Clocks change; filofax change

Actually, the change is much less to do with the move to BST than the fact that the de Villiers is getting damaged, but I did make the change at the same time as we 'lost' an hour!

The de Villiers is still glorious and still in many ways the perfect size for me, but I noticed last week that the spine of the binder has been cut by the ring mechanism...

It looks worse in this zoom-in!

and that the stitching on the back inside cover is coming undone...

Stitching coming undone

So, I decided that it should have a rest. I've swapped into the wine Holborn (the brown one has gone to a new home) but I can imagine that I will be in a Baroque again soonish. The set-up is exactly the same as it was a couple of weeks ago (see 'How have I ended up using four things for planning?') except since I have the space I have put all of the WO2P diary for 2015 in.

I don't really know what to do about the de Villiers. The rest of the binder is great (well used by a previous owner but still great) but I don't want its injuries to get any worse. Any suggestions?

Anyone else changing set-up with the move to 'summer-time'?

Looking back; looking forwards

Janus - the god of beginnings and transformations:
He looks to the future and to the past (hence two-headed)

I have finally started to plan 2015. A bit late and still a bit haphazard, but at least I am able to think about what I’m wanting to do in 2015 (beyond the obvious – not end up with burnout again).

I always do a review of the past year – generally between Christmas and the New Year – where I look back over plans/goals etc. and also review my daily journal and see how the day-to-day went. This year’s review a) only took place a couple of days ago and b) was an eye-opener.

I suppose it wasn’t rocket science but it was striking to me to see just how many days towards the last half of 2014 that I noted that I had slept badly/had had vivid dreams or nightmares/was exhausted/kept waking through the night/that my arrhythmia was bad... Since both my mental and physical health were crumbling, all my other goals became affected too. By late November I had collapsed and could barely even plan on getting up. This utterly floored me as I have always been super-planned.

Anyway, doing the review helped me to think about my goals for 2015, central to which are to protect my mental and physical health. I’ve also read back over a couple of posts I did a while back, specifically this one (on ensuring that your goals are things you yearn to do). Finally, I have managed to get my sh*t together and draw up some sensible goals, from which stem the projects and next actions that are the core of my ‘system’. I’m not going to post on the system –see here (2012  set-up), here (my planning system), here (projects to next actions), or here (getting ready for 2014) for details on it. Essentially, the system that worked for me in 2012, 2013 and 2014 (until I hit burnout) will no doubt work for me in 2015! The only tweak I have made is to stay in the compact de Villiers binder. As a consequence I can only have four months of WO2P in the binder, and the monthly planning sheets and weekly planning sheets for everything other than the current month are kept in a ‘planning binder’ (navy Portland filofax) along with the pages outlining the goals to projects to next actions.

Here's hoping that 2015 ends up better than 2014 finished...


As I should remind myself every day:

If I'm not yearning to do it, or it's not essential... why am I squandering my life on it?

My current planning system

In my last post, I described how I think (think) I have reached planner peace and a set-up that is really working for me. I have moved to using a slimline filofax which has necessitated me modifying my set-up a little, though in essence ‘The System’ is the same.

What I use now is a combination of the de Villiers which goes everywhere with me, and a regular-sized filofax which stays at home (currently I’m using the wine Holborn but I do have a selection to choose from!). Let me walk you through what is in each of these, then try to explain The System.

The De Villiers (wallet and planner combination)
From front to back:

• Inside front cover: 10 card slots carrying all my bank and loyalty cards, stamps, donor card etc.
• Plastic fly-leaf with Leuchtturm stick-on pen holder, holding my Zebra diary pen/pencil
• Weekly list for the current week
• Weekly lists for the next three weeks
• Notes Tab
• Three or four sheets of notepaper for scribbling things to remember into (‘capture’ list)
• Diary Tab
• Monthly sheets for the rest of 2014 (4 pages for each month: monthly list, month to view, review)
• Week to view diary for the rest of 2014 (from Paperchase)
• Page for forward planning
• Information Tab
• Personal information sheets
• List of books to look for
• List of maps we have
• Note of my weight and miles run per week
• Addresses Tab
• Address sheets
• Plastic zip-up pencil case with money in
• Inside back cover: paper money in the outer pocket; receipts in the inner one

Left - card slots; right - fly-leaf with pen-holder, weekly sheet

weekly sheet

There are 4 weekly sheets in at a time; review space on reverse of the lists

Monthly list (r); review of previous month (l)

Month to view

Plastic pencil case with coins in

Paper money in back pocket

The Holborn (storage of non-current planning pages)
From front to back:

