Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog

I just saw a remarkable post at Jack Cheng’s blog about the Chronotebook that he is using.Jack has some good insights about how a notebook can be used:

Start with the simplest thing imaginable: a blank sheet of paper. Add a rows of lines and it becomes a notebook. Add a grid instead and it becomes an drawing pad for architects. Add a few tiny boxes and it turns into a to-do list. Put in dates and you’ve got a calendar.

But as they teach you in your high-school econ class, everything has a cost. For each function or feature you add, you lose a purpose. A blank sheet that could’ve been used in a million different ways can now only be used for a few. Artists aren’t going to buy a calendar if they’re looking for something to sketch on. Writers aren’t going to pick up to-do lists to use as a journal. This isn’t a bad thing per se—by narrowing down on a purpose, a blank sheet of paper can become more useful and relevant to certain people.

Increasing the relevance of all of your tools is a good idea, right? But what if you could increase that relevance by broadening the usefulness? Take a look at this:

Now this is a remarkable idea. For visual thinkers, mind-mapping is often a very valuable tool. I have also found that visual thinkers like myself often have trouble with “standard” calendar or day-planner formats.

Apparently this notebook is only available in the Muji store in NY City. But, in the comments to this post, one of the readers mentioned that this is something you could make DIY, just get a blank notebook and draw a circle in the middle of the page!

The commenters also point to a few other, related items, like:

• a cool whiteboard that uses this same idea, with an actual clock in the middle - TaskWatch.
• a circular-format yearly calendar - Once more around the sun.

I am just getting into mind-mapping as a tool for planning, and will have a review of the Buzan iMind Map program shortly. If any of you take an interest in this method of planning daily tasks, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment!