That overwhelming feeling you get...

... when you reorganize your planner setup.

I am currently writing my Bachelor and I have had an immense planner fail the last couple of months. I do not thrive without a schedule where I am accountable for my actions often. My department have the best plan for a thesis course I have ever seen with plenty of deadlines, and we discuss each other's texts in a group (we are about ten people writing for the same supervisor and we studied together last term so we know each other very well) which is great. However, the deadlines are biweekly or less so I lose momentum. I am so overwhelmed, I have a lot on my plate all the time and I feel stressed because I need my planner to work for me and it does not!

My last planner related post was about changing from Dodopad to Filofax week per view. Nope. Did not work. (That sucked. I hate the standard week per view! Hate it!) So, what I have done is that I have gone back to the Dodopad, but I have added some things to get a better overview and to be able to plan my days in detail, because that is what I have needed for a long time. I got inspired by Joshua LaPorte's video on his weekly review process and I have printed a week's worth of Limetreefruits' daily planning pages (as you may know, I am a big fan of her work) for detailed planning and her monthly pages for a better overview. I really, really, really want to buy her 2014 planner pack! Cannot afford it at the moment though, but I am sorta' planning to buy an a5 Filofax original in green around the end of June (for my birthday) so I will hopefully be able to buy it then.

 Well, then. (Ignore the rugged edges of the monthly view, I cut all of them at once with scissors, k?) I decided to keep the Dodopad anyway, because I feel that it is a good weekly view and the set times are in the focus. I have colour coded them according to class throughout and everything else is in black Frixion because my work hours and so on is not necessarily set in stone. The day per page ones are Frixion only, too, because I do not have a lot of colour ink in my printer ;) I do not really need to archive my DPP either, they are just for time management and not much else.

What I stole from Joshua is that he only have a weeks worth or so of day per page, so he is forcing himself, literally, to review them when he puts in new ones - in my setup, these are the day per page ones. When I lack motivation, energy and focus, a super detailed plan is great, no excuses! I have been struggling with my weekly review ever since I realized that it does not do anything else than benefit me. Well, I will see if this works, I think so :)

I am a little excited to see how this desk-product will work in the field, so to speak. The risk is that I will be overwhelmed since there are three (!) different views, but I think I have it covered anyway. The monthly view is for at-a-glance of the important stuff, you can move everything else around. It is supposed to be a notification, sort of "hey, something important happens here, plan around it!". The weekly is the agenda for the classes and tickler for upcoming day planning, and the day per page is where the real time management happens.

Messy? Maybe.. We will see :) What do you think? Any tips and tricks you want to share?

(All of the above is my opinions, I did not receive any compensation for featuring above products)

My week

Busy busy. I'm currently writing an essay so I don't have any classes. *tired* byeeee *graceface*

Oh god I feel so busy!

I'm not though, I think I'm just combining the art of procrastinating with my current inability to start writing an essay... (edit; I've started! Yay me!)
From September up until now, I use Dodopad inserts. I'm not terribly happy with them though, it feels cramped! If I would have had an a5 I'd definitely use the dodoinserts, but in a personal it just feels useless... I'm not a very doodly (that is a word now) person and I like to have dedicated areas for my things because I'm easily overwhelmed - my current state of mind - and it's easier for me to just go with the inserts. I don't like how it feels like I'm wasting a loot of space, which I am.

The reason why I chose the dodoinserts at all is because I want colour and decoration in my filo. Right now I'm contemplating getting LimeTreeFruits inserts for next fall, but I may end up buying them sooner. I like the LTF-inserts because they are fun, don't waste much space on the pages, really pretty and I support an independent artist. Nothing can go wrong with that combination! I don't really have a clue on what the pages will look like, but I can say that the small thumbnail I've seen for the week per view lay out is purrty. I liked the month pages for this year that she made, and now she's improved them by putting mon-fri on the same page - loved it!

For the upcoming weeks I will regress to the cotton cream week on 2 pages from Filofax. I have more appointments than I thought I had since I have two jobs without a fixed schedule, as well as studying full time. It will be easier for me to have a W2P and use a to do-list on the side. I will give you an update next week on how I have set it up (have not decided yet which format, video or pictures).

Have a great week!

My week!

Less busy than usual, still quite busy. I need to write stuff up more often!!

Quick recap of the week

Oh gosh, this week has been terrible. I was afflicted by a cold from HELL! (Yes, the logic works. Read the Divine comedy if you do not believe me ;) ) I still have a few symptoms and it is my tenth day ill. Sucks. This means that I am behind on my studying, which is never a good thing, but it is a really interesting course (history of the Swedish language) so thankfully it does not matter that much because I will not have a problem with studying a couple of hours extra per day to catch up.
I did go to Uni this Thursday because I had an exam that day. Or so I thought. Turned out that I had written the wrong date in my calendar, the exam was actually on Wednesday... That kinda sucked too. You know, had it been written down on Tuesday it would just be funny, now I will have to wait a month to do the exam. I can say that I am extremely thankful for the Swedish universities' system, if you fail you can always take the test again (and if you write it up to two years after the course, you can still use the old literature).
Knittingwise I have started a pair of socks for S which she will get for Christmas. I use Järbo Raggi Multi which is a woolen blend yarn in a purple/grey/black/white colour mix. I like knitting with it, it is a little rough but it gives just the right amount of friction on the needles for me to be able to watch TV at the same time. The pattern (see link) is an awesome pattern, I have a pair of my own which I love. I have designated the living room sofa for this project - I felt since I have carpal tunnel syndrome that I need to have a few projects of different methods to switch between (I also have a crocheting project, a skull shawl for my cousin, to work with "on the go").
My boyfriend J is a very practical man and have an extreme love for hardware and tools of different sorts, unfortunately, he is organizationally challenged. I have, over the years we have lived together, bought him plenty of tool cases and alike to give him the resources he needs to not have all the tools in the living room. Finally he got the hint and managed to have one case extra. I stole it. It now holds knitting tools. :3

