6 ms·

After many revisions, I present my "pocket planner". I hope HN finds it useful

88 points by windsurfer 17y ago

windsurfer 17y ago
The idea is to print out a sheet, cut it in half, and fold them in half twice. You write your weekly plans on the left pane, and your agenda on the right. The grey area marks roughly when it is dark out. I didn't include between 0000 and 0600 as I figured it took up too much space and isn't useful for an agenda. It's an Inkscape SVG, by the way. I'd love to hear about any forks :)
- anonjon 17y ago
  I personally carry a notebook around with me to write down ideas and stuff, but this has potential from the planning perspective. Is there anything keeping you from printing these out double sided to save on paper?
  - windsurfer 17y ago
    No, nothing. I personally use a heavy ink pen that bleeds through normal paper however.
- San 17y ago
  While I like the general idea of your 'schedule as a bar chart' solution, I see several issues: 1) There is very little space to write down appointments. I'd like to be able to write down at least a name and a location, even for a 30-minute appointment. 2) What about moved or cancelled appointments? I'm afraid things will get messy very soon. 3) How should I handle overlapping appointments? Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I encounter these things daily.
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    There's a lot of space around the daily timelines. For appointments I'd suggest marking it in the timeline using a letter or perhaps initials then making a note in the TODO area with the details. If the timing of the appointment would make that difficult (e.g. a 15 minute appointment, or an appointment that starts and ends at :30, putting the line for the hour division in the middle) then simply mark the appointment time appropriately and adding a note above or below the time with the letter or initials which ties in to the appointment details. If you happen to have more than half a dozen appointments per week and have routine issues like moved, cancelled, or overlapped appointments then a simple tool like this is unlikely to meet your needs, you'd be better off with an application for a smart phone or somesuch.
  - Sukotto 17y ago
    For a back-pocket planner, I think it's nice and simple. Clearly it's not intended to incorporate all the features of a dayrunner or whatever. It's just a simple todo list + time-blocking. 1) The space is adequate if your appointments tend to be short eg Bob and Cathy or lunch and not complex like Bob, Cathy, sys-eng group rep. re: develop timeline to cost out and deploy new server cluster for foobar project (see 3/10/2010 emails "foobar server" and 3/5/2010 "how do I price a webserver?". 6th floor conference room (call in number 1-888-555-1111 p:142678) 2) The downside of any paper-based time planning is that it gets messy if you need to change things very often. 3) If you have overlapping appointments very often then I think you need to fix a more fundamental problem with your scheduling. Unless you are some sort of genius, it seems really unlikely that you can seriously pay attention to more than one thing or person at a time. By trying to split your attention, there's a good chance you are less useful than you would be if you told one of your appointments to take a hike.
    - San 17y ago
      Yes, I agree it would be a nice way to do some personal time boxing ("How do I divide my free time between projects A, B and C"). But as I already noted in the parent post, this layout simply does not suit my kind of appointments. However, I think most people in my situation would be able to use a daily version of this. Three bars of six hours each: morning, afternoon and evening, for example. The additional height would allow me to write down overlapping appointments, and the extra width gives me room to write down some details. And in case of major messiness, I need to copy only one day to a new page. re 1) Your example is ridiculous, but I really do need a first or last name and a location. Even for 30-minute appointments. re 2) But there is quite a difference between changing a five into a six, or somehow moving an appointment in the bar chart. re 3) I don't actually try to be in two places at the same time. It's usually just meetings and presentations I want even should attend, but simply overlap with other appointments. I do still want to know about them, so I can go but leave early, or drop in at a later time.
- Luc 17y ago
  Perhaps you could post the SVG, so we can edit it to make Monday the first day of the week like ISO 8601 intended it :)
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    ahem http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do
    - Luc 17y ago
      Aw, that kind of deflates my joke! My installation of Inkscape (latest version) wouldn't open the SVG, by the way (not that I have an actual need to edit it).
      - windsurfer 17y ago
        Hm, what is the error? I can open it in Ubuntu and XP.
        Luc 17y ago
        Works fine now. I had downloaded the SVG the same way as I did the files in the downloads area (by right-clicking and 'save link as...'), but in the source file case this retrieves a webpage, not the SVG file. Sorry about that.
icco 17y ago
Cool idea. I'd be interested to see what one looks like after a day of use. I use just a sheet of paper from my notebook for notes and my phone keeps track of my agenda, but I could see how this could unify that. I'd need a much larger ToDo space, but that is what forks are for right? Thanks for this.
dryicerx 17y ago
This is really awesome! Glad to see productivity hacks that are not web apps for a change ;) There's something about actually writing stuff down physically instead of tapping them on to your phone... hard to describe. I'll be giving this a go this week (after offsetting the times +6hrs)
