The Geekette Speaketh

It's been a long, long while since I last posted on this blog. I'd like to say that I've been busy, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what I've been busy with. I know there's a lot of stuff I need to do and yet I feel like I haven't done anything much. So I decided to call this day my "Get Things Done and Organized" Day. I then revived three items which worked for me long ago, though separately. Yet by putting them all together, I realized that I had gained an upper hand in finally getting things done.

Learning is a lifetime activity. As long as you can hear, see, smell and/or feel you have the capacity to find out about something new every single day. But for some of us (like myself), there's a slight problem with retention of data. While reading Lifehacker I learned about some programs that could help me in reviewing the information I read earlier as well as help me create presentations that might be useful for future conventions and seminars. Welcome to the world of flashcards!

I've been a long time fan of D.I.Y. Planner since the day I ditched my Palm Zire 72. But somehow I can't seem to schedule stuff correctly and end up putting off some tasks. Recently Lifehacker featured the Muji Chronotebook, a day planner that takes a much different approach to scheduling your everyday routines. That, coupled with a few lessons from "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore, inspired me to create a totally new template to help me get my procrastination under control. I have a problem keeping my to-do list nice and short. More specifically, if it's not scheduled into the day then it's never going to be done at all. The problem here is that I find it really hard to actually specify a time slot for such tasks. I couldn't visualize how much time I actually used, let alone how much free time I actually have to do the said tasks.

While browsing through Lifehacker I came upon their post about the Muji Chronotebook Non-linear Day Planner. The notebook gives scheduling a new twist. It allowed the owner to schedule their day against a drawing of a 12-hour clock. One side of the paper was for morning tasks and the other side was for evening tasks. The cool thing about it is the ability to actually visualize your whole day like a pie chart. Oh, make that half a day. While it was cool, I didn't like the idea of having to flip to the next page to see what the next half of my day looks like. This inspired me to make my own Chrono-Day template.

You can see the difference between the Japanese-made planner and my new design. The outer area represents morning, the middle gray area is afternoon/evening and the center represents the next day (in case of overnight activities). With this format I could now see my whole day in all its glory!

Now I can apply a few tricks I learned from "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore. Here's what I did to my Chrono-Day.

Using some Ikea markers that were given to me as a gift from a friend, I proceeded to shade in my usual activities. These are activities which I know for a fact that I would really end up doing. The blanks are my free time. At the bottom is a list of stuff that I keep putting off till later. As you can see, I finally got around to paying my bills, which only lasted thirty minutes. As for my SCJP review, obviously nothing happened. My 15-minute morning nap (due to my exercise) stretched to almost two hours. Then again, my friend said maybe I actually needed it.

Anyway, the whole thing is really working out for me. I'm attaching a PDF of the file for those who might be interested in trying this out. Do let me know if it works for you or if you did something different to it.

Dec 1, 2009 UPDATE: Apparently some people are having trouble getting the original Chrono-Day PDF. So I decided to update the file. Version 2 is a letter-sized document (8.5 by 11 inches or 21.59 by 27.94 centimeters). If you need a smaller version, contact me or leave a comment so I can resize and send you a modified copy.