I love to organise. Depending on what needs to be organised, I’ll organise to the very last detail. I enjoy planning, seeing a project take shape, understand what I need to do to achieve or complete a task. I guess you could say that planning and organising, at least for me, is a way of getting the process of organising and using planning tools, out of my head so I don’t have to stress so much about completing things. I’m also a visual person, and have a need to see progress is being made.
This year – oops, allow me to correct that – last year I did away with my usual diary and went completely electronic, with a task manager and iCal on my iPhone to manage every day. Guess what? It took the joy I had out of organising and being organised. Electronic formats did not get me excited about an upcoming event or project completion. My commitments and appointments didn’t seem as real. I side-stepped a lot of my Pilates time and replaced it with work, even though I had blocked out time in my ‘diary’.
Towards the end of last year, I bought myself I diary. Yes, I’m going back to a good ‘ol paper diary. I’m bringing back the joy I have in organising. Already I’m loving it.
In my new diary I record my exercise, appointments, due dates and, inspired by the Bun-Toting Librarian, I’ve started to write down my mood, succinctly of course. At the beginning of each month I have room to make a list of focus areas and projects, as well as goals and what I’m grateful for. I’ll still use a task manager to manage the finer tasks for projects, but my diary is a small private space for me, away from my work and other commitments on the iPhone.
Over the last year however, I have developed a habit of entering appointments into iCal. I have my iPhone with me wherever I go. Like the shift to electronic organising, returning to a paper format will take some adjustment. Say or think what you will. So what if I appear to be going backwards? There are a number of great looking apps in the App Store right now I could download and use. Perhaps my position will change once I have a tablet; maybe I perceive the iPhone as not big enough to comfortably record what I need to. I like trying out new tools to facilitate organising and planning, but nothing beats a paper diary……at least for now.
Susie
January 5, 2012 at 3:56 amAmen! I like a paper diary although I’ve also come to appreciate Google calendar! I won’t be giving up my planner anytime soon.