.

Considering how July is going to unfold for me this year, I doubt I’ll have much to blog about the progress of my study programs [unfortunately], so I’ll probably be more focusing on planners and books. Hoping that I’ll be reading a little more this trimester, of course ._.

Considering that I’ve posted recently about my planning experience with bullet journaling, this will be a series of mini posts [to not repeat myself too much] talking not just about the what but mostly about the how.

So in the next three posts I’ll be showing the three books forming the core of my planning system:

1. A5 Filofax Boston for everyday planning
2. Filofax Flex for brain dump
3. Kikki.K Compendium for project planning [which is this year focus, and a new entry for me as well]

I would like to clarify something I didn’t have the chance to do before. I personally am a supporter of functional planning approaches; which basically means, I take a planner for what it is – something that’s supposed to simplify and organise my life. I do not make art out of it. I have nothing against people who do [why should I?], I would probably decorate more myself if I were at least a little bit artistic. But I’m not, and I take this as the chance to be really focused on planning and time management.

I’m not a great fan of the consumerist approach to planners either. I was guilty of this at the beginning of my process but I’m much less now. Of course I like to use pretty planners but 1) I never bought anything in the plannersphere which wasn’t on sale [30% or more] 2) it’s not that important to me anymore. I’m not here to brag about my planner collection, really. I just want to share my planning experience. That’s all folks.

{Planner Maniac} Anatomy of my Bullet Journal experience

 

1. The paper. At the beginning of the year I started printing out my own inserts using plain A4 printable paper cut in half. I soon realised that a) the layout caused a non-indifferent level of paper waste [no paper waste allowed!] b) it was a further complication of the system, considering that every time I needed new paper to write I had to take the printer out, cut the paper, etc. etc. I soon realised that simple A5 grid notepads were actually incredibly handy and suited my needs perfectly 🙂 as I’m not using fancy fountain pens or the like any kind of paper [even not-high quality] it’s fine to me.
2. The pens. It’s no mystery that I’m a Muji fan, so I often find myself buying stationery items there without actually needing them [wrong, I know]. I had this set of four erasable gel pens I hadn’t much used in the past so I thought this was the right occasion to revamp them. They turn out to be a great choice indeed! First of all I discovered that somehow my hand holds them better than the regular gel ones, and this slighly improves my handwriting. But most of all using erasable pens is incredibly handy for changing plans – I don’t have to use pencils and then rewrite stuff in pen once they’re settled, if something changes I just erase it and ready to go 🙂
3. The highlighters. Again, at the beginning of the year I had an extremely complex system involving Zebra mildliners, Stabilo highlighting pencils and Staedtlerfine tip highlighters; of course it was way too uncovenient to carry out and too bulky to take with me everyday at work or at the library, so I downsized to the Zebra mildliner set only, that is way easier to carry around and with the double tip provides more writing and highlighting options.
4. The monthly calendar. My inserts at the beginning of the year offered a very in-depth system comprehensive of a monthly calendar, a weekly view and bullet journal for daily pages. It turned out to be a little too much for me at this stage of my life, as most of the pages remained blank at the end of each week; I’ve discovered that monthly cal + bujo is the perfect combo for me at the moment. I use my monthly calendar for recurring tasks, due dates, appointments, regular payments and events [like movie festivals and the like]. It’s mostly for foward planning, but I use it as a reference tool as well.
