Have I Finally Found Planner Peace? (Pt. 1)

Yes… it’s a new year… and this is another in the sea of planner refresh genre posts.

But…

I think I’ve cracked it. Cracked the code to elusive “planner peace.” At least for now.

My Criteria – What I Need From My Planner System

Planning/Scheduling – Daily To-Dos and Future Don’t-Forgets

This is the first priority. The whole point of this thing is to keep me oriented and productive , bridging the short-term and the long-term. I need to capture and sort everything and anything into it, funneling goals, projects, events, and tasks into appropriate time horizons or referrable lists.

Analog Format

It feels like with every passing month, I’m further disillusioned by the digitized and virtual world. Like I’m trading a little piece of material reality for convenience. I’ve tried simple notetaking and calendar apps, and have previously been a bit of a OneNote aficionado. But more and more I’m preferring the physical and tangible, the organic slices of reality, to the “virtual,” the “meta,” and the “smart” in many aspects of life, planning and journaling included.

Longform Journaling/Diary Space

My teenage self would be proud of me for the journaling habit that I managed to cultivate over the past 3-4 years. Daily journaling, even a simple chronicle of the day, was something that I tried and failed at a handful of times in my adolescent years. The random day here and day there that made it to paper were somehow both boring and woefully embarrassing. Maybe this is, too, goodness knows. But, anyway, my system needs to be flexible enough to not waste space on routine days, but still let me comfortably fill pages and pages in a day when stuff is happening or I’m having big thoughts.

Shortform Interval Reflection/Gratitude Space

This is something that I love about a lot of preprinted, structured journals and planners. I have a tendency to lose track of time, and to look up and not have grokked that weeks have passed. New Year? Wasn’t Halloween last week? And this isn’t something that I see improving… I’m only in my early 30’s, and I can already feel the effect that my parents and grandparents remark on, that time moves quickly, and more so every year.

To the end of not letting too much time slip through my fingers, I need my planner system to have a space that prompts me to stop and look around every so often. A place to put down a bullet point or two on what works and what doesn’t, and a place to occasionally concretize in ink and paper the things that I am unspeakably grateful for that are so easy to take for granted in the day-to-day.

“Commonplace Book”

I feel like most people with a bookish sort of bent are at least loosely familiar with the concept of the commonplace book. The commonplace book is a tool, a repository for scraps and sketches of thoughts, to return to later for inspiration or study.

I love capturing quotes, or jotting small random thoughts in my planner, whether it’s a philosophical topic that’s under my skin and I’m working out, or the seed of a new story, or an interesting character idea, or another book to read or author to look up.

What Hasn’t Quite Worked In The Past

Preprinted vs. Blank Book

I have a nice line of well-used Hobonichi planners on my shelf… a couple of English language Techos, and a couple of year-length Cousins. They worked pretty darn well, and Hobonichi would be my first port of call if I returned to a preprinted product for my planning needs.

The downside was flexibility for my daily journal entries. The Cousin worked better than the Techo, by sheer virtue of greater acreage per daily page, but on slow days I struggled with half-used pages. And on crazy days, I had the opposite problem… just not enough space.

To that end, for the past year I’ve drifted back to blank books (more accurately, A5 dot grid) and experimenting with my own layouts to organize time in appropriate and flexible chunks, and organize and chronicle my life at appropriate levels of detail and analysis.

Minimalism vs. Decoration As Journaling

I could get lost for hours scrolling through gorgeous planner spreads online, or watching plan-with-me videos laying out beautifully designed calendars and daily pages. It’s inspiring, for sure.

But it’s also not me.

I like a bit of decoration, some fun stickers and washi tape, bolder pens for headings and pops of color. But at the end of the day, the planner is a tool, not an end in and of itself. If I’m spending more time “planning” than living, it’s not working. My schtick is writing fantasy stories, growing in my day job, caring for the farm and my critters, and supporting and enjoying time with my friends and family. It is not documenting and sharing 400 ways to lay out and decorate a month’s gameplan. I need something that is quick to lay out, simple and functional enough to repeat, and doesn’t rely on my stunted calligraphy skills to be legible.

