Ready for 2011
I have bought and received my 2011 inserts. I am staying with the system I currently have (for now). I have strayed in the past and I always end up back in the same place, so why fight it?
I bought Day Planner pages (to keep track of certain things that happen during the day, as they happen), monthly pages (which I outline just like Laurie), and a pack of week on two pages lined. I absolutely need those lines!
The first thing I did was add birthdays and anniversaries to my 2011 pages. I only add these to my weekly pages, as there isn’t enough room on the monthly pages for this. I mainly use the monthly pages to write down appointments. A lot of what happens at work is done on a monthly basis or a few months in advance, so this helps me to organize my month better. I refer to my Google calendar for adding the birthdays and anniversaries. I could look back at my 2010 pages for the information, but with all the other scribbling that is now on the pages, this is easier to look at. Plus, using 2010 pages, I’d have to be extra careful to add the information in the correct date – 2010 dates would fall on different days than 2011 dates. I often mess up because of this. The Google calendar goes into infinity it seems, so I can follow both day and date when adding this information to my 2011 inserts.
Once that was done, I removed the January – June 2010 pages and put them into my black personal Kendal binder which is currently holding my past pages. Included are the monthly pages, the week on two pages inserts, and the day planner pages for these dates.
I then added the January – June 2011 pages to my black Personal Guildford which is what I’m currently using as my active planner. I always have a year’s worth of pages in my planner. I change the pages every six months. So in January, I’ll do it again, moving the rest of my 2010 pages out and the remaining 2011 pages in.
My blue Personal Finsbury is currently holding blank Day planner pages and July – December 2011 pages. Each Sunday, I add a week’s worth of day planner pages to my Guildford. The blank ones stay behind the month tab. Each evening I move a blank one between my two pages for the week for the next day. I enter the given day’s appointments and to-dos. I use the remaining space on the day planner sheet to record anything of interest that happens during the day. At the end of the day, I move that day’s page in front of the monthly tab. Keeping the used ones in front of the tab and the blank ones behind the tab make everything accessible without having to flip through tons of pages. At the end of the week, I will move last week’s day planner pages back to the Finsbury and start again with the next week’s worth of blank pages.
My 2009 pages are going to be archived in a box and kept in a closet. I used to only keep the past year’s inserts but I thought I’d start keeping them a little longer than that. Probably, I will only keep as many years as will fit into the box. I won’t keep them forever, but it might be fun to keep them for a while and look back on them in a few years’ time.
It might be a little early, adding 2011 inserts into my binder. But doing so keeps my pages equal on each side of the binder – my OCD is showing a little here. Also, as we all know, if we wait too long to purchase something, the chances of us getting that item diminish somewhat. I can’t have that. What would I do if I couldn’t get the items I need?
So now I am prepared and prepped for 2011. So what if it doesn’t arrive for another six months?
I bought Day Planner pages (to keep track of certain things that happen during the day, as they happen), monthly pages (which I outline just like Laurie), and a pack of week on two pages lined. I absolutely need those lines!
The first thing I did was add birthdays and anniversaries to my 2011 pages. I only add these to my weekly pages, as there isn’t enough room on the monthly pages for this. I mainly use the monthly pages to write down appointments. A lot of what happens at work is done on a monthly basis or a few months in advance, so this helps me to organize my month better. I refer to my Google calendar for adding the birthdays and anniversaries. I could look back at my 2010 pages for the information, but with all the other scribbling that is now on the pages, this is easier to look at. Plus, using 2010 pages, I’d have to be extra careful to add the information in the correct date – 2010 dates would fall on different days than 2011 dates. I often mess up because of this. The Google calendar goes into infinity it seems, so I can follow both day and date when adding this information to my 2011 inserts.
Once that was done, I removed the January – June 2010 pages and put them into my black personal Kendal binder which is currently holding my past pages. Included are the monthly pages, the week on two pages inserts, and the day planner pages for these dates.
I then added the January – June 2011 pages to my black Personal Guildford which is what I’m currently using as my active planner. I always have a year’s worth of pages in my planner. I change the pages every six months. So in January, I’ll do it again, moving the rest of my 2010 pages out and the remaining 2011 pages in.
My blue Personal Finsbury is currently holding blank Day planner pages and July – December 2011 pages. Each Sunday, I add a week’s worth of day planner pages to my Guildford. The blank ones stay behind the month tab. Each evening I move a blank one between my two pages for the week for the next day. I enter the given day’s appointments and to-dos. I use the remaining space on the day planner sheet to record anything of interest that happens during the day. At the end of the day, I move that day’s page in front of the monthly tab. Keeping the used ones in front of the tab and the blank ones behind the tab make everything accessible without having to flip through tons of pages. At the end of the week, I will move last week’s day planner pages back to the Finsbury and start again with the next week’s worth of blank pages.
My 2009 pages are going to be archived in a box and kept in a closet. I used to only keep the past year’s inserts but I thought I’d start keeping them a little longer than that. Probably, I will only keep as many years as will fit into the box. I won’t keep them forever, but it might be fun to keep them for a while and look back on them in a few years’ time.
It might be a little early, adding 2011 inserts into my binder. But doing so keeps my pages equal on each side of the binder – my OCD is showing a little here. Also, as we all know, if we wait too long to purchase something, the chances of us getting that item diminish somewhat. I can’t have that. What would I do if I couldn’t get the items I need?
So now I am prepared and prepped for 2011. So what if it doesn’t arrive for another six months?
Interesting... I have not even begun to think about pages for 2011, in part because my life runs on a school calendar right now and only this coming fall semester is relevant. I think I'll end up ordering my refills around October or November... or maybe I'll go out and buy them - might be a fun diversion when I'm stressed out about school.
ReplyDeleteI keep a list of all the birthdays on the monthly pages - on the little lines on the left. This way they are easy to see when I buy cards for the coming month, and don't take up the entire box. They'll be pretty easy to copy, too. I use the monthly pages only for important dates coming up that I need to plan for - like events I am hosting, exams, starting and ending a job or school.
I generally throw out my filofax pages after I'm done with them. I haven't had to empty a calendar since getting back into using my filofax last January. I think I'll keep them for a while, only because I have so many unused filofaxes sitting around!
I don't know how I got into the habit of buying my refills in July, but there you have it. One of the great things about the Google calendar is that I have it email me a week before someone's birthday so that I remember to buy a card. Once I get that email, a note goes into the Filo to buy the card. That's the downfall with writing birthdays in the weekly pages - I don't see them and therefore don't remember them until I turn to that page. But the email reminders take care of that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all this detail! I just ordered an A5 Finchley so I'd have more space for daily notes etc. but now I'm wondering if using the daily planner pages together with the week view would be enough? I really like your way of using them.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Plaiditude. My system is probably more complicated than it needs to be, but it satisfies the best of both worlds - I need the weekly layout but the weekly spaces just aren't big enough to write down everything I might want to record in a day. Sometimes I think about going less complicated but I always end up back to where I started.
ReplyDelete