LivSimpl

GTD Week: planner systems

Probably the most obvious way to simplify your life is to get organized. There are dozens of GTD (Getting Things Done) systems out there and this week I’ll be reviewing five basic options. First up is the obvious candidate, planner systems.

Franklin Planners come in all shapes, sizes and designs: wire-bound and ring-bound versions ranging in size from “Micro” (2.625″ x 4.25″) to “Monarch” at a full (8.5″ x 11″) depending on how much real estate you’re going to need throughout the day. I should mention that I couldn’t find the Micro size available online.

Similar to the Franklin, I used a Day Timer 3×5 planner for a few years. It came in a nice leather case that doubled as a wallet and easily fit into the back pocket of my jeans, even with a pen, which was one reason I avoided Franklin initially: too bulky. If I’m going somewhere I like to have my hands free and don’t want to lug around a big planner in case I may (or may not) need to refer to it while I’m out.

Planner System Pros:

- Lots of designs and styles to choose from.
- Well-known and easy to find pages and accessories for.
- Includes instructions on how to maximize use of the planner (Franklin).
- Includes storage boxes for old planner pages (Day Timer).
- Varied sizes give you as much, or as little real estate as you need.

Planner System Cons:

- Tend to be expensive: initial purchase ($95.94 for a Monarch-sized fake leather binder and the basic filler pages) plus you have to buy refills every year.
- What to do with your old pages? For some reason I feel guilty for throwing them out. As a result, I have years of saved up planner pages.
- Toward the end of the month, I need to start making appointments for next month but found myself not having next month’s pages on hand.
- A lot of useless stuff is included: distances between major cities, unit conversion tables, area codes for most of the world and international holidays. It amounts to a lot of clutter you’re hauling around.

What do you think? If you used (or have used) a formal planner system leave word in the comments.

LivSimpl

Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Organization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.