I recently purchased a new day planner. It took me a month to get to this point. Specifically, it took a month, two visits each to Borders, Barnes & Nobles, Staples and then back to Borders before reaching this point. Along the way, tough decisions had to be made: Which format – monthly or weekly? Hard or soft cover? More room for notes – or email/snail mail addresses?
Now that my 2011 planner lies on my desk, I admit that I am pleased to no end, mainly for two reasons that make me a bit of a freak in today’s world.
The first is that I actually like having a paper-based organizer. I am a huge notebook user, and I’m not talking about a computer. I’m talking about the old-fashion, spiral bound book of paper that you use to scribble notes. It has a lot to do with spending nearly two decades as a print reporter, where just writing things down by hand helped me organize my thoughts into full-fledged articles. I know others live and die by Lotus Notes or Google calendars, but my world would collapse without my paper planner.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Blackberry, and I know how to use it and synch it up to my work calendar. But I love how paper organizers allow you to quickly glance at a week or month’s schedule and plan future events much more easily than scrolling through your Smartphone and then awkwardly typing out misspelled notes within the confines of the little square you are given for any given time slot.
Perhaps the best thing about the paper version? No batteries. This means I don’t have to worry about running out of juice when I open up my electronic calendar after the two-hour conference call I just finished.
As I mentioned, I looked a lot of places before I decided on which planner to use. I do this every year. Not only did I visit stores that sold organizers, I looked online at DayRunner, At-A-Glance, Franklin Covey. I really admired the system set up with BusyBodyBook. Ultimately, I went back to Borders and picked up a Posh Planner. It had a bit of a spunk, and came with all the features I needed.
Now here’s the second reason why I’m so happy with my planner, and it’s the reason why I’m always happy when I get a new organizer: It allows me to pretend I’m actually an organized person.
Every January, I start with fresh promise of becoming a prepared, orderly supermom instead of the chaotic mush that I usually have regressed into by this point in the calendar.
With a brand new planner, I can envision achieving goals and tracking – and eventually checking off – all my personal and professional projects in the blank dated pages staring cleanly before me.
I’m already ahead of the game by just having it in my hands, aren’t I? December is barely half over and already, I’m planning weeks in advance.
Photo credit: Mike Rohde via Flickr
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