5. The weekly view. I just randomly have a weekly overview when I know I have a lot going on during a specific week and I feel I need more control over my time management. It’s just a simple ruled 5A paper, no strings attached.
6. The bullet journal. When I say Bullet journal I should problably specify that I use this system just for my daily pages, not the whole concept as Ryder Carroll conceived it. After a few years of intensive planner use I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t need to write down stuff every single day of the year. More than just this, there are days in which I need an entire A5 page, others in which I barely jot down 3 tasks. The BuJo system provides me the flexibility that I need in terms free space and avoids the paper waste I would have if I used predated daily pages. Here’s what I write in my bullet journal pages:
   1. The date. In the last couple of months of 2015 I’ve spent hours browsing other people’s boards on Pinterest, gathering ideas for my date style. I liked the idea of using kanji in it as it’s something I’ve been doing ever since my Japanese days and that could make my pages a little more personal. The system is very simple: I draw a circle and in it I write the kanji of the day of the week + the number of the actual date. I don’t specify the month
   2. The diary entry. Next to the date circle I like to add every morning 3 lines of diary. It’s a nice way for me to make the dates more vivid, not just listing daily tasks but also adding a few more personal details. I’m not a huge fan of journaling activity into the planner – in fact I have my separate diary for longer and more complete rants [lol]. This is just a quick memento for the future [even though it often turns out as my blowoff against the traffic, the weather, etc.].
   3. The priority list. After the date and the diary entry I star writing my tasks for the day. All productivity gurus stress the importance of not just listing your to dos but also and foremost to give priorities to them, because you really don’t need to accomplish everything everyday – but certain things must be finished off on a certain date. I try to follow this mantra and I first jot down my 3 MITs for the day, followed by all the other things I would like to accomplish [failing almost every time].
   4. The priority colour coding. I’ve seen over on Pinterest many smart Bulletjournalists [is this even a word?] using different colours to check off their tasks boxes [ex. blue for errands, yellow for study, red for work and so on]. Considering that I use digital task managers for my work to dos I don’t think I would make much use of this system right now, so I preferred to make things my own way using a very basic colour coding system: I use a pink pen to check off my MITs and a purple pen to check off all the remaining stuff. This helps me visually to realise whether I’m really concentrating on my important tasks or not.
   5. The nice things to remember. Apart from the proper diary, I like to note nice daily events like when I take a hot bubble bath or the night me and doctor L. finished watching Heroes season 1. This is a habit I started last year in my Original Personal Nude and that I feel really attached to.
   6. The key entries. My key system is very easy to remember: I use 1, 2, 3 for my MITs [whather the category they pertain to], m for management (which actually means more administration), i for everything related to technology, b for beauty, p for planners, s for study, w for wellness; I draw an envelope for texts to write and a phone receiver for calls to make. I also use the € for finances, but I happens rarely to write such things in my planner.

