Well Planned Life

Back during the Van der Spek April 1 sales (yes, I’m that far behind in my posting), I bought my third VDS customized binder.   So now, in addition to Cappuccino and Daisy , I now have Guinness.   (Why am I compelled to name each of my binders?) Guinness is made of the Nero nappa leather on the outside and the Barbie nappa on the inside.   Each has the contrasting stitching. The inside left has a secretarial pocket. The inside right is the standard pocket configuration. As far as content, the layout of my planner is still the same . What is different, as you may have noticed, is that this planner is the standard/personal size (25 mm rings), which isn’t uncommon in the planner world, but is uncommon in my world. Since Filofax first introduced the Compact binders back in 2011 , I have used them exclusively.   Carrying a compact allows me to streamline what I take out of the house with me, limiting me to only those things ...

A while back long time ago, a reader asked how I set up my project binders.   (You can check out some of my project binders here .)   It has taken me this long to write this post because I haven’t set up a project-specific binder in a while.   I have lots of ideas for special binders, but the reality of actually creating them, well, that’s a different story—I don’t seem to have as much time to do that these days.   (Oh, how I remember the days when I worked on nothing but setting up binders and section tabs and reorganizing my system …   Sometimes I miss those little projects, but being happy with my system is more important and allows me to devote my time to so many other things.)   Project binders—at least most—are one of those things that I have let go of, for the time being. However! I recently had the opportunity and need to set up another specific project binder.   So I took some pictures during the process, and here I will explain tha...

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 t...

I am not artistic, at least not the way one might pick up a paintbrush or drawing pencils and create something from scratch.   I can barely draw a stick figure, and that is not an exaggeration; I seriously cannot draw a straight line.   However, just like I can follow a recipe pretty well, I can color inside some pre-determined lines.   (While I can follow a recipe, I am not good at just whipping something up from the leftover ingredients in my refrigerator.   I seem to need guidelines; rules , if you will.) I have liked coloring since I was little, but I never really gave it much thought.   I actually have colored on and off during my adult life, but it never became a habit at all.   When the adult coloring craze came along, well, I got hooked.   In addition to it being fun, there are many reports that it’s good for you , that it promotes mindfulness , and gives you the same (or near) benefits of mediation .   (How true that is, I cannot say...