2013 Dodo Planner Calendar

Dodo Pad has a new monthly calendar! The Dodo Planner Calendar is a brand-new product for Dodo Pad, and I'm very excited to review it!

There is a handy forward planner for next year, and spaces to write important numbers:

This is a vertical monthly calendar with five columns for different people in your family, or categories such as work/ school etc.

There's also Notes space to write important reminders, which is very handy.

Each monthly spread has Dodo art, humor, facts and dates of interest. Holidays for the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and moon phases are printed on the day spaces.

This is a very large wall calendar. Open it measures approximately 2 feet/ 60 cm long. The spaces are plenty big for writing in what each person is doing each day.  In fact the daily spaces are big enough to use the Dodo Save The Day reminder stickers.

If you would like to keep a pen or pencil with the calendar at all times you can stick on a Pen Loop (in your choice of color).

Many thanks to Dodo Pad for sending me this calendar as a sample to review! It is an excellent addition to the Dodo Pad lineup.

Poll result follow-up: Using more than one planner

Something that surprised me in the comments on the last poll was how many people use more than one planner at the same time. Many people use a large planner that stays at home or work, and a smaller planner that goes everywhere with them.

One of those people is Mstraat, who gave us lots of excellent views of how she uses her Moleskine Taskmaster at work. This one stays at work, and she carries a smaller planner with her.

I also see often over on Philofaxy that many people use an A5 Filofax at work, and carry a smaller Filofax with them everywhere.

I use two planners at once: a weekly where I do all my forward planning, and a pocket daily where I plan and record today. Because my weekly is only for future and my daily is only for today, I don't have to write everything back and forth in both planners, I only write today's appointments into my daily. Sometimes I carry my weekly with me, but I always carry my daily.

Do you use more than one planner at the same time? If so, how do you designate what you write in which planner? Do you have to "synch" them often, or is there little overlap?

Please leave a comment!

Poll Result, and loving your planner

I was very surprised by the results of the poll Do You Carry Your Planner With You?  The vast majority of people do carry their planner everywhere!

Here are the numbers:

Do you carry your planner with you everywhere?

163 votes

Yes, I carry my planner with me everywhere.	112 (68%)
I only carry my planner when I know I'll need it for appointments.	35 (21%)
No, my planner stays at home/ work.	16 (9%)

In the poll post, I said I only carry my planner when I know I'll need it to make an appointment. But I meant my actual planner, my weekly, which is where I schedule appointments. I do carry my pocket daily Moleskine diary everywhere, which is actually my daily log book. So according to my own rules, I would have voted that my planner does go everywhere with me.

When you carry a planner with you everywhere, it tends to record loads of details. This becomes a valuable and interesting record of your days, and a handy reference for information on the go. My daily pocket diary is the landing spot for all those little details each day.

Also, when your planner becomes your constant faithful companion, many people become very attached to them. I often see on Philofaxy how people even bring their Filofax to bed with them! For many people, their planner is consulted first thing in the morning, often throughout the day, and the last thing at night.

Because their planner is always with them, it's also a handy place for people to stick in receipts, tickets, cards, notes, pictures, quotes and more.

Do you love your planner? What do you love about it? And, what types of things do you stick/ put into it?

Guest post: Jotje's Review of the Weekly Family Planner and Family Life Book by Organised Mum

Many thanks to Jotje (from We Really Didn't Need Another Filofax Blog!) for these excellent reviews of the Family Weekly Planner and Family Life Book from Organised Mum!

When Laurie heard that I had bought this year’s Weekly Family Planner and Family Life Book she asked if I would do a review for her blog. I’m of course most honoured to do so!

This is the first time I bought a Family Life Book. However, I am using the Weekly Family Planner for the 5^th year now. This is a wall calendar that I hung on the side of my kitchen cabinet, so that every family member can have a view of the current week.

We have 4 kids, and every family member has his/her own column!

The best – award-deserving feature: a clear flyleaf,  where I write everybody’s name and all fixed schedules. This saves a trillion hours per year on rewriting the same stuff over and over again. I swear!

