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Monday, July 4, 2011

Poll: What do you write in your planner?

I schedule pretty much everything. By "schedule" I mean write it into my day spaces on my planner, whether I actually assign a time to the task or not. I schedule not only appointments but also tasks, errands, recurring events, reminders, household cleaning, and anything else I can write into my day's space.

I need the reminders to stay on task. I've had many a Planner Fail due to too-small daily spaces that didn't allow me to write everything I need to do each day. I don't write things I do every day (for example, I don't write "shower" or "brush teeth" into my schedule) but just about everything else gets written.

There can be a downside to this, however. It's easy for me to feel overwhelmed with my day when I have a million things written into today's space. And by the middle of the week when my weekly pages are written edge to edge, it's hard to see what's going on in there and what I'm supposed to be doing.

In addition to appointments, tasks, and household routines I also use my planner for setting goals and recording progress. I set monthly and weekly goals, and record my monthly and mid-month reviews in my planner to keep track of my progress.

How much do you write in your planner? Do you write in appointments only? Do you track meal planning and household cleaning, but let errands and other tasks happen whenever they happen? Do you keep a task list completely separate from your planner? Do you micro-schedule your work day but let your home time be more free-form?

Please vote in the poll at the top of the sidebar!

5 comments:

  1. Hi Laurie!

    With the planner use and then the home vs. work, I needed option to pick multiple survey items!

    Also, on the one I picked I do meal planning but don't really keep household routines in there....yet. I'm going to add my Flylady routines into my planner from where they are now.

    Today is July 4th celebration day in U.S. - hopefully I'll get to the America routine post tomorrow. Have a great day.

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  2. It's hard to see below the poll but you CAN choose multiple options, so please choose as many as fit your situation!

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  3. I write most of what you have stated, appointments (I have very few), tasks, notes, chores, reminders, etc. With the FF, I write more specific notes behind subject tabs, so that is lessening the clutter on my diary pages (or giving me more room to ramble on ...)

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  4. I write tons of stuff in my planner. Goals, tasks, activities, schedules, lists (LOTS of lists), anything and everything. And now that I finally have my lovely new Black leather A5 Finsbury, I have enough space for all this STUFF which I couldn't fit inside my old Personal Filofax. It's going to be a *really* heavy item to lug around, and its going to be a challenge on evenings and at weekends for sure, but I really need to remember things, and the only way I can do that is to WRITE IT DOWN.

    Now the choice of what diary to use in 2012 begins....I'm very tempted to follow Steve Morton's example and invest in the day-per-page Filofax 'Time Management' refill - except that I'll almost certainly buy the weekly version as well, which will mean I can have 2-3 weeks of DPP, then 3-4 weeks of weeklies, before I go to the annual planner behind that. This mirrors the old Time Manager system which I so much liked back in the 80s and 90s.

    I've moved further and further towards wanting *everything8 in the diary section - lists held behind the diary section just either don't get referred to on a regular basis, or get lost. But I still like to have them for reference!

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  5. Hi Laurie,
    I just started using the Pocket version ot the 18 months planner and I intend to use it the same way as I am used the large version; meaning I schedule my appointments only in the daily slots on the left side and write down tasks for this particular week on the right.
    So far it works fine.
    I am thinking of using a different pocket notebook as my Inbox when I am on the road, simply because the 18 months pocket planner does not have so many blank pages at the back as the large version had; not yet sure though.

    I keep a seperate journal for my To-Do List (Work only) which is sorted by context, so each of my direct reports gets a slot, also my boss and the regular meetings I need to attend also.
    My project list starts from the back of the notebook and when both areas meet somewhere in the middle I set up a new one.

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