Reference-ability

This is where my previous attempts have dramatically failed to mesh with the “commonplace book” need. I’m almost afraid to think how many nuggets of quotes or ideas or authors I was supposed to look up are effectively buried in unmarked graves on random daily pages, or in any of the random collection spreads, in that shelf full of archived planners. There’s no great way to search with any specificity, except by sheer exploration back between the pages. Which is fine for reminiscing and reflecting… not so great if the quote or note or idea was kind of important, or if it’s stuck on the tip of my brain and I know I’ve seen or thought of it before.

This is probably the element that has been most likely to draw me away from the analog ideal… a quick search feature on my second brain is incredibly appealing. But… partway into 2022, I found a way around that issue. More on that below.

Where I’m Starting 2023: A5 Dot Grid Hardcover PLUS Antinet Zettelkasten

Here she is… my fresh new planner.

For now, my preference is a Leuchtterm 1917 hardcover in dot-grid. YMMV, but the A5 size fits well in my smallish everyday work bag, the pocket in the back is perfect for a handful of index cards (more on that later), and the pagecount is perfect for my needs for 3-4 months, with enough breathing room that I don’t feel like I’m rationing pages to finish a month, or wasting the space. My one wish is that the regular Leuchtturms had a third ribbon, like their branded Bullet Journal models do. But, all else considered, that’s definitely a quibble, solvable with a book dart or a cute cardstock bookmark (was I the only one who obsessively shopped the bookmark rack in Borders and Waldenbooks as a kid??).

The other “good” thing about this notebook style, if you’re not a purist, is that it’s such a popular design that your local store with an office supplies section probably has an off-brand version that ticks most of the same boxes, albeit with a bit of sacrifice in paper or construction quality, at a thriftier price point and without waiting for shipping. More than once I’ve been bitten by shipping delays, and have ended up snagging a similar product locally that has worked just fine.

This notebook satisfies most of my wish list in a planner. It houses my planner and daily schedule, is analog, and has the flexibility to accommodate as much or as little space as I actually need for any given day, week, or month. In a soon-upcoming post, I’ll unpack how I’m laying out the inside these days.

But… what about the Commonplace Book function, you ask?

Antinet Zettelkasten

Gesundheit.

In spring of 2022, I tripped over the edge of a YouTube rabbit hole, and discovered Scott Scheper’s channel. I highly recommend investigating his work yourself, but the condensed version of his spin on the zettelkasten system is to go back to basics, analog, paper notecards organized and collected in a physical box. The notecards can contain anything that you want to remember, from direct quotes and definitions and concept explanations. Scheper, and the earlier users of such notecard-boxes that he draws on, also emphasize including your own thoughts and reflections on the things that captured your interest.

My own notecard collection is comparatively small, and is much more multi-function than the project-specific collections of high-profile notecard-box users I’ve come across in my research on how others are using this idea. Some of my notecards are about writing and story craft. Others are quotes and reflections from my reading, fiction and nonfiction. Many are reference cards, practical how-to notes that I want to be able to come back to quickly in the future without trying to remember which book I found the idea inside.

So, where’s the Commonplace Book?

The key thing, for me, that sets this system apart from a traditional commonplace book, is its near-endless expandability and searchability. The trickiest part of getting the system rolling is sorting out the numerical references, but it’s well worth the effort. Once that element is down, the antinet zettelkasten, more or less in Scott Scheper’s style, solves all of the difficulties that I’ve run into trying to keep a more traditional commonplace book. I just keep a handful of blank cards in that handy pocket at the back of the journal to jot commonplace notes while I’m out and about.

What Do You Think?

Well, there it is! The high-view of my current general-purpose planning and info-capturing system. Hopefully that gives you a bit of inspiration, and some ideas to think about.

Is this sort of system something that might work for you? Do you use something similar? Or have you managed to find another way to solve the problem of planning and get on with the doing? Let me know in the comments!

If you liked this post, check out Part 2, in which I do a deeper dive into the innards of my journal and how I lay out and manage my short and long term plans. I’m also mapping out a future post to cover the analog zettelkasten, and how I’m using it as a fiction writer.

Until next time, may your coffee be strong, and may the Muse be with you!