If you look at the contents of your Organiser, what proportion of the pages do you frequently look at, write in, refer to? Think in terms of a typical week or month.
Are there pages you have had in there for years yet you hardly ever look at them?
Could you reduce the total number of pages without it having an impact on your daily productivity?
I look at my diary pages daily - the monthly overview and the WOTP. These are the only sections in my main Filofax. Other sections such as lists, brain dump, A-Z filing, wallet, home etc have been put in other organisers and these are referred to as and when. The main Filofax is for appointments and tasks for the day, week or year. The evening is my Filofax time with a daily overview of the diary with future planning which may or may not spill over into the other organisers.
My everyday must go to's: Day per page; Week on 2 page overview; Password in code list; Monthly expenses list (using same template for 15 years now). Hmmm, Maybe I should do the experienced user Philofaxy blog post?
I realized I stopped looking at my old notes from professional development courses taken a while back. They seemed important at the time but frantic writing paired with only 1-2 thoughts being violently jotted down make for a difficult read at best.
I use my weekly insert that I created for my Franklin pocket binder and note paper behind the plain dividers. There are more than forty lines on the weekly page because I drew additional lines on lined sheets. The page is almost the same size as a personal one although my binder is smaller. My layout requires a specific number of gray lines of a certain ruled space. I have enough paper of old notebooks but I cannot buy any pack should I need more sheets.
This is where I believe that technology can augment a planner. For items (particularly reference data) that I only need occasionally, I find that storing them in a good, text-searchable, cloud service is much more efficient for me. So once I see that I am not accessing some section or piece of information in my planner, I take it out of my planner completely. If I think I will need it in the future, I put it into the cloud.
My diary (WOTP, Sunday start - I'm a 'vicar'!) is looked at daily, as is my To Do list. I also have a loose leaf lectionary, that enables me to look up Bible readings, etc, for that day. I've made a weekly Prayer Cycle (by setting up a template on my Mac for the personal size page), so that gets looked at each day, too. It's my 'notes' sections that are less well used and I think you're right, Steve - some of them could be removed without any loss of productivity. So, why am I so reluctant to get rid of them?!
The sheets of numerous notebooks except that of one are not of the ruled space for my weekly format. It is rather interesting that suppliers sell products with random spacing. The size of the ruled lines is in the description for large spiral bound notebooks but not on several journals and smaller notebooks.
Is there a source that sells loose sheets or a bound notebook with 7.5 mm spacing between light gray lines? The company of my notebook sells a minimum of 100 notebooks and I did not find any individual notebooks.
If you look at the contents of your Organiser, what proportion of the pages do you frequently look at, write in, refer to? Think in terms of a typical week or month.
ReplyDeleteAre there pages you have had in there for years yet you hardly ever look at them?
Could you reduce the total number of pages without it having an impact on your daily productivity?
Let us know in the comments.
I look at my diary pages daily - the monthly overview and the WOTP. These are the only sections in my main Filofax. Other sections such as lists, brain dump, A-Z filing, wallet, home etc have been put in other organisers and these are referred to as and when. The main Filofax is for appointments and tasks for the day, week or year. The evening is my Filofax time with a daily overview of the diary with future planning which may or may not spill over into the other organisers.
ReplyDeleteMy everyday must go to's: Day per page; Week on 2 page overview; Password in code list; Monthly expenses list (using same template for 15 years now). Hmmm, Maybe I should do the experienced user Philofaxy blog post?
ReplyDeleteI realized I stopped looking at my old notes from professional development courses taken a while back. They seemed important at the time but frantic writing paired with only 1-2 thoughts being violently jotted down make for a difficult read at best.
ReplyDeleteI use my weekly insert that I created for my Franklin pocket binder and note paper behind the plain dividers. There are more than forty lines on the weekly page because I drew additional lines on lined sheets. The page is almost the same size as a personal one although my binder is smaller. My layout requires a specific number of gray lines of a certain ruled space. I have enough paper of old notebooks but I cannot buy any pack should I need more sheets.
ReplyDeleteThis is where I believe that technology can augment a planner. For items (particularly reference data) that I only need occasionally, I find that storing them in a good, text-searchable, cloud service is much more efficient for me. So once I see that I am not accessing some section or piece of information in my planner, I take it out of my planner completely. If I think I will need it in the future, I put it into the cloud.
ReplyDeleteMy diary (WOTP, Sunday start - I'm a 'vicar'!) is looked at daily, as is my To Do list. I also have a loose leaf lectionary, that enables me to look up Bible readings, etc, for that day. I've made a weekly Prayer Cycle (by setting up a template on my Mac for the personal size page), so that gets looked at each day, too. It's my 'notes' sections that are less well used and I think you're right, Steve - some of them could be removed without any loss of productivity. So, why am I so reluctant to get rid of them?!
ReplyDeleteThe sheets of numerous notebooks except that of one are not of the ruled space for my weekly format. It is rather interesting that suppliers sell products with random spacing. The size of the ruled lines is in the description for large spiral bound notebooks but not on several journals and smaller notebooks.
ReplyDeleteIs there a source that sells loose sheets or a bound notebook with 7.5 mm spacing between light gray lines? The company of my notebook sells a minimum of 100 notebooks and I did not find any individual notebooks.