Planning seasonally or quarterly instead of annually?

Today I ran across this article about a book called The 12-Week Year. I haven't read the book (and haven't decided yet if I will bother to) but the concept is interesting: focusing on goals 12 weeks at a time instead of 12 months at a time.

I like the idea of focusing on different priorities at different times of the year. This makes sense in places where there are large seasonal variations. Where I live, there are about 6 hours of daylight in the winter and 20 in the summer, so of course we are much more active outdoors during the months when we have more daylight. We have learned to go with the seasonal flow: long summer days are spent outside a lot; during dark winter days we keep busy in other ways.

Seasons aren't the only reasons to focus on different things at different times of the year. Academic schedules, production and sales cycles, sport events training, and lots of other things have different intensities of activities at different times of the year. It makes sense to focus on these schedules in themselves rather than plot out an entire year at once.

Something similar is the 120 day challenge, where people focus on one main goal for only 120 days. This makes many things easier to do. Running every day, giving up wheat or sugar, or other lifestyle-change goals are easier when you don't think of having to do it forever. 120 days is do-able, and is a long enough period of time to see some results. After that you can decide whether to continue or not, or to focus on a different goal.

This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. I use up a notebook as my Bullet Journal every 3-4 months, which allows me to focus on that period of time more closely than if I were trying to encompass the entire year at once. And anyway it's hard to think and plan past the next few months because plans and situations change. I spent a lot of years trying to plan as far in the future as I could. Now it feels good to focus on the shorter term.

Have you read the book The 12-Week Year, or something like it? Have you done a 120 day challenge? Do you focus on certain goals in bursts, or at different times of the year?

Free For All Friday No. 33: Tidy or Messy?

My planner is a mess. But I don't mind. My handwriting is scrawly, I don't decorate, heck I don't even keep my writing between the lines. When plans change I scribble them out or, if I really need the space, white it out with correction fluid. I arrow tasks over to the next day, check off, circle, write over. I use different colors of pen for no apparent reason (it was the one within reach at the time). The pages end up looking like an organic reflection of my life in general: appearances aren't important to me, but functionality is.

I admire people's tidy planner pages with gorgeous handwriting and decorated borders, but I don't function that way myself.

Do you like your planner to be tidy? Or is yours a mess like mine?

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

Free For All Friday No 32: See where the day takes you

I came across an interesting phrase the other day. Someone said they like to "see where the day takes me."  It made me realize I almost never do that anymore. Like the good little planning person all the productivity articles tell me to be, I plan out each day in a fair amount of detail to make sure I will be Productive, because Productivity is the Goal. Or is it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to throw my planner in the river and go skipping along on my way to chaos (which is where I would be without my planner).

But it did make me think, I don't do that nearly often enough. Sometimes I need to just go along in my day without worrying too much about what I Should Be Doing at every moment, and just see where the day takes me.

Do you ever do that?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss and/or ask anything planner related!

Free For All Friday No. 31: What type(s) of planner could you not ever use?

What planner type(s) do you know would not ever work for you? Or that you have tried (maybe more than once) and it fails disastrously every time?

For me, it's day per page planners. I've tried so many times to use them as my planner, because I love the level of detail I can capture on each day's page. But the lack of forward planning leaves me "lost in a sea of individual days" as I call it. When I use a day per page planner, I also have to use a weekly planner for forward planning.

I know people who need the flexibility of ring binders, and bound planners would just not work for them. I also know people who can only use bound planners, because they hate writing around rings and they tend to lose unbound pages. As another example, I have a friend who has five kids, and she has to use a monthly planner. Anything with a shorter range does not give her the ability to plan ahead like she needs.

Which planner type(s) could never work for you?

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

Roll call! Which planner format(s) are you using now?

I can't keep track of who's using what. Heck, sometimes I can't keep track of what I'm using myself! I know I must have a weekly planner, but I'm still on the fence as to whether to stay with my notebook as my daily record, or go back to a dated day per page diary to record each day. I like both, for opposite reasons.

What are you using now? And is it the same format as what you started this year with?

Free For All Friday No. 30: Your planner, clean and pristine or well-used = well-loved?

Some people like to keep their planners looking like new as long as they can. And I definitely agree that some planners/ binders look best when they are unblemished.

But there's a lot to be said for a well-used planner that's a bit tattered and marked. It looks like it's had a good life!

What about you? Do you prefer your planner to stay relatively pristine? Or does a well-loved planner show signs of use?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss and/ or ask anything planner-related!

Hungarian planners and calendars from Global Office Solutions

Here are a whole bunch of awesome planners and calendars from Global Office Solutions in Budapest! As usual with me, there's a backstory.

