

The Hacked-Together Productivity Tool I Can't Live Without: My Master Planner - derekflanzraich
http://thederek.com/post/37717689922/master-planner

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steverb
To Do: Spend an hour updating my to do list.

I kid, but for me personally, these sorts of things always end up consuming
more cycles than they save me. That includes GTD and a bunch of other get
organized tools of the month.

The only thing that I've found that helps is a small pocket sized moleskine
that I just keep a running log of things I did, and things that I think I need
to do, along with whatever else I needed to write down at the time (phone
numbers, shopping list, etc).

The act of putting things down on paper seems to help me focus and keeping it
simple helps to keep it from becoming something else I have to do. It's not
sexy, but it works for me.

As always to each their own, YMMV, etc.

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derekflanzraich
Ha-- yeah, swear I used to think this, too... but now am convinced that the
time I put into my master planner pays off later in spades thanks to structure
& organization. At least that's what I keep telling myself. :)

Also for what it's worth, I have a moleskine I keep too. That's mostly for
writing down stuff more visually-- but there are some things I definitely
prefer writing on paper as well.

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bostonpete
What goes in the Ideas/Thoughts section...?

 _Edit_ Reading that after I wrote it, it seems like a silly question, but
given that it wasn't mentioned again in your article, I'm curious what kind of
ideas/thoughts go in there. Is that where your meeting notes go...?

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derekflanzraich
Totally right, sorry for leaving it out-- basically I use that section for
anything that doesn't fall into day-to-day stuff or to-dos. It's some idea I
had that I wanted to put down, thoughts for the future, etc... Meeting notes
go in the day breakdown (notice all the bright blue stuff blotted out of the
day summary in the last screenshot). Hope that makes sense!

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MightyKlong
I was going to fire up Google Docs and have at it, because this is a granular-
level of organization that is lacking in my life. But then again, I think my
memory would turn to mush if I documented every little event in my life.

~~~
derekflanzraich
Promise my memory hasn't turned to mush-- if anything, it's improved?

