Wednesday 27 November 2013

Preparing for 2014

There have been no posts for a while as my screen time has been taken up with a project I am working on. It is taking me longer than I thought but when it is completed all will be revealed here. As this is a time sensitive post I am interrupting my ‘other uses for a filofax’ posts to go over my plans for 2014.

Now if you have seen my previous posts you will know that since September I have been using a notebook as my planner. It was developed from the bullet journal idea although, as I don’t believe the bullet journal was meant to encompass forward planning, it hardly resembles the original.



I had originally intended to carry this on for 2014. However, I need some form of forward planning. For 2013 I had drawn out monthly spreads for September to December for my appointments which took up 2 pages per month.



In addition to this I had recently felt the need for weekly spaces. I ended up using a page to roughly plan my week when I was doing my weekly review every Sunday.



If I did this for 2014 I would use 76 pages of my notebook just for the monthly and weekly pages. Apart from the time I would have to invest (madness!), it would take up so many pages of my notebook that I would need more than one for the year. I would then end up either drawing out monthly /weekly pages again or carrying 2 notebooks.

Not going to happen.

Therefore I reviewed my system and worked out why I have loved using it so much.

What the notebook method taught me was that the following works best for me:

  •         Large page size
  •          Lightweight and compact
  •          All in one place
  •          Monthly pages with space for to dos
  •          Weekly pages with space for to dos, notes and meals
  •          Squared paper
  •          Notebook for daily planning, idea capture, lists and general scribbling

I like that the notebook means that I don’t have to think about sections and I can use as much or as little space as I want per day so there is no wasted space.


Next I had to work out how I could retain as much of this as possible whilst still being practical.

The options on the table were: carry on using a notebook, find a bound planner, make my own planner or use a filofax. My next post will explain how I made my decision.


4 comments:

  1. Can't wait to see your decision! I'm in a similar predicament. I know I will use my Plannerisms planner again for my planner but am still trying to decide between a bound notebook or my Filofax for my daily records, lists and notes. The notebook would give me a larger page size in a lighter book, and permanence. But the Filofax will give me more flexibility of use in my beautiful leather binder. I can't decide!

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    1. Ha ha! I see you read my next post. I can't wait to start using it to see if it works as well as I hoped. If not I am going to completely give up on researching anything ever and just try pot luck as I took ages deciding.

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  2. I love you graph paper pictures. Even if you don't end up using them, the way you did them makes me happy.

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    1. Thanks. I have used that monthly layout since September and the weekly layout since the end of October. It works for me but I decided that I didn't want to invest the time it would take to do this for a whole year so next year will be a bit different.

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