I feel like I’ve written a lot and I’m not even sure if my system really makes sense – but I’m happy with it and I honestly can say that since I started using it I haven’t felt attracted by any other kind of planner. I personally don’t like switching from a planner to another every 2-3 months, I’m much happier with a solid but simple system which does what’s supposed to – helping me being organised without losing pieces here and there.

{Planner Maniac} Simplifying the Sistem

It’s been a while since my last planner-related post, which is weird considering that the last couple of months have been bustling with planner activity. It’s probably true that the more you do, the less you talk.

I’ll do a more in-depth post on my current set up in a later post, for now I would like to just gather my thoughts on what I’ve learned about planners so far in 2016.

1. Rings are problematic. When I discovered the whole Filofax world more than 2 years ago, I was captured by the idea of having a ring binder in which I could insert any sheet of paper I wanted. I was using a Moleskine [Star Warts edition] at that time and I simply couldn’t wait to start using a planner offering an almost endless level of flexibility. I’ve discovered that this is actually a double-edged sword as you very often end up throwing in a lot of crap you don’t actually use and that just increase the level of clutter. So, yeah, rings are great – but also to be handled with care.
2. Mind the gap. At the beginning of every year [or tbh at the end of the previous one] I sit at my desk and start customizing my planner (again, I’m talking about ring planners here). Everytime I let myself be carried out by the enthusiasm of a. a new planner b. a new year c. a new set of inserts d. a new set of yearly goals. The result is a bulky planner full of inserts I’ll problably will use no more than a week or so, together with a constant feeling of unaccomplishment -because no, I’m not using my planner they why I’m supposed to. Which leads me to the following point.
3. The simpler the better. I started 2016 with a homemade DIY Fish-like set of inserts full of pages, charts, diagrams etc. They were way too complex for the needs of my current lifestyle and even though they were not deglected, they were still unused because I simply didn’t need them. A full spread monthly calendar + extensive weekly pages + daily bullet journal was a mere waste of paper. So I did what I always do around March when I realize I’m not fitting in my system anymore: I simplified. And it worked.
4. A5 is my comfort zone. Last year I used a personal size planner and I got along really well with it. It was carriable but spacious enough to let me to jot down my stuff with ease. This year I felt adventorous and I decided to experiment with A5, a format I’ve always felt attracted to. And I was right. I love the page size [maybe because, despite my greatest effords, it loooks like I’m not able to write with a small handwriting] and customizing/editing/printing inserts it’s just so easy.
5. A5 is also an extensive burden. Ok, I don’t think I’ve discovered hot water here. A5 is huge, and it’s burdensome. At the beginning of 2016 I was using a Filofax Original which if I’m not mistaken as 30mm rings, and it was really hard to carry it around everyday in my tote [especially considering that I commuted at that time]. I’ve recently ‘downsized’ to an A5 Boston with 20mm rings and I cannot say how lifechanging this has been. An A5 is always an A5 of course, but I can argue that more than the overall size the element that really makes the difference are the rings. Besides, smaller rings mean smaller crap I can put into planner, so it’s a win-win situation.
6. No time, no planner. This is a complex matter that I don’t want to discuss in too much details here, but as far as my experience is concerned I can say that a really packed schedule will hardly allow you to take time to devot to your planner. You can use it for urgent to dos and appointments of course, but it’s not likely that you’ll have the time to expand its use to make it a full life tracker/trainer. Planning is essential when you have a very busy schedule, but updating a planner is a very serious, time-consuming matter too.
7. Review it or you’ll die. Another self-explanotery statement. Whether you use it for every aspect of your life of just for work/fitness/projects, there’s no point in having a planner and not really use it – and when I say use I don’t simply mean to jot down stuff but also to go back to it, evaluate it, consider it and review it. Things written down and never re-read are just dead words. Daily, weekly and monthly reviews are things I’m still struggling with, but I’m aware that are essential steps in my planning process.

I have to say that since a re-adjusted my system I’ve been using my planner a lot and with satisfactory productivity reasults, which goes to show that there’s really no point in keeping using a system when you know it’s not working for you anymore. Life is a quest after all the planning activity is no different.

{Planner Maniac} My integrated 2016 planning system

I’m definitely a planner person. I think I said this before. And I think I’m even more so since I’ve discovered the amazing planner community existing on the Internet from which I’ve drawn so much inspiration and so many brilliant ideas in order to make the most out of my agenda. I will never be grateful enough for all the marvellous insights!

I’ll probably write some more in-depth posts on how I use my planner to enhance my daily life – for now I’m just going to show all the tools that I’m going to use this year to keep my life [personal and professional] on track!

♠ Filofax Original Fuchsia [size: A5]

This is my Planner with capital P. Everything related to appointments, to dos, events, reminders and time management goes in here. I don’t believe in multi-planner systems [for me at least] because in my eyes they lead to two possible failures: wasting time rewriting things endless times or forgetting something that wasn’t rewrote in the dedicated section. Plus the A5 format gives you A LOT of space to jot down things so I don’t fell the need to use other planners at all. This goes in my bag everyday everywhere – there’s no point in having a planner if you don’t carry it around all the time for updates/reference.

♠ FocusNow

I’ve been looking for a way to keep track of my daily routines for a good while. When I started using my planner at the beginning of the month I tried to write them down everyday in my BuJo pages, but it didn’t work out. I grew sick of having to draw check boxes pretty quickly, it was really bothersome to have to do that *everyday* for multiple tasks – and I didn’t like it aesthetically either. I’ve been using FocusNow for a while in order not to be distracted by my iPhone constantly ringing and beeping during my study sessions, but I discovered only recently that I also has a very convenient habit-tracker system. Exactly what I was looking for! Now I use it as reminder for multiple daily activities (water intake, teethbrushing, Chinese and Japanese flashcards, go to bed early, etc.), and I can say with a certain satisfaction that I always have a fairly good place in the weekly ranking list (•́⌄•́๑)૭✧

