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I have been working on a project for a while now, to put together an effective calendar system that incorporates the features of GTD with the unique needs of my meatspace job. I have posted previously on the Gear that I use to stay organized, and while it is working well enough, it is somewhat unwieldy. The pre-printed calendar that I use forces me to also use a different worksheet for plotting the “big rocks” in my week. I was also doing my Weekly Review on Wednesday (when I had the most time), but I have been abusing it, taking too much time and messing with too many tools.

UPDATE: The Weekly Review has been moved to Fridays and I have created a Circa notebook with the Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly Review Checklists (see sidebar - Downloads) in order for the rest of the year. This will streamline the process, and provide automatic archiving.

Click here to download the Calendar pages.

I found an interesting discussion thread at D*I*Y*Planner and it has inspired me. The planner that supenguin discusses is from Planner Pads, pictured here. The company that makes this pad extolls the virtues of this method as a “funnel”:

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1) The top section replaces long lists written on tablets. This is the “Project Warehouse” - a place where you can organize business and personal activities by category. The horizontal layout gives you maximum visibility. As you plan, it makes it easy to group like activities and see all that needs to be accomplished … CATEGORIZE

2) The middle section is your daily activity plan. Select things that need attention from the top section. Assign specific days for action … PRIORITIZE

3) The lower section is your “appointment book.” Schedule people to see, meetings to attend, and personal activities. Schedule time for yourself to work on projects and to get things done … SCHEDULE

Speaking strictly for myself, I don’t keep “long lists written on tablets”, rather I use 3×5 cards for short lists. Thus I have a ready-made “Project Warehouse” simply by laying my cards on the table (no pun intended).

UPDATE: I have Circa-fied my hPDA (see examples here and here), and it has made a big difference in usability. No longer having to fuss with the binder clip makes things so much quicker and easier. There is the added benefit of being able to remove cards from the hPDA and stick them into the organizer, where they are secured without paper clips or tape.

The middle section of this planner looks interesting, where the “big rocks” get sorted and assigned to an action period. I also like the layout of the calendar, on a horizontal fashion. My current calendar has the days of the week laid out in a vertical fashion, with Mon-Weds on the left-hand page and Thu-Sun on the right. I do not particularly like this setup, as I tend to gloss over parts of it, and can’t see how my days are filling up (compared to each other) easily.

After doing some research on how people look at things and gather information, I found some information on eye-tracking (link to Tim Yeo at UX Magazine). Tim points to a post by Jakob Nielsen regarding creating Web Pages to accomodate how people read them:

Implications of the F Pattern
The F pattern’s implications for Web design are clear and show the importance of following the guidelines for writing for the Web instead of repurposing print content:

• Users won’t read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won’t.
• The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There’s some hope that users will actually read this material, though they’ll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
• Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They’ll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words.

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I believe that if you can use this infomation to create a web page that delivers more information, more quickly, to a reader it should follow that you can use the same principles to design a calendar page that does the same thing. Thus, the “V-shape” of the Planner Pad’s focus may be useful for putting information into the calendar; it is all wrong for gathering information from the calendar.

The result of this work is a first draft of a calendar page that can be printed and punched for your Circa or 3-ring binder. I have designed it in an 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ format, as that is what I use.

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My strategy behind this design is as follows:

• The “Big Rocks” are listed first, on the left-hand edge of the page. This is where our eyes spend the most time, therefore we will look there first while planning, and while executing.
• Appointments for the day go across the top of both pages. This is the second place our eyes will scan, giving us an “automatic” quick-review of what is coming up, and what has been accomplished.
• The middle of the left-hand page leads the eye to an area for focusing on open @Project contexts. This acts as a guide for our eyes, again to be able to review which Next Actions are outstanding. There is room in each box for the Context, I am thinking about adding a prompt for “time required”.
• The small calendar in the very bottom left is dated for June in this example, the actual spreadsheet has a sheet for each month, with the appropriate calendar.
• The middle of the right-hand page contains a prompt for Weekly Review notes to be entered.
• The Header information is very rough on this copy. I have not decided what to put here for tracking purposes.

UPDATE: The organizer itself is split into tabbed sections for planning and capture:

• Tab #1 is the calendar itself, with pages printed for this month and next month. There is a single blank page for each month for the rest of the year. This blank page is for capturing notes and appointments.
• Tab #2 - Errata: this is where I capture information that is not time-sensitive, but may be useful for quick reference during the week.
• Tab #3 - Next Actions: one page for each context, currently @Work, @Computer, @Read/Review.
• Tab #4 is currently the home to Goal Planning sheets from D*I*Y*Planner, but I have not used them in the two weeks this beta test has been running. This tab may change.
• Tab #5 - Project Details: Once again, sheets from D*I*Y*Planner, with one page per Project, accompanied by blank sheets for notes, if any. There are currently eight Projects being tracked here.

Important Note: The actual page layout in the spreadsheet has the left-hand planner page on the right side of the page when it prints(and vice-versa) in order to allow you to print on both sides of the paper, then cut down the middle. I had to make an allowance for the margins on my printer, so the workaround allows for the punching of smurfs or binder holes.

Important Note #2:The calendars are on sale at 50% off, for the rest of the year. Click this link to find out more.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6zzlrg. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen