Prepping my 2010 Planner
At this time of year, we are all thinking about the new year, with the more organised thinking about staying organised in the new year, possibly with the help of a planner of some sort.
While most people have migrated to an electronic planner, there are some who still like a paper planner. I use both. For the electronic, I use two – on my computer, it’s an awesome software called Evernote, while away from the computer, there’s my Palm TX. I’ll be writing a post about Evernote, but for this post, I want to talk about my paper planner, particularly about preparing my 2010 paper planner.
Why do I need to prepare my 2010 planner? After all, there are lots of ready-made planners available. Well, I’ve yet to find a ready-made planner that meets my needs. If it’s the right size, the layout is wrong. If the layout is right, the size is not.
Last year, I received a Space 17 planner as part of the Quo Vadis offer in return for writing a review. There were various planners, in different sizes and featuring different layouts, and I chose Space 17 for its weekly + note page layout.
In the end, I didn’t use the Space 17 planner at all – it was a case of right layout but wrong size. The Space 17 is a weekly pocket planner, which is too small – almost tiny – for my large handwriting. As a result, I didn’t write a review as I was supposed to. Actually, as soon as I held the Space 17 in my hand, I knew I wouldn’t be using it, but I would write the review as promised. But I soon realised that I couldn’t write a review of something I don’t use. So I never wrote the Space 17 review, but have been given a second chance. Read on.
So, with no ready-made planner offering the right size and right layout, I have been making my own home-made planner for a few years now. Since 2006, I have been making them from Moleskine notebooks, but for 2010, I will be using a large Quo Vadis Habana, once again sent to me by Ms Karen Doherty, Vice President, Marketing, Exaclair, Inc (exclusive US distributor of Clairefontaine, Exacompta, Rhodia, Quo Vadis, G Lalo, Brause, J Herbin and Decopatch products), who sent me the Space 17 planner, and is giving me the second chance I wrote about earlier.
Quo Vadis Habana
When I received the Habana, I was so excited I took a picture of it, shrinkwrap and all.
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Details:
* Lined
* Round corners
* Elastic closure
* Pocket insert
* 80 sheets
* 6″ x 9″
* Premium “Clairefontaine” 90g paper
The shrinkwrap has since come off, and I’ve fallen in love with the Clairefontaine paper. But I’ve also found three possible disadvantages to the Habana.
The non-slip cover is really non-slip. This means I can’t nudge the Habana to one side to make room for something on the desktop. Not at all. It’s 100% non-slip. That’s supposed to be good, as it won’t slip and slide away. I wish it were less non-slip. Maybe with regular use, the non-slip might wear off? I’ll report back on this later next year.
The space between the lines is big – 8mm compared to 6mm in the large Moleskine. This means only 25 lines per page against 30 lines in the large Moleskine. And the Habana is bigger, too, so there should be more lines to the page. It’s a disadvantage, and I wouln’t mind have more lines to the page, but it’s not a major disadvantage; I can live with it.
The Habana only has 80 sheets (160 pages), compared to 120 sheets (240 pages) in the large Moleskine. My usual home-made planner has 4 sections – quarterly (4 pages), monthly (13 pages – current year plus 1st month of following year), weekly (104 pages – 2 pages per week), and notes (balance of pages). There are also the various divider pages. On the 240-page large Moleskine, I have about 90 pages for notes. On the 160-page Habana, it would only be about 40 pages. This might put the Habana at a disadvantage, but precisely because it’s going to be a home-made planner, the layout is flexible, and I will be tweaking the past year’s layout to get as many notes pages as I can.
Planner Sections (Current)
Quarterly
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Monthly
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Weekly
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2010 Planner Sections
There will be two changes in the layout for my 2010 planner.
There won’t be a quarterly section. This is the least used feature since I stopped working 9-to-5. My current work-from-home set-up doesn’t seem to require a quarterly overview (hence, the empty spaces in the above picture of the quarterly section).
The weekly section will feature the same layout as the Space 17′s – week on the left page and notes on the right. This was a layout I used when I was working, but had forgotten about until I saw the one in Space 17.
This layout will actually give me more notes pages. Another advantage is that the notes will be next to their respective week.
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So, that’s the planned layout for my 2010 planner. I haven’t made them yet, but I expect to do so soon, at least before the end of this year.
I will be following up on how I use the Quo Vadis Habana for my 2010 planner throughout the year.
Note – as the pictures show, I haven’t really been using my paper planner. It’s one thing to plan and to have a planner, it’s another thing to actually use the planner to plan! I’m hoping my 2010 planner will help me to be more oganised and to really use the planner. It looks promising – I’m looking forward to writing on the Clairefontaine paper (which is smoother and classier than the Moleskine … but I’m digressing).
