22 February 2018

Planner Peace

'Planner Peace' or 'Organiser Peace' in our case is often banded around on-line and I've been asked the question numerous times.
"Have you achieved Planner Peace?"
If you say yes, then of course there are lots of follow up questions! Like how did you achieve 'Planner Peace'?

For me it was partly about finding a diary insert that worked for my own needs. The one you see below is the one I've been using since 2012. I used it for a few months in 2011 as well.


That isn't the full story though, you need to consider how you use the diary insert in conjunction with the organiser that holds the pages and where and when you are using it.




The organiser I use most is my Custom A5 Van der Spek, it is certainly not the most expensive one that I own. It only has 25mm rings and it is quite soft and supple, which means it slots in to my bag perfectly. I do occasionally swap in to other A5's, but this is the one I come back to.

The internal layout has pockets for other bits of paper and documents that I like to keep together. And having two pen loops means I have a pen and pencil always at the ready.

My other 'secret' was to have split my pages in to those I need to access on a daily basis, such as my planner pages and a few notes pages. And the infrequent sections which live in another A5 which stays close to hand on my desk, but I don't carry all these extra pages around with me.

So have I really achieved 'Planner Peace' ? I guess I have, if it is working for me and the fact I'm still using the same inserts etc.

Can my set up be improved? I guess so, but changes will evolve rather than big changes.

How about you?

7 comments:

  1. I found planner peace when I quit worrying about it looking neat and used it for the purpose it is there for. Things are scratched out, pages are bent, post it notes stuck in here and there...but that is ok. I am using it!

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  2. Hi, I use a personal size Van der Spek- 30mm rings - as my personal planner and an A5 Planner at work, Van der Spek too. The planner peace? Yes, because I use planners every single day since I was 20 years old ( now I'm 52 ); Van der Spek is the best for me because of the big rings, the "custom made", the quality an affordable price. I designed my Van der Spek planners 4 years ago and now I'm happy to use them. Forgive my poor English...I'm italian. Raffaela

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  3. I found planner peace by accepting that the Franken Planner I built was the way to go. I've cherry picked portioned of various planning systems that work for me and combined them all. LOVE IT!

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  4. Planner peace? Ha, ha, ha...

    Once upon a time, 1986ish, my employer trained all hands on Time/System (at that time market leder in continental Europe, I guess).
    It was A5 one page/day; started in a cheap plastic folder and as time went by ended up in a leather zip folder, very similar to my today’s A5 Travel Filo.

    Next big change was - working in the U. S: I got to know - you guessed it - Mr. Franklin Quest. I immediately jumped on the 2p/day layout with times on the left and to do list on the right. That´s MY layout until today

    I coudn’t be happier until Franklin (now) Covey changed the colour of the printing from a moderate olivish green to a yelling teal. So I went to Monarch.

    Back in Paris a couple of years later, I replaced the FQ by a Filo A5 but continued to use the Monarch paper (I don’t remember how I did it (Compact?). Working in IT, I went through all the permutations of Palm, Psion, HP what have you but never paperless.

    This was about the yr. 2000.


    I`m retired now and there are not too many things that go into my calendar. My layout is now a page a week with notes. Most of my stuff is in iCloud and easily available.
    As a planner, I used a special format (well known in Deutschland): Loehn system with paper near A6 (87x150 mms)
    I still keep icalendar and paper calendar in sync.

    A good example of why you never reach planner peace, happened just now (I´m 70). For 2018, I got calendars for
    - Filo A5
    - Filo Kensington personal (Exatime 17)
    - Loehn, the two Filos „just in case“ (does it sound familiar?)

    Two weeks ago, I wanted to size down to a Filo Pocket format and got me a Pocket slim Nappa; the leather is as thick as the inserts - not really slim!
    No peace, then.
    But: I found a shop that sells old 4-ring Pocket slim sizes in Kid leather…..I have some papers left with the oblong holes and I went on to punch my calendar appropriately.

    I did not like the result - the 4 rins were a bit too thick - had I the Nappa 6-ring spine in the 4-ring folder - that would be nirvana. As you´d expect, it did not fit; the 6 ring thing is a bit longer (3,3 mms).
    BUT: Dremel helped here and I now proudly present…the 1990 4-ring Kid folder with a 2018 Pocket mechanic.

    You might have heard the story of a late king who lost his mind trying to synchronise his clock collection…that´s how I feel occasionally.

    So far to planner peace.
    Cheers,
    Franz

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  5. line 9 replace Monarch by Monticello paper

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  6. In a big picture sense, have found planner peace. By that I mean peace in terms of how I setup and organize a binder whether large or small.

    At a smaller scale, I still tinker a bit with specific inserts now and then.

    After struggling with what size binder to use at various times over quite a few years, I think I've finally come to terms with reality of what is the best option for work size-wise; either A5 or FC Classic. Even though I've been tempted at times to use Personal or FC Compact to save space and weight in my briefbag.

    Mark

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  7. I'm so pleased that so many of you have found your own version of 'Planner Peace'

    One solution will not fit all as I well know.

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