Recently on Facebook I saw someone's photo of shelves of beautiful planners and of course I had to know where the shop was! Turns out it was the Global Office Solutions shop in Budapest, Hungary. I was even more interested then, because I've been to Budapest several times and love it! (If you've never been there, you must go! Awesome place.)

Long story short, the owner of the shop very kindly replied to my questions on FB and directed me to their website, where I was dazzled by the array of planners! Check them out at www.goss.hu.

Also DON'T MISS their Filofax retail website, they have tons of Filofax organizers and lots of discontinued ones so if you are looking for a discontinued Filofax, look at MyFilofax.hu!

Global Office Solutions and My Filofax ship internationally. You can check your currency exchange rate compared to Hungarian Forints at XE.com or any similar website, but remember the actual exchange rate for your order is set by your credit card company.

I hear you, shut up and show us some photos! So after I looked through all their planner photos, I fell in LOVE with this one: the Nebraska A5 day per page diary in purple (Lila).

I crazy-love this diary. You know how I get with planners, especially day-per-page ones. I love this one.

I actually took some time deciding which color to get, because this soft-touch Nebraska cover comes in several beautiful colors. I considered burgundy, tan and blue. Then I thought, who am I kidding? Of course I have to go for the purple one!

This planner has so many features I love. The first page has a Happy New Year message that is a really nice touch.

There are annual planners, which I really like.

I love maps! This planner has a map of Budapest:

And of Hungary:

There is a handy chart of public holidays for lots of countries in Europe and elsewhere including the US and Canada:

The day per page format has timed lines for each day, with Saturday and Sunday sharing a page vertically.

The days of the week and the months are printed in Hungarian, English and German. If you are learning a language, it's really useful to have a planner in that language (which I have done before). I'm fascinated by the Hungarian language because there's no other language like it. From what I have read, the closest-related language to it is Finnish, which is baffling because Finland is so far away from Hungary!

Moon phases (new, full and quarters) are indicated on the days. The daily pages also have sunrise and sunset times for Budapest, which is a great feature. I wish I could find a diary with my local sunrise and sunset times for every day!

There is open space at the top of the pages to write important events, and more open space at the bottom of each page for notes along with monthly calendars of the current and next month.

The grey and red print on the cream pages looks great and is very pleasant to look at. I'm really picky about the appearance of planner pages, because it's something you look at all day every day so it must look nice! I really like these pages.

There are tear-off corner tabs and a ribbon placemarker so you can choose how to mark your current day. (I use the ribbon placemarker.)

At the back of the book there are 21 pages for notes! They are alphabetized but without any formatting or designations, just lines, so you can use the pages however you want. You could use them for contacts, or for other alphabetized purposes like C for car maintenance record, M for medical information, etc. Or you can easily ignore the letters and use the pages for general notes.

It's a wonderful diary with a hard, padded cover and soft-to-touch leather-like material. I weighed this diary at 480g, which is noticeably lighter than other A5 size day per page diaries I own (some of which weigh more than 580g!)

They have a huge selection of A5 daily planners so you're sure to find one you'll love! They also have a great selection of vertical weekly planners in the larger B5 size.

When I ordered this diary I emailed the owner of the shop to ask permission to show photos of it and got a very positive response, along with a fantastic surprise when my package arrived! Lots of goodies!

This handy pocket weekly planner was included, with a hard cover and excellent weekly format:

This planner has white paper and tear-off corners, and an easy to use timed weekly layout with the days of the week and months in Hungarian, English and German.

Also included were a whole bunch of awesome calendars! I had mentioned in my email that I love Hungarian food so there are two calendars with traditional Hungarian recipes (large wall and weekly desk), a gorgeous weekly desk calendar of Hungary, a National Parks calendar and a Coffee calendar. What a great spread!

I love the weekly photos in the Hungary desk planner.

It stands up on the desk and has a vertical weekly layout and a new photo each week. The days of the week are in Hungarian, English and German, and moon phases are indicated on the days. I love it!

The National Parks calendar has beautiful photos each month and a multi-language format.

The National Parks and Coffee calendars each have a full page of stickers!

With these calendars and diaries I'll learn my days of the week and months in Hungarian, and when I get really ambitious I'll translate the recipes! Already just from using the website I've learned some colors like purple (lila) and blue (kek) and the word for daily (napi). The more ways you interact with a language, the faster you'll learn it.

Even if you're not planning to learn Hungarian, I highly recommend these diaries and calendars and I found the website very easy to use.

Huge thanks to Global Office Solutions for kindly including the bonus weekly planner and calendars!

And if you are ever in Budapest (a place you definitely should go!) be sure to visit the Global Office Solutions shop and check out their entire range of planners, diaries, Filofax organizers and inserts!