I haven’t been paying much attention to “Planner Season” so far this year. By “Planner Season,” I’m referring to that week in September - didn’t it used to be October? - when the next year’s Hobonichi/Midori/Traveler’s dated planners and diaries go on sale and you can start the process of ordering your new book for 2024. While I enjoyed the Hobonichi for a few years, I don’t currently use a dated paper planner, and outside of my Midori 5-Year Diary I’ve not been journaling consistently enough to justify the expense of a dated everyday long-form journal. That said, I’ve been consistently deep into several different notebook systems and figured that it’s time for one of my periodic posts on what I’ve been using, what works, and what might need to change.
A Plotter patina update, with a focus on the Mini 5 that used to be grey ;)
What Notebooks/Planners/Journals Have Been in Rotation?
This year has been a year of transition for me as I figure out a system for juggling multiple projects and increasing responsibilities, complicated by the fact that many of them are unrelated and need to be kept separate from one another.
William Hannah A5 Notebook. For the first six months or so of this year I felt like I needed an analog task-management system for my day job, specifically for managing research projects, assignments delegated to others, and piecing together different substantive ideas into a larger case plan. Ultimately, the scope of my primary case contracted to a much narrower focus, and ultimately resolved, so I’m not using the William Hannah as much anymore. I will likely repurpose it - I find notebooks with removable pages extremely useful, and the William Hannah is excellent for projects where you need to carry around more pages than something like the Plotter system will allow.
Plotter A5/Narrow/Mini 5. My Plotter A5 binder serves as the repository for most of my notes, research, lists, etc. related to T.G.S. The Plotter Narrow holds all of my personal finance and household management notes, and my Mini 5 is my “safety blanket” pocket notebook that doubles as a wallet and pretty much goes with me anywhere.
Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter A5. Less a “notebook” and more a “portfolio”, my Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter holds the two to three loose notebooks that I use on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis, namely my personal journal and whatever notebook I’m using for morning pages and brain dumps. Right now, it’s the Theme System Journal and a Write Notepads Paper Journal, but these are almost full and I will most likely be swapping new books in soon.
I’ll note that the three above are just what I use regularly. I still keep at least one Traveler’s Notebook ready as a sketchbook/pen show/pen club notebook, alongside another pen testing notebook. I also have a few notebooks that serve as repositories for specialized research and commonplacing that don’t really leave my desk area.
My Midori 5 Year Diary: Probably the closest thing I’ve kept to a daily journal.
What Changes I Plan to Make to the Rotation
The primary change I need to make is to add some sort of monthly calendar to help me plan site content and some longer-form writing projects I’m starting to work on that are related to T.G.S. I’ve been so overwhelmed with work responsibilities and family obligations that I need to start reducing the number of things I’m working on developing a more focused plan. I will be starting a new, hopefully less-stressful position at my day job in the coming months that will make things more manageable.
I could plan this out electronically, but with things like content planning over the course of a month (or longer), it’s more helpful to me to be able to sit down with a month-to-two-pages calendar layout and pencil in the different options, adjusting as I go. I’ve considered undated calendar stickers, but I need a bit more room to write. I would consider a Hobonichi Weeks, but (1) I need to get started with this immediately; and (2) I don’t want to add yet another stand-alone notebook unless it fits into one of my existing cases or covers. The most obvious immediate solution is an undated Monthly/Weekly Laconic or Lochby refill, which I can add to the Roterfaden. Once the year turns over I may move to a Plotter monthly calendar and keep it in my A5 binder.
The interior layout of the Cal Newport Time Block Planner. The paper quality is actually excellent.
Under Consideration In the Laboratory
I’ve been testing out the Time Block Planner. As part of my effort to narrow the volume of projects I have open at any given time and increase the time and attention I can pay to each one, I’ve been working my way through this “planner” developed by Cal Newport, whose work I’ve written about before. It’s been a helpful book, though I would definitely describe the Time Block Planner as more of a workbook than a planner I’d consider buying multiples of. Personally, I would rather take the time-blocking technique and transfer it to a bullet-journal style notebook where I have more control over the layout. A discussion of “time blocking” itself is beyond the scope of this article, but it’s best described as a technique where you move away from list and inbox-based task management and plan larger blocks of time that you can devote to uninterrupted work on specific projects. The goal is to train yourself to focus more on substantive accomplishments rather than the unimportant busywork and mindless e-mail/messaging that occupies so much of our daily work lives.
To Summarize….
So I guess if I had to describe my goal for this “Planner Seasons,” it would best be described as “fine tuning,” without too many major changes. Overall I’m happy with what I’ve been using, and my personal analog system is versatile enough that I can easily add specific functions to it as necessary. Consistency has been difficult over the course of 2023 as my needs have changed throughout the year, but hopefully as things smooth out and changes that are in the works settle down, it will all come together again!
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