A Tale of Three Page Markers

For quite some time I have used two pages markers, one for my monthly spread…

…and one for my daily spread.

I can see where the current month and day are, whether from the top or bottom of my planner.

This has worked well.  I am easily able to find my monthly and/or daily pages with a flip of one marker or the other.

I recently bought more storage boxes from Franklin Covey for archiving purposes, and while shopping, I clicked on their page markers.  I have always been fascinated with their pager markers because they have a slip pocket for putting slips of paper in.  So I bought one of those as well and put it among my daily pages.

I immediately moved in to that slip pocket.

Here I put a list of items that I need to work on sooner rather than later, things that can’t be forgotten behind a tab somewhere.  Having it here, I see the list every day—multiple times a day, really—and so I am constantly reminded of these things that need to be attended to.

I also like that the FC Compact page finder is shaped differently than the Filofax page markers, making it easy to find exactly what I’m looking for quickly: today.

However…I immediately realized my mistake.  The FC page marker doesn’t stick out at the bottom.

Now, one might think that this is good (one less thing sticking out from the bottom of the planner) or not a big deal.  But I almost always access both my monthly and daily spreads by the bottoms of those markers.

Upon opening my planner, I flip to my daily pages by using the bottom of the corresponding marker.

In addition, once in the daily view, I move to my monthly section by using the bottom of that marker.

It’s actually quite rare that I access either section by the top of the marker.  I figured, however, that I could retrain my brain.  I mean, how hard could it be, right?  It turns out, though, that it was much harder than I thought, and in the end, wasn’t worth the aggravation to me.  Plus, while using the FC marker in my daily spread, I realized that the holes on the FC marker are just slightly bigger than the holes on the Filofax marker.

So while the FC marker has the right configuration and fits just fine, it would (too easily in my experience and opinion) slip off of the rings.  That was a deal-breaker for me.

However, I didn’t want to give up on the FC marker altogether.  So I decided to put it in my To Do section, marking the pages I access most often (outside of my daily and monthly spreads) while keeping a small stack of sticky list sheets in the slip pocket.

This allows me to quickly access those two pages in my “To Do” section that I go to most. It is now super easy for me to find that section.

I can still quickly find my monthly and daily spreads, too.  And best of all, the FC marker doesn’t interfere with accessing my calendars from the bottom of the planner.

So while not quite the happy ending I was initially looking for, this tale ends in an even happier ending for me and my planner.