• Nothing in either the front or back covers
• Plastic fly-leaf
• Page saying, “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling” (quote from the film Inception)
• Tab
• General (big) to-do
• Annual plans
• Quarterly plans
• Page(s) for each life area and their goals (mostly too personal to share), with next actions under each goal
• Tab
• Monthly review checklist
• Spent monthly pages (kept only for the purpose of quarterly and yearly reviews – they will get thrown away at the end of the year)
• Tab
• Weekly review checklist
• Weekly sheets – both from the past and the remainder of the year (only four weeks of these are in the de Villiers at any time). Again, all of these will get thrown away at the end of the year.
• Week on two pages from the past (current are in the de Villiers – there are no more than 6 months in the de Villiers at a time)
• Tab
• Other information sheets that I don’t need to carry around with me e.g. peak flow record, notes, log suppliers, things bought for presents over the last few years, maps, packing lists

How do these two binders work together? – The System
The key aspect is the weekly review (though the monthly one is important too).
Each week, I try to do the following:

• Go through the notes pages and make sure everything has been dealt with/filed/sorted one way or another
• Go through my list from the week just past and reflect on what did/didn’t get done and why
• Tick off things in the monthly list; add anything that has come up
• Transfer to the coming week’s list anything left from the one just finishing, starring them to indicate they have already had a week (or more) and not been done
• Transfer the weekly sheet to the Holborn binder and get the next one to go in the de Villiers out (I keep 4 weeks of weekly sheets in the de Villiers)
• Look at the monthly list and the week to view diary and note down in red pen at the bottom of the weekly list any appointments (ignoring work ones!) and things that I need to do like send a birthday card
• Look at the monthly list of big to-do and next actions. Tick off things done and think about what might sensibly be achieved in the next week. Write these into the space at the top half of the page
• Clear my brain of any other to-do into the bottom half of the page
• If I’m feeling adventurous (or mad) I write the day on which I think I will do these next actions and to-do in the space next to them. This may or may not reflect reality!
• Have a quick flick through to the rest of the month (and the following one if it’s near the end of the month) just to check what is coming up

What I try to do when I am not at work (i.e. evenings, days off, weekends):

• Open my binder to the weekly list
• Plan what I can do from it that morning/afternoon/evening
• Do it

What I try to do monthly:

• Look at my weekly and monthly list(s) from that month and reflect on what did/didn’t get done and why
• Take out the finished monthly sheet from the de Villiers and file it in the Holborn
• Transfer anything not done onto the sheet for the following month and star them to indicate they have been carried over
• Look at the lists of big to-do and next actions and the monthly overview and try and think what I might sensibly manage to achieve in the coming month
• Look at that list again and consider removing 20% of it because I know I over-allocate
• Flick through the next six months of diary to remind myself what’s on the radar

Appointments go straight into the week to view diary (if I have them in the de Villiers – I can only carry 6 months of pages so for anything further forward than that, I just put it in the notes section and transfer it at the weekly review; 99% of things can go straight into the pages).

So, that’s The System. When I do all that, I feel more organised than when I don’t. There is then always a danger that I feel over-planned and then go ‘to hang with it all’ and ignore all plans, lists, goals etc. until I’m as organised as a bowl of cooked spaghetti, at which point I start doing The System again!

What do people think? What’s your set-up like (and would you like to do a guest post on it?)?

Planner Peace??

Have I finally got there? Jeez, it’s been like trying to find the end of the rainbow! Anyway, I think (think...) I have finally reached some kind of planner peace. To the point of not even looking at binders on eBay. Well... not every day.

So, what does this planner peace look like?

It looks like my de Villiers still!

I have made a couple of small changes to the set-up but nothing major. Instead of the giant to-do list at the front with a reminder on it to look at my next-actions list, I have gone back to my weekly sheets. These at least were split into ‘next action’ and ‘to-do’ (things that need doing but which aren’t part of a project or goal). The instruction: ‘turn over and look at your next actions’, somewhat as anticipated, didn’t work! I am incapable of turning the page it seems. Even when told to.

Another problem was partly to do with my next actions which were too big and needed breaking down into smaller ones. So, for instance, ‘finish book 6’ was a giant of a next action, whereas ‘finish the scene where x happens...’ was a much easier task! Consequently I have worked on making my next actions things that are achievable in a day/week (so that they can get ticked off the list!).

The weekly page set-up is shown below. Next actions go in the top half. You’ll see that I’m using up cut-down sheets from a non-filofax brand, just to use them up. Next year I will be using glorious, glorious Tomoe River paper (more on that in a future post). In the bottom half of the page I note other non-goal ‘to-do’ and any birthdays or appointments are noted in red at the very bottom of the page (to remind me to go to them or do something about them). Already written in, is a reminder to do the weekly review!
The reverse of the weekly list has space for the weekly review. Sometimes I do this following a set structure; often I just reflect on what did or didn’t get done and why.

