More than a planner
It only took 50 days (all of January and 19 days of February), but I finally figured out what to do with the “Notes” section of my home-made 2010 planner (a “converted” large Quo Vadis Habana notebook).
There was a slight problem with using that section. Well, two, actually. The first – its smooth white pages were too nice to be written on – has been solved. It was the second that took the previously mentioned 50 days to figure out.
After allocating pages for the dividers, monthly and weekly sections, the planner only has 10 sheets or 20 pages for the “Notes” section. My previous planners (Moleskine) had 90 pages which I never filled up. Now that I only have 20 pages in my 2010 planner, I didn’t want to waste them with to-do lists, etc.
After solving the first problem, I’d actually written in the “Notes” section. So far, I’ve written on three pages – one page of notes from a particular “Every Day With Jesus” reading, one page of my 2010 “big rocks” and less than half a page of (two) quotable quotes.
Yesterday, while going through … can’t remember if it was a blog on my Google Reader or a twitter link – I came upon a post about printing and making a small goals booklet to go in the wallet. I printed it out but couldn’t get it to fold as per instructions. It was while looking at the various pages that I realised what I could do with my 2010 planner’s “Notes” section.
I would use the “Notes” pages for each of the goal areas from the booklet. More than that, I would use a 2-page spread for each goal area.
The booklet has five defined goal pages for “Education & Training”, “Family & Relationship”, “Financial”, “Health & Fitness”, “Recreation & Leisure”, and a blank page to be filled in with a goal of the user’s choice. I decided to use it for “Writing”. There was, however, something missing from the booklet. What about “Work”? So I added a seventh for “Work” – this might apply more for freelancers who need to set goals for adding more clients and projects.
So there was my “Notes” section mostly filled.
The layout of the booklet gave me another idea. Instead of just writing out the goal areas at the top of their designated pages, I decided to paste their respective page layouts from the booklet. This would give a little colour to the pages, too.
I decided to start from the back, so that the left-over blank pages would continue from the last (half-filled) written page. I counted off the pages, and then encountered another problem – which goal area goes first? Whichever I chose, it would imply a hierarchy of importance. To save myself the headache, I decide to put them in alphabetical order. Problem solved.
Here’s the page for my “Recreation & Leisure” goal page:
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Right off the top of my head, I have three goals for this page, all of them travel related. I’m already fulfilling the first goal – I’ll be going to the Bifengxia Panda Base in early March. *big grin*
Besides writing down the goals, I plan to write down the progress of meeting those goals. Which would make the “Notes” section a log of sorts.
And there we have it – my 2010 planner complete with planner in front and progress log at the back.
Mission accomplished. Now to use the planner efficiently and effectively for the rest of the year.
