Somewhat surprisingly, two of the products that received the most interest at this year’s D.C. Pen Show were the two undated planners we had at the table: The Write Notepads Weekly Planner, and the Planner Desk Pads from WMS & Co. I learned two things this weekend about interest in planners: People LOVE having the option of an undated style, and there are many, many people who would love to use a paper planner but are somewhat intimidated by “Planner Instagram” and the ornate bullet-journal style planners that dominate online. Well, I’m here to tell you that doesn’t need to be the case!
Two undated planner options: Write Notepads (top) and WMS & Co. (bottom).
My Planners Are Objectively Ugly, and I’m Fine With That.
Personally, I stick to a practical approach to planning that focuses on task management. First, I don’t keep a paper calendar to manage appointments or deadlines, at least for work stuff. (It’s much easier to use an electronic calendar when you have to coordinate with multiple teams and other people need the ability to see your schedule and make changes to common events.) I do, however, use the Write and WMS & Co. “weekly layout” pages to generally sketch out my week, typically in a list or bullet-style format that allows me to think through what I want to accomplish on each day. This is 30,000-foot level planning stuff that I do on Sunday afternoon and quickly revisit each morning - I very rarely go back to these “planners” after the week is over, and since the WMS & Co. is a tear-off pad, I usually just shred the calendar page after I’m done. If there are notes I make to myself that I want to retain, I’ll transfer them to another notebook or my laptop.
The Keyboard-sized WMS & Co. Planner fits perfectly underneath my Macbook Air (as well as my full-size keyboard that I use at work). I also like the narrow ruling - I write small.
I keep another “Bullet Journal”-style notebook that is more “work journal” than “planner”, which currently lives in my blue Standard Traveler’s Notebook containing a cut-down Stalogy 1/2-year and a homemade Tomoe River refill. In the Stalogy (which has lasted for just under a year and will likely need to be replaced next month), I have the notebook tabbed by numbered month using these inexpensive Midori numbered labels, with the first page of each month containing a Midori MD Diary sticker, followed by a “monthly task list” page. [Note: Obviously, I can’t show you an actual page of this journal in use because I would literally have to redact EVERYTHING and it wouldn’t be useful at all.]
While I don’t track deadlines and appointments on paper, I still find it helpful to have one of these planner stickers at the front of each monthly “section” in order to visualize the month and block off dates when I am out of the office, traveling, or needing to focus exclusively on certain things.
I use the “Monthly Tasks” page to track, in list format, projects and open items that come up as the month goes on. It’s a running list, and one of the reasons I enjoy the Traveler’s-style layout is that the long, narrow page is conducive to this type of task-tracking and list making. Even though I have dozens of action items that come up in any given month, I can use the Stalogy’s narrow ruling to keep this section to a couple of pages.
Here’s where I depart from standard bullet journaling technique. After the “Monthly Tasks” Section, I have pages of “daily entries,” but I don’t start a new page for every day. I will write the day, record what it is that I worked on and any notes I need to make for myself relating to follow-up, and once that day is over, I’ll skip a couple of lines and write a header for the next day. This method works for me because (1) it doesn’t waste paper; and (2) I often have days where I will work on two or three things, and I don’t need to make a full page of notes to record what I’ve been doing. The purpose of this journal isn’t to serve as a general purpose repository of information - I have separate binders and project-specific notebooks for that - but rather to serve as a record of how I spent my time.
These Midori page tabs are infinitely useful. There are options other than “numbered”, and we also carry metal versions and Maruman labels as well.
Other Things I Keep In My Notebook
The second refill, after the Stalogy, is used solely as a scratch pad (i.e., infrequent rough calculations, notes from impromptu phone calls, jotted phone numbers, etc.). This notebook is typically thrown away after it’s full - I often find that what’s written in there makes no sense to me even a week later.
At the front, I have two pockets on the inside cover to hold loose papers and cards, a PVC zippered pouch that holds miscellaneous stamps and flags/labels, and my Traveler’s Sticky Notes. I use the back flap of the PVC pouch refill to hold some index cards, and I usually keep a ballpoint or other “write anywhere” pen in a Traveler’s Notebook Pen Loop.
Fountain pen friendly sticky notes are few and far between. These Traveler’s Company versions are great.
You never know when you might need index cards!
Takeaways and Final Thoughts
To be sure, there is nothing ornate or pretty about my “Planner”, though I personally find a notebook that’s been used as intended to be oddly satisfying, and for that reason I have shelves full of them that I’ve finished that I can’t bear to throw away. I’m torn over whether or not anyone will be interested in a post like this, but given the feedback from the table in D.C., I thought I would go ahead and test it out. What do you think? Do you want to see similar content? Maybe more practical posts on pen-and-paper notetaking?
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