Weekly list: next actions at the top, to do below

Review on the reverse; following week on RHS

By going back to the weekly sheets, it forced me to do my weekly reviews and to rewrite onto the following week’s sheet anything not achieved, something that generally spurred me into doing said thing(s)!

The only other change has been to try (try!) and use monthly sheets in as much as I have put highlighter on days I am not at work to try and help me see how much time I have ‘free’ (i.e. not at work) in the month. I’m still not great at working out what level of detail should be on there. I have got as far as marking off work days and birthdays and events such as away for a weekend. It still seems like it’s both too much and too little detail. But putting highlighter on and having a reality check over how many days I have a week/month to get things done in, has made my monthly lists more sensible.

Pink indicates not at work!

In the next post, I will do a review of my planning system as I realise it has changed a little since the last time I posted about it.

Has anyone else found planner peace recently? How long do you think it will last??

de Villiers set-up (aka: have I found planner Nirvana?)

"New" de Villiers - front

"New" de Villiers - interior

I have moved in! I thought I would have to tweak and fiddle with my set-up in a major way in order to fit into the small rings, but actually, the thing is like a Tardis!

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to keep all of the rest of 2014’s week on two pages diary and so set about creating monthly sheets which had a list of ‘things to do this month’ as the first side, a double-spread of month to view, then the last side for a review (four sides in total; two pages per month).

I also thought I might not have space to have my contacts on the rings and rummaged around to find a satellite address-book that could slot into a pocket in the binder. I found three – the pocket-filofax size one that came with the pocket flex, a filofax one I had been given that was Swedish (?) and which also slightly bizarrely seems to run in reverse order and have some extra letters, and a Paperblanks one that came with a diary and which is a bit of a tight fit.

Satellite address book options

In the end, I needed neither of these alterations! I had a good long look at what I carry around and wondered – do I really need to cart all this around with me?? The answer was no, and so I could fit all that I wanted onto the rings!

Things that have stayed and where they have gone:

• My cards – all in the ten slots in the front cover
• Stamps (tucked into the vertical pocket behind the cards)
• Plastic cover sheet to protect the pages
• To do sheets (see this post about the latest tweaks)
• Week to view diary (June to December, though still space for the whole year if needed I think)
• Today marker (in the current week for once!)
• Information tab
  
  • Personal information sheets
  • Books to look for
  • List of OS maps we have
  • A chart of my weight
• Addresses tab
• Lists of contacts
• Notes tab
• 5 sheets of paper
• Zipped pencil case with coins in it
• Paper money in the outer of the two vertical pockets in the back cover

To Do now up front and in my face

...including reminders to turn the page!

...so I can see the next actions I should be doing!

Notes section tucked behind notes tab behind To Do

zipped pencil case from Tesco for coins

Paper money in vertical pocket

Things that have not been moved across (all have been transferred to the planning filofax):

• General to-do sheet of big house-stuff things
• Notes from Rotary Committees (it is the end of the Rotary year and the information has gone into the report!)
• Year planner
• Important dates sheet
• Timetable pages (none of these last three things of these were filled in!)
• Information pages – web things to look for; general other notes no longer needed; list of shopping sites; list of apps to look at; names/contacts for getting logs; random other bits of information like meter readings; maps; packing lists
• Card holder

So what has changed in the de Villiers in comparison with the Baroque?

• All of the cards are in the inside left cover rather than there being six there and the rest in a card-holder on the rings at the back
• Up front (and in my face!) is my to-do list, with my next action sheet behind (see my last post for why this is here)
• The notes section is now behind the to-do
• The monthly sheets have gone (with the hope that their contents will get added to the to do lists a tad more regularly than the last few months)
• I have removed both the planner tab and the diary tab, since the Today marker is all that is needed
• Week on two pages is as it was (with the Today marker in the right place)
• There is a slimmed down information section behind the tab
• Addresses are as they were, behind the tab
• The zipped pencil case for coins has moved to the back so that when I open the planner, the to-do list is the first thing there

I weighed the de Villiers, loaded up and it came in at 377g. If you recall, the Holborn and the Portland were weighing in at 530g. The de Villiers is MUCH less brick-like!

In summary, I have all my cards in, I have my paper and coins in (so wallet functions are covered); I have to-do, notes, diary, information and addresses in there (so planner functions are covered); it weighs ~30% less than the previous format. Oh, and it is blood-red (I realise this possibly only appeals to me...).

So, have I reached planner Nirvana?

Almost...!

The tabs stick out a bit beyond the cover, but nothing too drastic and there is no pen loop. However, I have ordered a Leuchtturm1917 pen loop in black which I will stick to the plastic cover sheet at the front.