- joelanman 17y ago
  yeh it's nice work - I'm really interested in ways that web-based infographics and usability ideas move into the real world - the Guardian/Observer print design has some good examples. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubmedia/4383021104/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubmedia/4383021104/ I did a similar paper-based project a while ago - the business-card yearly planner: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelanman/367425390/in/set-72157594502722552/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelanman/367425390/in/set-7215...
InclinedPlane 17y ago
FYI, your "action shot"s are not actually action shots, as they don't show your invention in use, just folded up. I highly suggest actually showing a real world example in your action shots. This would give people a better idea about how to use them while simultaneously showing their value.
- ra 17y ago
  Yeah, I'm quite intrigued to see where you're coming from. Please show us last weeks, for example..
phoenix24 17y ago
this is absolutely priceless; nice job.
billclerico 17y ago
looks awesome. reminds me of marc andreessen's 3x5 index card hack: http://lifehacker.com/266387/marc-andreessens-guide-to-personal-productivity http://lifehacker.com/266387/marc-andreessens-guide-to-perso...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
shadowsun7 17y ago
I love this, windsurfer. It goes quite well with my existing GTD system, and I really appreciate that you've made this available. Thank you. Note: for college students who'd like to use it, consider reading Cal Newport's GTD for students: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/06/monday-master-class-getting-things-done-for-college-studentsmade-easy/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/06/monday-master-class-ge...
- windsurfer 17y ago
  I'm glad you like it :) Note: I am a college student
San 17y ago
Moleskine has something like this, called the Weekly Notebook. Each spread has a page for appointments on the left (one week), and room for notes or to-dos on the right: http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/diariesplanners/12_month_weekly_notebook/12_months__weekly_notebook__black_soft_cover__pocket.php http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/diariesplanners/12_month_... It's a very nice product, and it looks a bit more presentable than your solution. This can be important when you are in a meeting or with a client (or just to yourself -- using a fancy planner motivates me to keep it neat and up-to-date).
alexkay 17y ago
Looks good even though most people use A4 paper, start their week on Monday and have their lunch between 12:00 and 13:00 :)
- rue 17y ago
  Except the Americans. People who simultaneously refer to Saturday and Sunday as the "weekend" and start their calendar weeks from Sunday are, truly, exceptional.
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    It's pretty common in the US, at least from my experience, for people to implicitly use Monday as the start date for the week.
  - graywh 17y ago
    Some things are allowed to have 2 ends. Why not weeks, too?
    - roundsquare 17y ago
      Thats actually what I have always considered it to mean. Like two ends of a rope. Of course, thats probably more a function of having everyone around me call both days weekends and having sunday start off the week. I needed someway to justify it to myself...
davidw 17y ago
Here at 73primenumbers.com, we're always on the lookout for this kind of paper-based innovation!
RodgerTheGreat 17y ago
Reminds me of the 'PocketMod': http://repocketmod.com/ http://repocketmod.com/
Capnemo 17y ago
Folded in four it is about the size of my iPhone which has calendar app in it
- TrevorBurnham 17y ago
  I think it will be competitive with the iPhone once someone contributes a patch for MobileMe sync. At least it bypasses AT&T.
  - windsurfer 17y ago
    Maybe I'll integrate some social networking features and location awareness. I could easily capture a percentage of the iPhone's market share with that kind of innovation.
pavs 17y ago
Looks nice. Something similar that I have used in that past. http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-online-emergent-task-timer/ http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-online-emergent-... http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-series/ http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-series/ I think these are a bit more polished with more options. Edit: Online Flash version: http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/ http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/ Now I just use Things for mac. Works for me.
JoelMcCracken 17y ago
This reminds me of my muji chronotebook, which I bought after being referenced by Jack Cheng. http://jackcheng.com/stuff-i-love-muji-chronotebook http://jackcheng.com/stuff-i-love-muji-chronotebook Its really awesome. I find it the perfect balance of flexibility and structure within a notebook. The way times are laid out are cool, but yet remain unobtrusive.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
lotharbot 17y ago
Seems like the "bars" could be substantially thicker, thereby allowing more space to write in details of appointments and such.
Mystitat 17y ago
Others have commented on this already, but this reminds me a lot of the charts I'd make for the first couple weeks of high school when I had new classes and couldn't remember my schedule. I think this is more suited for that kind of scheduling than something more corporate. It's just enough space to help you remember that English is at 10:45. This would also be a good template for convention-goers to use to plan which events they'd like to go to. I can easily imagine this being a rip-out page in a convention pamphlet.