The planner is supplied with a small black dry-erase marker that is clipped on the planner itself. The quality is outstanding: Even after a full year of use, it is not empty! The felt-tip is small enough to write in the boxes, and best of all: it’s usable on the plastic sheet, but also on the paper pages!

On the left are (detachable) sheets for Todo’s and Shopping. I don’t use these, unless my Filofax is not at hand. Then I scribble what I have run out of on the shopping-list, or a reminder for DH on what he needs to do.

In the very back of the Weekly Family Planner is a huge and very strong and durable paper pouch, that usually gets a bit overstuffed with all the classroom-lists, garbage pickup-schedules, stickers, booklets etc.etc. I must say, it is soooo superstrong that it never ever has ripped! Fantastic quality!

Our family honestly could not function without this planner. I have no idea how I coped before!

Now over to the Family Life Book

You will find that the Family Life Book has a lot of similar features as the Life Book, with some great differences. But let me start at the beginning.

Here is the book with the paper slip still wrapped around it. As you can see the book can be closed with a purple ribbon:

And here without the paper wrap (and the ribbon pushed towards the back):

The backside of book:

Upon opening the Family Life Book you’ll find the same Personal Info page that the Life Book has:

Next are two pages where you can fill in the weekly schedules of up to 7 (!) people. It is subdivided into AM, PM, After school and Evening. Superb!

Then you have a yearly overview of 2012 and 2013. The planner lasts from Mid-August 2012 until the end of 2013.

Personally, I wouldn’t know how to use these tiny boxes. The only thing I can think of is highlighting holidays/vacations?

Excuse the blurry picture below. It shows Useful Numbers on the left and a birdseye view of 2012 and 2013 on the right:

And here – finally – the essence of the book: the weekly spreads. As you can see the week has a grid layout, allowing for a complete columns for up to 7 people. Ideal for our family of 6!

Additionally there is a column for your meal plans and a column for weekly Todo’s and reminders for Next week.

When all 4 of my kids have a different schedule or playdates on the same day, and I also have to record my own appointment and work times of DH, a weekly diary tends to get messy and I loose the total overview. With these boxes, this is no longer an issue!

Closeup of the weekly view:

After the weekly pages there is a separate tab for the monthly planning pages:

On the first page you can fill in your regular expenditures to keep track of your budget:

Then you have a page to record the Todo’s for the month September, followed by a record of your income and outgoings in September:

Next: Monthly layout of October, Todo October, Incomes/Outgoings October and so on.

Personally I’m very bothered by the fact that the monthly overview is one time on the left, then next month on the right. Bugging! Also, I would have LOVED LOVED LOVED a two-page spread of the months (like the Life Book has (see Laurie's post with page by page photos of the Life Book here) …

In December we get to my favourite part: the Christmas & Holiday planning pages:

First you’ll have a whole page for all your Christmas plans, which is great for outlining your general plans.

Then a page for your Christmas budget. On the right page you have a list for Christmas cards. Invaluable! First write down whom you want to send a Christmas card, then check the box after you have done so.    

Next is the Christmas Presents list. I advice to use that list throughout the year, so that you’ll already have lots of idea’s (or maybe even have done the shopping) when it’s actually Christmas!

Then there’s the Summer Holiday Planner, that Laurie already described in her review of the Life Book.

And finally in this section: two pages to record thoughts and plans for 2013 and two pages for 2014.

Unlike the Life Book, the Family Life Book does not have the detachable shopping lists in the weekly pages. Those are located behind their own tab. 

Three perforated lists per page, plenty of pages, that will surely last for the duration of your Calendar!

Finally a birdseye view of 2014 and 2015:

In the picture below I am holding the two repositionable clear dividers to indicate your week/month or whatever page you’d like. They have top tabs. A very nice feature is that you can write on these dividers with a dry-erase-marker (e.g. for the weekly schedule of your kids) which saves re-writing time. Downside (in my personal view): you’ll have to turn the divider first before you can add something on your pages.  

In the back of the book is a little paper pocket that holds the stickers that are supplied with the diary, and a little address book, that you could then transfer to the following year. Good thinking!

Pages in the address book:

Very nice and useful stickers!

