In my post about Planner Peace, I talked about the main challenge I was having in finding a planning system that worked for me, was that I was having a hard time bringing my work world and my personal life together. In my most recent post on Digital Planning, I also talked about my difficulty with needing everything to look perfect.
The first step for me to achieving planner peace was to find the perfect solution for work. Whatever it was it needed to be versatile, effortless, and I needed to make sure I wouldn’t get caught up on how it looked. After over two years of trying various planners and planning methods, I stomped over to the supply drawer at work and picked up a standard, five-subject notebook.
Why it Works
This work notebook has served me well for the past month and a half and there are a two reasons why.
Perfection. If you are anything like me, then you want your planners to go look as good as your artistic abilities will allow. As soon as one mistake is made it can feel mortifying and the anxiety that leads up to this moment can slow down your productivity and block your ability to focus. It important to let go of perfection, especially for your work planner
And I have let go of perfection to the point where I just use a huge, lined, Hilroy notebook to write out to-dos and reminders. It’s not pretty, it’s not aesthetically pleasing, but it gets the job done.
Versatility. The Hilroy notebook is great for this. Any notebook will do, just like the Bullet Journal System. Essentially, what I am doing is a stripped down version of the Bullet Journal. There is no index, no spreads, and no collections. Just a daily to-do list, with notes, and appointment reminders spread throughout. I can turn any page into whatever I want it do be, whenever I want. This is so powerful when you need to spontaneously write meeting notes, jot notes on a conversation, jot a fact down from a website, write a to-do, and everything else what can be done on lined paper.
How it Works
I use a bullet journal type key for the to-do lists, but there are no spreads in the book other than ‘dailies’. I write the date at the top of the page and go from there.
Every day I go through the previous pages with a highlighter and highlight anything I haven’t done yet or any reminders that are still relevant and ‘migrate’ them to the current page. This helps me make sure that nothing gets lost.
I use sticky notes occasionally as well, but it’s not wholly systematic. Sometimes I have a sticky note with me and not my book so I use that.
Other than that, I do use sticky notes for a particular purpose though. I will use sticky notes for personal notes when I don’t have my personal planner around or even out. At the end of the workday, I take any stickies that pertain to my personal life and stick them in my personal planner.
Have a dedicated space in your work planner for personal stuff and a dedicated space for work items in your personal planner. For me, my personal planner has space for work items. I use sticky notes for personal items, this makes them transferable and only in my work planner temporarily.
If I am at home, and a work to-do, reminder, or idea occurs to me there is a section of my personal planner dedicated to work to-dos. In the morning, when I get to work I transfer this information to my work planner, if it is relevant for that day. I’ll show what this looks like in my upcoming post about my current personal planner.
What I learned through this whole process is that in order to achieve planner peace you need to really sit down and reflect on your habits and how they affect your productivity.
Stay tuned for more! Until then, keep on keeping on!
By The Scales 