88 points by windsurfer 17y ago

The idea is to print out a sheet, cut it in half, and fold them in half twice. You write your weekly plans on the left pane, and your agenda on the right. The grey area marks roughly when it is dark out. I didn't include between 0000 and 0600 as I figured it took up too much space and isn't useful for an agenda. It's an Inkscape SVG, by the way. I'd love to hear about any forks :)

anonjon 17y ago
I personally carry a notebook around with me to write down ideas and stuff, but this has potential from the planning perspective. Is there anything keeping you from printing these out double sided to save on paper?
- windsurfer 17y ago
  No, nothing. I personally use a heavy ink pen that bleeds through normal paper however.
San 17y ago
While I like the general idea of your 'schedule as a bar chart' solution, I see several issues: 1) There is very little space to write down appointments. I'd like to be able to write down at least a name and a location, even for a 30-minute appointment. 2) What about moved or cancelled appointments? I'm afraid things will get messy very soon. 3) How should I handle overlapping appointments? Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I encounter these things daily.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  There's a lot of space around the daily timelines. For appointments I'd suggest marking it in the timeline using a letter or perhaps initials then making a note in the TODO area with the details. If the timing of the appointment would make that difficult (e.g. a 15 minute appointment, or an appointment that starts and ends at :30, putting the line for the hour division in the middle) then simply mark the appointment time appropriately and adding a note above or below the time with the letter or initials which ties in to the appointment details. If you happen to have more than half a dozen appointments per week and have routine issues like moved, cancelled, or overlapped appointments then a simple tool like this is unlikely to meet your needs, you'd be better off with an application for a smart phone or somesuch.
- Sukotto 17y ago
  For a back-pocket planner, I think it's nice and simple. Clearly it's not intended to incorporate all the features of a dayrunner or whatever. It's just a simple todo list + time-blocking. 1) The space is adequate if your appointments tend to be short eg Bob and Cathy or lunch and not complex like Bob, Cathy, sys-eng group rep. re: develop timeline to cost out and deploy new server cluster for foobar project (see 3/10/2010 emails "foobar server" and 3/5/2010 "how do I price a webserver?". 6th floor conference room (call in number 1-888-555-1111 p:142678) 2) The downside of any paper-based time planning is that it gets messy if you need to change things very often. 3) If you have overlapping appointments very often then I think you need to fix a more fundamental problem with your scheduling. Unless you are some sort of genius, it seems really unlikely that you can seriously pay attention to more than one thing or person at a time. By trying to split your attention, there's a good chance you are less useful than you would be if you told one of your appointments to take a hike.
  - San 17y ago
    Yes, I agree it would be a nice way to do some personal time boxing ("How do I divide my free time between projects A, B and C"). But as I already noted in the parent post, this layout simply does not suit my kind of appointments. However, I think most people in my situation would be able to use a daily version of this. Three bars of six hours each: morning, afternoon and evening, for example. The additional height would allow me to write down overlapping appointments, and the extra width gives me room to write down some details. And in case of major messiness, I need to copy only one day to a new page. re 1) Your example is ridiculous, but I really do need a first or last name and a location. Even for 30-minute appointments. re 2) But there is quite a difference between changing a five into a six, or somehow moving an appointment in the bar chart. re 3) I don't actually try to be in two places at the same time. It's usually just meetings and presentations I want even should attend, but simply overlap with other appointments. I do still want to know about them, so I can go but leave early, or drop in at a later time.
Luc 17y ago
Perhaps you could post the SVG, so we can edit it to make Monday the first day of the week like ISO 8601 intended it :)
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  ahem http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do
  - Luc 17y ago
    Aw, that kind of deflates my joke! My installation of Inkscape (latest version) wouldn't open the SVG, by the way (not that I have an actual need to edit it).
    - windsurfer 17y ago
      Hm, what is the error? I can open it in Ubuntu and XP.
      - Luc 17y ago
        Works fine now. I had downloaded the SVG the same way as I did the files in the downloads area (by right-clicking and 'save link as...'), but in the source file case this retrieves a webpage, not the SVG file. Sorry about that.

icco 17y ago

Cool idea. I'd be interested to see what one looks like after a day of use. I use just a sheet of paper from my notebook for notes and my phone keeps track of my agenda, but I could see how this could unify that. I'd need a much larger ToDo space, but that is what forks are for right? Thanks for this.

dryicerx 17y ago

This is really awesome! Glad to see productivity hacks that are not web apps for a change ;) There's something about actually writing stuff down physically instead of tapping them on to your phone... hard to describe. I'll be giving this a go this week (after offsetting the times +6hrs)

joelanman 17y ago
yeh it's nice work - I'm really interested in ways that web-based infographics and usability ideas move into the real world - the Guardian/Observer print design has some good examples. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubmedia/4383021104/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubmedia/4383021104/ I did a similar paper-based project a while ago - the business-card yearly planner: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelanman/367425390/in/set-72157594502722552/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelanman/367425390/in/set-7215...

