Not a complete mess but half a mess.

The solution…. Pen folders:

Folded.

Rolled out.

Sorted and organized.

(Click for larger view)

Moleskine Cahier Journal back pocket

My first step was to cut off the back pocket from the cover of one of my notebooks that had been used up.

Detached pocket with to-do lists

The detached pocket can be placed inside the planner, much like a bookmark, and can be used for several purposes:
• I place to-do post its there, where I write down important highlights, from ongoing long term projects, so that they are constantly visible and keeping me on track with the “plan”.
• I keep notes, index cards, clippings, to-do lists for later, etc, inside the pocket.
• The pocket can be moved from page to page, so I can to move all notes and post-its in one move. (A problem I had before with post-its was that I very often left behind post-its when I turned page, and after a while ended up with a heap of post-its with unprocessed ideas and unattended tasks.

Bookmark

Since I used another Moleskine journal for the moveable pocket page, it fits right into the planner. It also functions as a bookmark.

A Moleskine Japanese Album. Sometimes this type of album is called an accordion album.

It has zig zag folded pages:

And as you can see, the pages are blank. Still no idea on what to draw in the album.

While I am figuring that out, one could always search the internet for some inspirational or beautiful examples of how others have used their accordion albums. Here are some I found, and liked:

Gail Behrmann Detail from Beyond the River and Into the Trees Book I, 2003 - 2009

by MariPili and Alicia Asuncion. Photo from Patricia Moreno's blog

by Samantha Zaza. Photo from Flickr.

This is a follow up to the Creating Some Structure to this Year… post.

Project planning: At the start of the planner i keep track of my projects with a Project Overview (see above). I am recording the progress as the projects go along so I can actually see how much attention I give to a certain project. So that I can shift focus if I see that a long term project is suffering because I am only giving attention to short term projects. A problem that might arise, for me, is that I might not look at the Project Overview as often as I need to (in order to be reminded often enough of where my focus should be), because it’s placed at the start of the book which means that I wont see it when I’m looking at the day-to-day pages to do the tasks I’ve written for each day. I seem to need constant visual reminders… So I used one of my memo post-its and made a Project Checklist (pictured in the photo below), and used the same colours  for each project on the Project Checklist as I use in the Project Overview. That way, I am reminded that I have multiple projects going on and that I should prioritize. And because it’s a post-it note, I can just move it over to the next page when I turn pages as the days go by.

Yesterday I found some advice/resarch on how to achieve your goals on this blog. Worth a read.

Making some changes to my Moleskine Pac-Man daily diary/planner.

I am creating structure to my days by dividing each day into time blocks. Alongside a to-do list for tasks that could be done any time of the day:

At the start of the planner there are monthly overviews. I am using them for keeping an overview on how art projects are progressing. Deadlines, time left, parallel projects, assignments… I am also making notes of when I get some work done on a particular project.

Below is my Moleskine monthly planner. While I use the the overviews in the daily diary (see above) to keep track of projects and progress, I use these overviews to keep track of all “events” that can be tied to a certain day, like deadlines, appointments, meetings, and other important dates.

One of my best buys last year: A checklist memo pad from Muji. I write to-do lists all the time, and scatter the notes and lists everwhere.  Last year I wrote most of my checklists in my diary/planner (to avoid the scattered to-do lists), but the pages would look so messy, and after a while I’d retort to writing lists on separate notes again, but on post-its this time so I could move the lists from day-to-day in case I didn’t check that item on that particular day.

So far, this memo pad system has worked really well for me. I use the checklist pad for smaller tasks that could easily be checked off during one day, and then throwing away that list at the end of the day, making a “fresh” one when planning the next day. I use the diary/planner for keeping track of activities or tasks that are dependent on time, like meetings, appointments, trips, deadlines or scheduled activities. And keep the checklists with day-to-day tasks inside the diary/planner. I also have a separate journal where I keep track of larger and more time consuming projects, the Action Journal (which I will write about in another post).

Each month is shown on a two page spread. Between each month there are two ruled pages for notes. At the end of the planner there are another 51 ruled pages for notes. Both a notebook and a planner! Along with the planner comes mini stickers with symbols and words, to use to mark important dates or deadlines.

I’m using the monthly planner to get an overview of what’s going on each month, and for more detailed information for each day I use my daily diary/planner. My plan is to bring this planner when I’m going on trips or travelling, because it will be easier to bring along than the daily planner. The monthly planner takes up less space and is considerably less heavy to carry around.

Personalizing the planner with a make-over :)