Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Moleskine Pocket Weekly Planner layout - How to make the best use of it?
alxwz | Apr 20 2007
Some weeks ago I decided to jump on the "back to paper" bandwagon, and bought one of the last Moleskine 2007 Pocket Weekly Planners I could find. The layout has the week on the left pages with one lined page for notes on the right hand side next to each week. I like the week-at-a-glance layout and never felt I needed a two-page spread for one week in my calendar, so this seemed perfect. I read some ideas for weekly Pocket Moleskines that I wanted to adopt, like I came up with a really convoluted setup to use the planner for GTD (with some Covey-type prioritization thrown in) which tried to optimize the use of that cramped space. The general idea was to put appontments, deadlines and recurring tasks into a two-column-layout in the calendar on the left pages while putting a next actions list (with markup for contexts) and a separate errands list, both running from the top to the bottom, in another two-column layout on the right hand pages. From the bottom up I intended to write footnotes for the calendar items and a separate "Waiting for" list. "Someday/Maybe" items should go on the separate notes pages in the back. However, when I tried to put in the first weeks and the action lists, I realized that it's probably way too small for what I wanted. It might work if you don't have many appointments and, more importantly, not too many action items. So I'm back to the drawing board. It looks like I'll need an additional tool like a hPDA, and the combination has been discussed in this thread: http://board.43folders.com/showthread.php?t=307 But I still don't know what to use the notes pages in the Moleskine itself (for each week and in the back) for. They'll probably still be too small for meeting notes and wasted if I only put some random phone number in there every once in a while. Does anyone here use such a planner (or something similar in layout and size) and have any recommendations? 7 Comments
POSTED IN:
 mdl, thanks for your hints....Submitted by alxwz on April 20, 2007 - 12:02pm.
mdl, thanks for your hints. I've read a lot about Moleskine hacks (like PigPog PDA and others) and also appreciate your tips. I actually bought a regular (blank) Moleskine before this planner and was thinking about setting it up like those descriptions (but without calendar, I didn't feel like drawing a calendar). I didn't want to carry two Moleskines in addition to my wallet, cell phone and keys. After discarding the "Moleskine for lists and notetaking plus phone for address book and calendar" idea, I tried to go the other route and use a Moleskine Planner for calendar and notetaking (maybe w/ one or two additional index cards put into it) and only the address book in the phone. From what you wrote, you seem to mean two weaks on every two-page spread. I think this wouldn't suit me well. I still like the idea to have each week accompanied by a notes page. And I still don't really feel like drawing a calendar (and number all those days and weeks), even though it might be the best way to go. What I forgot in the original post is that in general, I don't want to use this system for work related items. I only want to put in my personal tasks and some mixed tasks (like "find new job"). This could help un-clutter the planner. My work is largely location-bound, so I don't have to carry around those actions (and that's also why I asked for opinions about the larger Planner Pads in another thread). At the moment I'm toying with an additional Hipster but European A7 cards are even smaller than US 3x5" cards, and the larger A6 cards aren't really pocketable any more. I wish there were something in between. BTW, what do you put on an "incubate" list? Is this like "someday/maybe" or "waiting for" or something different? @ Anthony: Thanks for your reply, too. » POSTED IN:
|
|
| EXPLORE 43Folders | THE GOOD STUFF |