InclinedPlane 17y ago

FYI, your "action shot"s are not actually action shots, as they don't show your invention in use, just folded up. I highly suggest actually showing a real world example in your action shots. This would give people a better idea about how to use them while simultaneously showing their value.

ra 17y ago
Yeah, I'm quite intrigued to see where you're coming from. Please show us last weeks, for example..

phoenix24 17y ago

this is absolutely priceless; nice job.

billclerico 17y ago

looks awesome. reminds me of marc andreessen's 3x5 index card hack: http://lifehacker.com/266387/marc-andreessens-guide-to-personal-productivity http://lifehacker.com/266387/marc-andreessens-guide-to-perso...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

shadowsun7 17y ago

I love this, windsurfer. It goes quite well with my existing GTD system, and I really appreciate that you've made this available. Thank you. Note: for college students who'd like to use it, consider reading Cal Newport's GTD for students: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/06/monday-master-class-getting-things-done-for-college-studentsmade-easy/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/06/monday-master-class-ge...

windsurfer 17y ago
I'm glad you like it :) Note: I am a college student

San 17y ago

Moleskine has something like this, called the Weekly Notebook. Each spread has a page for appointments on the left (one week), and room for notes or to-dos on the right: http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/diariesplanners/12_month_weekly_notebook/12_months__weekly_notebook__black_soft_cover__pocket.php http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/diariesplanners/12_month_... It's a very nice product, and it looks a bit more presentable than your solution. This can be important when you are in a meeting or with a client (or just to yourself -- using a fancy planner motivates me to keep it neat and up-to-date).

alexkay 17y ago

Looks good even though most people use A4 paper, start their week on Monday and have their lunch between 12:00 and 13:00 :)

rue 17y ago
Except the Americans. People who simultaneously refer to Saturday and Sunday as the "weekend" and start their calendar weeks from Sunday are, truly, exceptional.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  It's pretty common in the US, at least from my experience, for people to implicitly use Monday as the start date for the week.
- graywh 17y ago
  Some things are allowed to have 2 ends. Why not weeks, too?
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    Thats actually what I have always considered it to mean. Like two ends of a rope. Of course, thats probably more a function of having everyone around me call both days weekends and having sunday start off the week. I needed someway to justify it to myself...

davidw 17y ago

Here at 73primenumbers.com, we're always on the lookout for this kind of paper-based innovation!

RodgerTheGreat 17y ago

Reminds me of the 'PocketMod': http://repocketmod.com/ http://repocketmod.com/

Capnemo 17y ago

Folded in four it is about the size of my iPhone which has calendar app in it

TrevorBurnham 17y ago
I think it will be competitive with the iPhone once someone contributes a patch for MobileMe sync. At least it bypasses AT&T.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  Maybe I'll integrate some social networking features and location awareness. I could easily capture a percentage of the iPhone's market share with that kind of innovation.

pavs 17y ago

Looks nice. Something similar that I have used in that past. http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-online-emergent-task-timer/ http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-online-emergent-... http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-series/ http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-series/ I think these are a bit more polished with more options. Edit: Online Flash version: http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/ http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/ Now I just use Things for mac. Works for me.

JoelMcCracken 17y ago

This reminds me of my muji chronotebook, which I bought after being referenced by Jack Cheng. http://jackcheng.com/stuff-i-love-muji-chronotebook http://jackcheng.com/stuff-i-love-muji-chronotebook Its really awesome. I find it the perfect balance of flexibility and structure within a notebook. The way times are laid out are cool, but yet remain unobtrusive.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

lotharbot 17y ago

Seems like the "bars" could be substantially thicker, thereby allowing more space to write in details of appointments and such.

Mystitat 17y ago

Others have commented on this already, but this reminds me a lot of the charts I'd make for the first couple weeks of high school when I had new classes and couldn't remember my schedule. I think this is more suited for that kind of scheduling than something more corporate. It's just enough space to help you remember that English is at 10:45. This would also be a good template for convention-goers to use to plan which events they'd like to go to. I can easily imagine this being a rip-out page in a convention pamphlet.