New work diary

Hmm. I was supposed to be writing letters this morning. But then I got distracted. As you do.

I was looking at my work diary and contemplating what I would use next year. I had five potential options:

1. Quo Vadis Timer 21 Planning
2. Quo Vadis Timer 21 Prestige
3. Mulberry diary
4. One of the Philofaxy range
5. Make my own

I’m quite fussy about my diary and each of the diary formats had their pros and cons.

Quo Vadis Timer 21 Planning

(screenshot from Amazon.fr)

This isn’t bad as a format, though I don’t especially like the task space being designated into calls etc. I also have no major need for Saturday or Sunday to have much space and the big Saturday, small Sunday just annoyed me.

Quo Vadis Timer 21 Prestige

(screenshot from Amazon.fr)

I really liked this one, especially for that real estate on the right-hand-side which made it almost into a vertical week plus notes format. However, that made the width of the columns quite narrow and I also didn’t need all that evening space as this was a work diary.

Mulberry diary

(screenshot from Mulberry.com)

Beautiful, simple layout. Very clean and uncluttered. I would quite like a bit more note space however.

One of the Philofaxy range

The vertical week on two pages was one I had been considering and had in fact printed off a few pages, to see what they looked like.

Already in the work diary - see the extra hole!

They were okay, but, having had a play with the source files in order to design my diary for next year for the personal filofax, I thought I would have another go, this time for my work diary.

Making my own:

I started with the base files for the Philofaxy vertical WO2P, so I absolutely cannot claim to have done most of the work here – that must go to Steve from Philofaxy and Ray from My Life All in One Place.

I didn’t want all the task list space at the bottom of each day, so I removed those lines, then changed the time slots to make half-hourly intervals. I designated the last part of the column space as ‘evening’ (though very little will go in there as that would be in my personal filofax).

I also had no need for Saturday and Sunday to have so much space, so I moved Sunday into the same column as Saturday and made the time slots hourly.

I then deleted the last column, changed the width of the (now) final column (after the days) and renamed it ‘notes’.

Then, because I wanted something a little softer, I changed all the lines to being dark green, made the font Shaker 2 (thanks again, Gerard!!) and the font colour the same dark green as the lines. Finally, I shaded the column headers in a pale green.

Why green? To match the planner. And because I find it softer than black.

Here is the finished version (click on the picture to enlarge; my camera is not doing justice to the green shading):

My version!

1. Space for brief notes about the week
2. Vertical format - my definite favourite at work
3. Half-hour appointment times
4. Small evening space (this is a WORK diary after all...)
5. Saturday and Sunday share a column (as I don't work at weekends so this will be just to note anything exciting coming up so I can look forward to it!)
6. Notes space - for to-do, project notes, whatever...

What do people think?