01 May 2020

Free For All Friday No 599 by Laurie

As is the case with many people lately, my employment situation changed recently. (My job I've had for 5+ years has stopped for now, hopefully temporarily, and I'm now helping my sister with her social media marketing business.)

Yet again I was glad for the flexibility of my Filofax system. I was able to take out the pages I no longer need, and add new pages as needed.

In my new role, the team uses ClickUp for project management. I've never used a project management app before and have only ever used paper for managing my tasks. When it was just me on a project, the system was linear: I did every part of the job and could see my progress and what needed to be done and when. I wrote a list of the steps and worked my way down the list until the project was done.

Now I am part of a team where each of us has tasks as distinct parts of the project's process. I like it, but I'm still getting used to the non-linear aspect of waiting for other people's parts to come in, which then sometimes have to be sent back for revision, before I am able to do my part then send it on for approval. I feel like there's no point in me writing down all of the steps because they change so quickly with other people working on them too.

I did quickly discover that I need to have all the post titles written into planning pages so I could see when each post was due to go live, at what time, and on which platform. That way no matter how many moving parts there were, I could make sure they were all in place before the deadline.

Of course I am still using my Filofax for all my other projects and tasks: personal, school (I volunteer in several roles), home, family, etc.

Does anyone else have experience combining digital project management with your Filofax? Any tips for me?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss anything Filofax related!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Laurie! So sorry to hear that your employment situation changed recently. I do hope your work resumes once the world begins to get back on its feet again.

    I am a Filofax user (well, specifically I use Filofax inserts in my beloved Kikki K binders) but I know what you mean about the adjustment to blending the personal planning of personal planners with the cloud and team-based power of project management systems. It can definitely be tricky to keep track of all the moving parts.

    In my work in marketing and copywriting, and I find that keeping track of my personal to-do's and the overall project deadlines in my paper planner helps me keep track of projects. That way, I can see if we are veering towards potentially being "off track" without needing to write down everyone else's due dates.

    Sometimes I use project management apps like Asana or notion for my personal tasks as well. I find that project management apps are the perfect place to house information about a project or task that I want to reference, but are perhaps too detailed or long-winded to include in my planner.

    I recently stumbled across an excellent app for my freelance work that I'd like to share with you. It is called 'paymo' and it is a bit like Quickbooks, mixed with project management tools if you subscribe to the premium package. It's excellent for me. I use it to track my time for projects, handle and record all of my invoices, and house all of my receipts and expenses. It's also got a nifty project management tool within there with checklists, calendars and gnatt charts. My paymo app and my ring bound planner are my essentials when it comes to getting work done. Check it out! Perhaps it could work for you, either now or in the future. Here is a link: https://www.paymoapp.com/

    Thanks for the blog post and wishing you good luck with all your work.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Libby, thank you so much for your kind words and the task management tips!

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  2. I took delivery of a rather lovely deep, tapestry fabric cosmetics travel case today, to store my practical stuff for my planner, hole punch, corner rounder, paper clips tin, etc etc. What kind of storage, or unusual use of storage do folks use I was wondering? The oval, deep make up travel case will be perfect for my non pen and pencil relted stuff I think!

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