In that yellow tube I have all my aluminium jumper needles. I inherited most of them from J's grandmother who passed away. I got a whole moving box of yarn as well, but sadly I found fur beetle larvae in the bottom so we burnt it all. I did not even want to try to keep some of the yarn after that because I have a lot of woolen LARP-clothes that I do not want to be afflicted by those yucky animals (most of the yarn was acrylic though so I did not regret it that much, not a huge fan of acrylic). In the black pen case I hold my Knitpro (is it the same company as Knitpicks? It's the European version anyway..) interchangeable circular needles, cable needles, crocheting hooks, needle size/ruler/stitchmeasure-thingamabob etcetera.

Underneath the grey lift-out part, I have my stash. Not very much, but it keeps my knitting-need in check. I will probably not buy any yarn until new years when I will start (two, lol) afghan-projects. I will make a birthday present for S (by the way, my bestest friendsis in the whole world :3 ) and one for myself. I am going to use this pattern because we both love Harry Potter. Very much. Oh so much. Love. (Did I say I love Harry Potter?).
My Filofax has been an issue for me for a couple of weeks. I use Dodopad's Acadpad in personal size in my personal spring green Chameleon. Love the Dodo-designs, but... It doesn't give me enough room in the right places. Sort of buying an off-the-rack suit. I thought that I did not have to have that much space for the days, and more for the week, but it turns out that I was a little mistaken. Right now, and a month ahead, I would have done well with a day per page insert, preferably an Franklin Covey type. I think I will roll with the Acadpad until the academic year is up and use my Paperblank notebook/journal to help out when it it too crowded in the Filo. I've been thinking about having a to-do section as well, as a master list or something, but I am a little scared about it... Tried it before and it did not really work... I do not know. I may try it again just because I have to.
During the upcoming week I will have a couple of detailed posts on my current projects as well as a round up post for my beret. (love it!). I will also have a post which will hopefully be featured in Husmorsskolans "symöte", a collection of Swedish blogposts on the bloggers' current projects. We will see if I can make that happen, in that case, that post will be in Swedish.
Have a beautiful weekend everyone!

The paperless society - RANT

I was reading Well Planned Life's blog post about Evernote and Post-It collaborating, and this quote here made me think of the paperless society and its implications:

One thing about CNET’s article that threw me though is the quote from Evernote’s CEO [Phil Libin]: “’Paperless as a concept is stupid… The goal is to get rid of stupid uses of paper.’” 

Let’s break this down.  I agree with the first part—I don’t like the concept of an all or nothing approach to paper versus technology.  [...] However, the second part, that just doesn’t make sense to me.  Who is to say what is a “stupid use of paper”? 

 Mr. Libin's statement actually resonated with me on numerous levels. First and foremost as a lover of all things paper. I am an avid user of Evernote, Dropbox and many other digital and electronic tools such as Kindle, a smartphone etc., but there is just nothing that can replace my beloved paper notebook for class, Filofax for external-braining (yes, now it is a word) and Post-Its for those small reminders that normal people, for some reason, seem to remember without any issues (like bringing lunch, or use floss... It is not just me is it?). Emotional side, check!

Second, I work at a national agency as a registrar, so I am surrounded by paper all day long. However, they are slowly but surely (trying to) convert to all-digital communication within the agency as well as with citizens. As a whole I am a skeptic, I understand what they are coming from, but I am not convinced that it is in the citizens' or the country's best interest 100% of the time. In this aspect, the "stupid use of paper"-part is the best approach I think - and there seems to be a stirring amongst the registrars of my agency to try to eliminate the stupid uses of paper. (Unfortunately I do not want to go in to details of what I do exactly, first of all it would be very boring, very time consuming, and the post would just go on and on.. And my privacy of course ;) ) Work, check!

Third, when it comes to studying, I rarely learn if I do not write it down! I am primarily a tactile learner, I learn by doing. That does not help when you are enrolled in university studying linguistics. The only way I am able to learn what I need to learn (if it is on the boring side) is by writing. It. Down. When I do, I get pretty good grades. When I do not, I fail miserably. Paper all the way it is. School, check!

To respond to Well Planned Life, I think a stupid use of paper is wasting a piece of paper. As an individual, a stupid way of using paper may be to have several copies when there are ways of only using one. A practical implementation of the Evernote/Post-It could be if you have an opportunity to work from home but know you use Post-Its as reminders at work, upload it to Evernote and you do not have to write another to have at home/take it with you/write it down somewhere else. Or if you need to share the post it with a colleague... I could go on. Though I do think that the one who is to decide if it is a stupid use of paper or not is the person using it. If you use Evernote for everything as many people do, it may be an efficiency thing to keep it all-in-one-place without going through the trouble of writing it down yet again.

Ranty McRantRant. I do not know if I make sense. Rant.

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