♠ Filofax Flex [with 2 Ikea Notebooks + 2 Moleskine Volant XS inside]

This is the second [and last] item that goes in my bag all the time. I use it as my brain dump and it’s an essential life-savior/mental soothing tool for me. Every idea, inspiration, prompt and what not that pops up in my head goes in here. They’re not necessarily all projects that I will actually carry on, but just the fact of jotting them down releases a lot of stress and clutter from my brain. All my notebooks here have blank pages, which allows me to write more freely and even to draw some scheme if I want to [I have no drawing talet at all. None.]. Usually I’m not a blank page person because I cannot write properly without lines or squares but the format of these notebooks is small enough to let me handle it. And the Ikea notebooks are like 1€ each (๑>ᴗ<๑)

♠ Reminders + Notes

I received my MacBook Pro and my iPhone back in 2011 and at that time I wasn’t the least aware of the potential of having apps syncing automatically among different devices. I started using both Notes and Reminders in a very casual and basically senseless manner, so that after a short while I stopped using them altogether. After being gifted an iPad last year I decided I was time to restyle my organizationa system, I got sorted all the old useless notes and started with new ones. I love the fact that with Apple products I have all my essential datas synced all the time, everywhere. Now I use Notes for my beauty journal, my food journal and language learning log, while I have a Reminders category for each one of the stores I go to more frequently [so that when I happen to be there I already know what I have to pick up] + some ssential items I don’t want to forget taking with me when I travel somewhere.

♠ Midori Traveler’s Notebook Regular Size [Blue Special Edition]

I’ve subscribed to The Journal Shop newsletter, so when last March I received an email advertising the release of the new special edition of the most famous among the Japanese leather notebooks I thought I couldn’t really miss the chance. I still feel like this beautifully crafted notebooks is somewhat underused and I plan to get it more into my daily planning practice in the future, but for now it holds my Chinese grammar notes, together with other spare room-organization notes.

♠ Handcrafted Ruled Notebook [Paolo Olbi Workshop in Venice]

This is my journal/diary, gifted to me by my auntie during our last trip in Venice together. I used to be a regular journaler back in elementary and middle school, then dropped during high school and university – I’ve started back in March 2014 and I’m keeping it up as much as I can. I don’t get to journal everyday and I’ve been off for a few months while I was insanely studying for my board exam, but I’ve been journaling quite regularly in the last few weeks. I’ve also been thinking about turning my journal into a sort of morning pages, but I’m still working on that.

♠ Todoist

Yes, I’m a pen-and-paper lover – but also a big consumer of digital products. I use Todoist mainly as my running to do lists for my two jobs. I prefer to use a separate system and not to mingle all my working tasks into my paper planner because they would fill my pages too much and clutter doeasn’t really help me accomplish things. Besides, my deadlines at work often change so it’s way more practical for me to move the dates on a digital tool rather than on paper. I also have some recurring tasks that I can just copy and paste in my calendar. Finally, I have this app on my mac, ipad and iphone + at work I have access to the online version so I have everything at hand everytime. Isn’t this what the whole sync and go stuff should be about?

♠ Wunderlist

Yes, another digital app. I have to admit, I was curious to try this because, together with Todoist, is one of the most used time management apps out there. I didn’t really know what to do with it because I already have quite a lot under my belt. Then I realised that paper lists for stuff like dramas and movies to watch, books to read etc aren’t really working for me. I bought a Filofax because I really really wanted to have all my lists with me all the time – just to realise that they take a lot of space in my planner and I seriously don’t need to have them all the time -.- but of course, it also happened that I needed them and they were at home, so yes, long story short, I reckoned that digital format was the best. I’ve expanded this concept and started using Wunderlist for all my leaisure activities, this blog included.

I know that this seems a lot, but it’s actually the system that has streamlined my planning process the most since I started thinking about ways of being better organized with my time. I believe in the future I’ll simplify this but at the moment I’m curious to try and evaluate all the options I have =)