What has your planner done for you?

My planner has allowed me to organise my days productively. I am now able to get more things done, the things I want to do and also the things I have been avoiding. It has helped me to menu plan and shop without waste, keep track of my health issues, organise a cleaning schedule, gather my thoughts, achieve movement towards my goals and carry out my yearly, weekly and daily tasks. My ideas can be brought to fruition or ruled out completely. My planner stores information which can be accessed easily using simple systems to make sure nothing is overlooked. My planner is constantly evolving in response to improved efficiency so making my life more productive.

What has your planner done for you?

Happy Planning.

Hole punches for my DIY Filofax pages

Making DIY pages for my Filofax meant punching my own holes in the paper. My first hole punching tool was this single hole punch which I found in our office. It worked but I always had to mark where the holes were to go by laying over another sheet that had the holes already punched. It was very time consuming to do this but I did until ...

I saw on a Y Tube video a way to punch single holes with an ordinary hole punch. Brilliant but still time consuming until ...

I read about this punch and saw one for sale on Ebay. I paid £25 for this new punch and it's worth every penny. It punches holes for mini, pocket and personal sized pages.

The adjustments are made at the back of the punch by simply moving the springy posts. It's so quick and easy to punch correctly spaced holes now. 

Unfortunately it did not punch holes for A4 Filofaxes which have just 4 holes. Each pair of holes can be punched separately with a normal hole punch but it meant lining up with another sheet of paper and was very fiddly until ...

I found this giant at a Car Boot Sale which punched 4 holes. 

It looks like a pair of 'conjoined' normal hole punches and works a treat for punching the correctly spaced holes for the A4 pages. A bargain at £2.

Happy Planning.

Habit Tracking

I use a few systems in my Filofax to help me make and track habits. One of the first habits I wanted to make sure I was doing was drinking enough water throughout the day. Many people put a water tracker on their daily page, which consists of an outline of 8 glasses or just a rectangle of 8 squares, and then colour in a square or glass for each 250ml of water drunk that day. By the end of the day the recommended 2 litres of water should have been consumed. Easy to tell when all the squares are coloured. Once I knew that I was regularly colouring in 8 squares I saw no need to track this habit as it had become part of my day - no point in tracking what I was already doing.

Setting up a cleaning system in my organiser enabled me to tidy and clean all areas of my home and then keep them that way. Once this habit of cleaning and tidying was regular then the prompts in my diary did not need to be there. Habit learned and in progress so no need to record anything. (My first cleaning system can be seen here.)

At the moment I'm trying to lose a little weight so again a system has been set up in my mini Filofax to enable me to get into the habit of eating to lose weight. Once the required weight has been achieved I shall alter this system so that I maintain that weight and don't go over. Again when all this becomes a regular habit I shall have no need to record any information and that tracking will cease. (Please click on the 'diet and weightless planner' label for more information.)

So my Filofaxes are used to help me form a habit, maintain a habit and then the tracking stops. (Please click on the 'tracking' label for more information.)

Thoughts on Planner Peace

I'm sure Planner Peace is different for each person who uses a planner. Here are my thoughts in no particular order.

Planner Peace

5 different perspectives

1. When a planner works for you. Your days run smoothly and are productive with both work, rest and play at optimum levels.

2. When the planner you have wanted for ages is now in your hands.

3. When you've completed a section of your  planner collection e.g. all the colours of a certain type of planner, all the sizes of a certain type of planner, one of each size of a certain type of planner …..

4. When a planner makes you feel as though you want to carry it around with you all the time.

5. When all your planners are being used and all improve or enhance your life.

BUT

1. Life changes and so too does the planner so new systems have to be worked out.

2. Once you've got the planner you wanted there's always the next one on the horizon and so the collection grows and the searches and researches continue.

3. Once you have a collection of a certain type then the mind begins to want another collection of a different type. The grass is always greener on the other side.

4. Familiarity breeds contempt and a change is as good as a rest.

5. Many people have multiple planners which they don't use.

So, is there such a thing as Planner Peace?

My conclusion is yes and no. Yes for a short time and no, because we are all creative and want to keep acquiring planners and inventing systems for our planners. Once something works then it's only natural that we want to improve on that enabling our planning systems to evolve and improve.

Planner Peace? Are all your planners making you happy and content? Which numbers apply to you and your planners?

Happy Planning.

Getting Things Done in a Filofax

Here is how I GTD in my Filofax. The basic GTD system can be viewed here.

1. Collect

My Inboxes are my Bullet Journal Brain Dump (Pocket Malden in Ochre) and my Out and About wallet (Mini Raspberry Finsbury) plus any larger papers are put in an inbox by the side of my computer.

2. Organise

From all the jottings in the above I do the following:-

a. Schedule from the BD into my monthly, weekly or daily pages of my personal Filofax (Personal Malden).

b. Do the task straight away or the same day.

c. Put in my A-Z binder (under Master To Do, Information, Ideas, Projects) which is reviewed monthly and updated or scheduled as tasks in the Personal day to day Filofax or the Hobbies, Travel, Recipes or Wallet Filofaxes. 

d. Trash

Here's an example of one of my entries in my Brain Dump.

Paint fences

This was put on my Monthly To Do sheet as a yearly task to do in Spring. A Monthly To Do sheet always follows my Monthly vertically laid out page. Monthly Tasks that don't occur every year are on the back of the Monthly page.

I'm pleased to say that all the garden fences were painted in wood stain by the end of May. Mind you, I worked flat out at it as the end of the month drew nearer. Yeah! The system works.

Happy Planning.

Yearly and Monthly Pages

My yearly pages just hold the dates of birthdays and anniversaries. Any other dates are put on my Monthly Pages. My Monthly Page is just a vertically laid out list of dates on lined paper. I write in the days and dates. Birthdays, anniversaries and important dates and appointments are written on this page. Any gaps are filled in with something I've done that day. I shall keep all these monthly pages and ditch the weekly pages at the end of the year.

On the reverse of the page is a To Do list for that month with things I want to achieve and things that need to be done in that specific month every year. The Monthly recurring tasks are listed on the opposite page and added to as the month progresses. I aim to have eventually a complete Monthly recurring task list but I feel it will take time to achieve. I have tried a two page monthly spread with boxes but kept coming back to a list view. There's no decoration and it's purely functional as I want a planner that is quick and easy to use and one which enables maximum productivity with minimal stress.

Happy Planning

Pilot Frixion Pens

These eight Pilot Frixion pens cost me £11.50 including postage from Ebay. I have been using Pilot Frixions in black as my pen of choice for all my planners. With these pens I can rub out my writing if necessary without making my pages looking a mess. My black pens came from B&M Bargains with 2 for £3.99, I think so these colours are way cheaper and they come all the way from Japan. I shall enjoy using them.

Happy Planning.