This year I also ordered a package of household stickers to mark the ever-changing pick-up days for dustbin, garden waste, paper and plastic …

The paper quality is fantastic, too. Heavy paper, that accepts all kinds of pens without bleed-through. This year’s paper seems to be thicker than last year’s even! I haven’t seen a mention of this on their website, so I hope I’m not imagining things …

Of course you might wonder, how I – being a One Life, One Filofax kind of gal, am using this? Well, to be honest: I have already dismantled the wire and repunched the weekly pages (plus lots of the others aswell) for my A5 Filofax. Size-wise it’s a perfect fit! I’m very happy about this, and can’t wait to put it into action. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before …!

Mid-year evaluation

Now that we're in the second half of the year, it's time to evaluate.

One thing to determine is how well your planner setup is working for you. If you are having Planner Fail, now is a good time to get a new planner. 18 month planners have already started, and academic-year planners will start next month so you don't have to be stuck with a planner that's not working for you.

It's also time to evaluate your annual goals and see what progress you've made and what still needs to be done. Are you where you expected you'd be by this time of the year? If not, what has been hampering your progress so far? Think of ways to get around roadblocks, and adjust your goals to get as much done by the end of the year (or your designated deadlines) as possible.

I'm happy to report that my mid-year planner evaluation is all good! My self-drawn planner is still working spectacularly well for me, even through the busy end of the school year and the upheaval of my move. The vertical weekly format with space for notes keeps my schedule and tasks organized, the monthly calendars with monthly notes pages help me plan ahead, and the goals pages have kept me on track all year. I'll have images ready for you to see soon!

How are you doing so far? Do you need some tweaks, a total overhaul, or are you rolling along well?

New Poll: Do You Carry Your Planner With You?

I'm very curious to find out if most people carry their planner with them all the time, only when they know they'll need it, or if their planner stays at work/ home.

I used to carry my planner everywhere with me all the time, but now that I'm walking more I tend to only bring it when I expect I'll need it.

What about you? Please vote in the poll in the sidebar!

Edited to add: If you use more than one planner, and you carry at least one of them with you all the time or part of the time, please vote according to the one you carry. Thanks!

Sorry for the typo in the poll's title!

Organised Mum Diary Stand, Pen Loop and 2013 Life Book Diary

I've had my eye on the Organised Mum diary stand for a loooong time, but while I was living in Indonesia I wasn't able to have it delivered due to my mail restrictions.

Now that I'm in the UK, I treated myself to it, and it's even better than I expected!!

I ripped the label off in my excitement, but here you can see it explain the sustainable source of the wood.

It holds my new Life Book diary beautifully!

It holds the book in a smaller footprint than if the book were lying on the counter by itself, not to mention it's up where the pages are visible, and it's protected from any sticky messiness that's likely to be on my countertop.

It also holds my Filofax perfectly!  (It would also easily hold an A5 Filofax.)

And I plan to use it to hold up my cookbook so I can see and follow recipes easily.  The stand is lightweight and easy to move around.  It comes flat-packed with minimal assembly.  (Pop off the black rubber feet from the metal ends, push the ends through the lined holes in the wood, then pop the black rubber feet back on.)

This is the third year in a row I've bought the Organised Mum Life Book diary, because I love the budgeting, meal planning and holiday planning features. The features of the 2013 Life Book diary are the same this year as last year, click here to see my review of the 2012 Life Book diary with loads of photos of pages and features.

I'll use this diary to record monthly totals in the Budget pages to keep my budget on track. In the monthly To Do and Notes pages I'll list household maintenance that needs to be done each month.

 

On the weekly pages I'll write cleaning schedules and plan dinner menus.

Edited to add: I'm really happy that the seasonal decorations on the weekly and monthly pages are back! Leaf for autumn, snowflake for winter etc. The design is subtle and very pretty!

I love the new font this year, the cover design and the contrasting red elastic closure!

I also bought the Pen Loop, which is actually from Leuchtturm 1917. You can stick it on anywhere you want. I'll stick mine on the inside edge of the front cover, so I can still slip the back cover into my purple diary cover I bought last year.

I also bought the Household Stickers and the School stickers. The Life Book diary comes with General Stickers, which I bought extras of last year.

I look forward to using this diary to manage my household, chores, bills and meal planning!