26 Mar 2014

Stuffed Planner Issues

As I mentioned before my planner is already stuffed, and after less than a month.

Now I've got a bit of a dilemma about what to do...the amount of pages is already overtaking the rings, so if I open the rings near the front or back of the planner everything starts moving off the rings and I have to put it all back and squash it down whilst I clip the rings shut.

In my eyes I really haven't got that much in there...

  • I've got a couple of info pages, important numbers and some useful info that I can refer to often.
  • Then I have my To Do Lists, I write a new one each day (but continuing on the same page from the previous list), so these can take up quite a bit of room. I guess I could take out my old lists, but I like having them in there.
  • Then I have yearly/monthly/important dates section, which I admin, I hardly look at, but it's only a few sheets.
  • Following is my diary pages. I could take out the previous pages or some of the months towards the end of this year. But as keeping track of things and keeping myself organised is my goal for using this, I'd really rather not take out the pages.
  • After that there's my household section incl. my meal planner, shopping lists and cleaning rota. Only 3 sheets, so not out of control!
  • Then I have a projects and goals section which has my weigh loss goals, books to read, general organising to do, blog ideas and a few other notes. I guess that I don't use all of these on a regular basis, but it's useful to have to jot down ideas or if I see a book I want to read.
  • Next is my financial section, with some goals spending logs and bill info.
  • And lastly I have my addresses. I don't use this regularly, but if I suddenly realise I have to send someone a note or card I have their address to hand. Again, surely this is the idea of the planner!

So my question to you (if there's anyone there) is what can I cut out? What can I switch out to make my planner slimmer?

I am getting a Swift for my birthday next week, and expect that I'll move into that as soon as I have it.
This would leave the Paperchase Planner free, so maybe I could leave the extra bits in him as a 'stay at home' planner.
But what about One Life, One Planner?

4 comments:

  1. I constantly struggle against the same problem. My solution is to use a full year of month on two pages for forward planning, and keep just a few weeks of my daily pages in the binder. I don't even fill in my daily pages until the Sunday of the week before, so it's really not necessary to keep the future pages in the binder at all.

    This helps to keep my binder as trim as possible :)

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  2. Have you had a look at DIY Fish's inserts? It's a slightly different system, but it lets you combine your To Do's and reminders right in with your diary and tracking, and lets you see it all at once. (I haven't used it myself, but it looks like a good idea for anyone who has a busy lifestyle).

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  3. I have struggled with this as well in the past. I like having everything togethr for the sake of keeping it all contained. But I realized that I was carrying a ton of suff I did not need with me when away from the house. I wanted a smaller footprint with me at all times, and deciding that was what I wanted more than everything in one place, I got a compac binder. Of course this meant that I HAD to slim down what I carried. So I created several "at home" binders to contain what I don't need with me at all times. This is has been working well, though it does mean I reference several different binders/notebooks thoughout the week. But if it works better for me, then I can deal with that.

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  4. Thanks for all the advice guys!
    As I've got my new Swift, still yet to move in, I want to cut down what's in there and use my Paperchase planner as a 'leave at home' one, we'll see how that works!
    I'll have a look a the DIY Fish inserts too, but I don't really want to have to spend anymore money when I already have diary inserts until 2015!

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