It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a more experienced user of organisers, we want to hear your thoughts, questions, opinions etc.
Make today the one day you post a comment or a question.
It is Tuesday after all so fire away.
15 August 2017
Free For All Tuesday - No. 341
It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a more experienced user of organisers, we want to hear your thoughts, questions, opinions etc.
Make today the one day you post a comment or a question.
It is Tuesday after all so fire away.
I'm considering doing without a monthly spread and just using weekly as my main appointment pages, a day page for more detail,discarded after each day's usage, and annual spreads for holidays/leave, INSET training and medical visits/exercise. Does anyone else do without the usual double page monthly spread I'm wondering? I'm in an A5 BTW. I've seen it used as a plan ahead, but feel I'm in danger of mis-copying or not transferring across appointments or events and it seems overkill to keep copying the same stuff twice. Thoughts and ideas anyone re: monthly pages usage for all kinds of other ideas.... or not using at all re: general appointments usage .... gratefully accepted. I'm swinging between keeping and discarding. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteYes... I'm using only WOOP and DoP and a year planner.
DeleteActually I have never used a monthly spread, never had the need/want to
I use the monthly to remember day altering things or things that take me out of the normal rhythm. I work from home. If I have to leave the house, I put it on the monthly, i.e. Medical Appt. I'll put the initial of the person and "MD". I put the time and other important info in my weekly. That gives me a quick, "what would be the best day to schedule THAT activity" overview of the month. I have not used a yearly calendar. Perhaps my eyes just don't focus that small to make a yearly useful to me. I'd love to know how you all use yearly calendars! I haven't hacked that one.
DeleteHello Jane! Well I've always been a great believer in keeping things simple so there's less to go wrong. I only ever use smaller formats and manage with a WOOP diary and paper for notes or lists. I find that way I can't miss anything and there's no duplication. Hope you're well.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Steve. I must say I am heading very much down the simplification route and it's such a relief to hear your thoughts chime with mine. I am well thanks. A gorgeous day here in Poole, so enjoyed the sunshine whilst it is here. Love, light and warmth your way and thanks for the comment here. Much appreciated you know. xx
DeleteI think it depends on what you use it for. If it's just to diary appointments then weekly is probably the best way to go. Personally, I would never be without a month to view in my organiser. I'm a firm advocate of setting quarterly and monthly goals and reviewing progress weekly. We can all have an "off" week (sickness, holidays, family crisis etc) but a month is a great chunk of time to still achieve a lot! It's too easy to loose goal focus with just the weekly view.
ReplyDeleteInteresting idea to have a monthly page just for goal focusing. Hmmm food for thought now about more goal and target setting.... eeek. Thanks Tim. xx
DeleteI have an A5 as well and I use a slight variation of the monthly view, being the horizontal one from FF professional / Time/System / TMI or a similar own design. I completely agree with Tim that breaking down monthly tracking into weekly tracking and daily tracking for that matter absolutely help you focus (which was what TMI was all about of course).
ReplyDeleteI track monthly appointments on my vertical year on 4 pages and my iPhone. I do have several weekviews in my binder as well that sort of build up to a monthly view but less at a glance I do admit.
My current (spare) A5 has 35mm rings (as of yesterday as my main binder's 25mm rings appeared to be loose as the teeth of the PXR backplate no longer fully lock), so maybe that helps too in having more inserts obviously. But that's another topic all together!
Thank you Guido. I love the Italian version of Guy as a name by the way.Tracking had me in planner fail,so I am in awe of you here, as for example, giving up fizzy diet drinks was recently my goal, or one of them anyway, they are not at all good for me, and the minute I gave into temptation and broke the perfect line of ticks, felt so dreadful, I wanted to throw my planning system at the nearest wall, or in the bin pretty pronto!!!! I am better outlining my goals and taking them all a day at a time and small tasks from projects small bite sized steps at a time. That way, today I do my best, know what the aims are and plan of work is, and tomorrow starts afresh.
DeleteGuido - yep! My project/task/goal management mainly comes from Time Manager (TMI) philosophy. It may date from the mid-70s and 80s but it's still effective!
DeleteYou are welcome Butanben. It must be karma then, because my organiser is Italian too! Anyway, just because I use month-week-day inserts for setting and tracking does not at all guarantee I also seemlessly achieve them! But regarding your daily bite size pieces, Time/System has that covered quit brilliantly in my opinion by using folded inserts (they call it nesting) where you write your goals / actions / taks or whatever you call them. That insert then folds over past days so you have your current day in view together with your goals. Saves rewriting as well as keeping them in sight and therefore top of mind.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes Tim, those techniques still hold true. I provide time management training within my company and whenever I show them the objectives of the training everybody is in complete agreemenf only then to learn from me that I took those objectives from a Filofax training from 1987! TMI combined with James' A Time is almost unbeatable.