One Glance Daily Planning: How to Combine Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Plans in a Single Spread | Giftie Etcetera: One Glance Daily Planning: How to Combine Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Plans in a Single Spread

Monday, March 9, 2015

One Glance Daily Planning: How to Combine Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Plans in a Single Spread

When I open my planner, I expect to see, at a quick glance, exactly what is on the day's agenda. Wouldn't having all the relevant information for the day on one page be a blessing?

Using a combination of my task list, monthly plan, and weekly plan, I can see everything that is coming up, but it requires glancing at the information on three different pages! That's a lot for my busy mind to absorb at once.

Some people solve this by using fold-out months, short vertical weeks on the left edge of the page, and daily plans on the right. But I use my planner on the go too much to justify folding out a calendar, which makes it difficult to write well.

To cope with this problem, I've been using a daily docket. It works well, but requires copying all appointments and all planned tasks to the daily page. It's worth the time investment, but I would like to spend less time merely copying.

I designed a compromise, using my Quo Vadis daily planning pages (though a blank sheet of paper would work just as well) and my sticky note task list. I place the daily docket next to the weekly layout.

daily docket, planner, weekly planning


I still have to recopy my schedule to the top of the daily docket (something I want to do, as it makes me think about my upcoming day).

Otherwise, all I have to do is move the task list sticky note to the center of the daily page.

Now I can see appointments, weekly tasks assigned to Monday (over the arrow in the picture above), and other tasks that I might do (on the grey sticky note), all at one quick glance.

Since I didn't have to copy all the tasks over and over, it took seconds to set up.

Etcetera.

2 comments:

pattygardner.com said...

Interesting idea. I don't usually feel the need to see every view at the same time. When I first started using DIY Fish inserts I thought it was pretty cool but I eventually found I didn't need to see it all at once. I like having all the views and knowing they're available, but I only need to see my day on two pages most of the time.

I like the way you managed it, though.

KariP said...

Hmm. Interesting. Since I don't need to refer to the monthlies too often, although they are a necessity for an overview, I pretty much live in the week pages. I use Wo2P and all relevant lists and notes are corralled within the week. Don't always need them, but the supplemental dailies are in there too. Not quite ALL in one view, but close enough for me.
You do have an interesting concept.