Could this finally be planner heaven? I’ll keep you posted.

Compare and contrast the black de Villiers and the red one

If you've been following the last few posts, you will know that I won a black de Villiers slimline binder on eBay and as soon as it arrived in the post, I sent it to Steve (from Philofaxy) as a swap for the red one that Anita had posted about on Philofaxy - see here - and given to Steve.

Still with me?

Anyway, followers of my blog (bless you! Have you nothing better to do?) will also know my love of red, shiny things (too many posts to list about red, shiny binders!!). I've been using the red de Villiers for about a week or more now and I still LOVE it.

Eagle-eyed readers of posts on the two de Villiers binders may have seen some differences, but for those of you who didn't, let me show you a couple.

Leather:
The leather of the black version was quite grained and not smooth and shiny. I don't have any binders like it, but from pictures on the web, it might be a bit like the Richmond filofax leather (but don't quote me on that!). The red binder however, is shiny and smooth - almost patent leather in texture but not so plasticky! IT. IS. GORGEOUS. Just sayin'...

front of the black version

front of the red version

back of the black version

back of the red version

Interior:
The interiors are mirror-images of each other. The black version has the card slots at the back, whereas the red version has them at the front:

Interior of the black version (also showing the grain of the leather nicely)

Interior of the red version

Well, there they are. What do people think?

de Villiers update

As I said in this post, I won a black de Villiers slimline binder on eBay. It arrived and it was lovely – in immaculate condition and absolutely divine.
Here are some pictures:

Front

Back

Interior

I haven’t moved in, because I no longer have it.

Before you all think I have gone even madder than normal, I still have a slimline de Villiers.

Ha! That’s confused you all!

I have Steve from Philofaxy’s (that was Anita’s) red, slimline de Villiers. Still with me?

When the black one arrived, despite its absolute gloriousness, I knew it was not to be because it was black and I need a colour pop and anyway, I had seen Steve’s/Anita’s red one so I knew red ones existed. I contacted Steve and he agreed to swap my black one for his red one.

So, last weekend, the de Villiers crossed the Channel (the red one must have been getting a bit fed up of this parcel to post existence...).

I knew the red one was ‘pre-loved’ (aka battered and well used) and indeed, it was in need of a bit of tender loving care, so I gave it a clean and some red leather polish and some love and now it is drop dead gorgeous (in a well-used kind of way).
[I did a guest post on Philofaxy on renovating it, which you can see here.]

Ta da!!

Front

Back

Interior - interestingly, the mirror-image of the black one

So now I just have to tweak my set-up a bit so I can move in.

Guest post over on Philofaxy

I have a guest post on renovating the de Villiers out on Philofaxy today.
Check it out here.

Betwixt and between – will a slimline de Villiers bridge the gap between pocket and personal?

My planning ‘system’ has fallen apart. I’ve missed half a dozen birthdays in the last month and feel about as organised as a bowl of spaghetti. Planner love is thin on the ground. I’m just not looking at my planner (and we all know that that road leads to hell...).

So what’s gone wrong? Where has the Baroque love gone?

I don’t know. I still love it and in many ways I just think it’s me being fickle rather than there being any major issue, if I’m being honest. I’m certainly not selling either of my Baroques, before you all start asking!

I had the urge to move into a pocket (again!) as my weeks are getting to the point in the year where they are low on appointments and high on ‘things to do’ and a full-sized planner seemed both overkill and underused. And like carrying a brick. The reasoning behind shifting to a pocket was that a DPP in pocket-size might be a better solution for me than WO2P plus Post-It note in personal-size, but then, I just know that being able to carry cards will be an issue unless I have 19mm rings in a pocket. And any regular reader will know how I have struggled even with a 19mm ring binder.

So... I have just bought a slimline de Villiers binder from eBay instead. It has 10 card slots with a vertical pocket behind, two vertical pockets on the other side, and oval rings which measure 16mm in the wider direction and 14mm rings in the narrower.

16mm rings...

I know, I know... I have never made small rings work for me before, but that’s because they have always been small rings in a pocket binder and the problem has been the ring space being taken up with card-holders. But, the de Villiers binder has 10 card slots in the cover, so I wouldn’t have to take up any ring space with card-holders!

The plan is to have a month or two of WO2P diary which I can just swap out of the Baroque, the rest of the year as monthly sheets and possibly a week of DPP (both of which I can print myself), plus the usual notes paper, addresses and other stuff I carry.

The hope is, that by limiting how many weeks of WO2P there are in there, it will force me to do my weekly reviews and then maybe I will start being more organised???

I’ll keep you posted. Review of the binder coming soon.