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Planners & Post-its

I love to keep notes, and lists, and doodles - it's productive and therapeutic for me. My little green planner is my security blanket and my secret weapon. Over the years my collection of planners has grown but the way I see it:


Living with 7 cats - might be time to stage an intervention

Living with 7 planners - perfectly normal, nothing to worry about here


My planner of choice is the Arc system by Staples. I do have one Martha Stewart planner. It's pages are interchangeable with the Arc system. I do love the colors and patterns in the Martha Steward range but I have found that Arc is a little more solid and can hold up to being dragging around all day.


My favorite feature of these types of planners is that, while they can absolutely help to keep you organized and productive on your very best days, they are very forgiving when life decides to go nuts and your well planned day goes pear shaped.


After 7 months of pandemic induced chaos this is what my little stack of planners look like...

... but that's ok. These planners can handle it.


Let's clean things up a bit.


Planner #1: Arc Junior

This one is my whole life wrapped in a pretty green cover. It includes the following sections:

To Do's

Calendar



Sam

Connor

Riley

Meals




Travel


Home

Garden

Money


Planner #2: Arc Junior

This little one lives in my camera bag, it's got a copy of my field notes so that I can do a quick review before starting a shoot and jot down some notes on my way home

  • Field Notes (with scribbles and doodles that will eventually make it in to the digital copy)

  • To Dos

  • Notes

Planner #3: Martha Stewart - Full Size

The big old photography book - this one rarely leaves the studio. It's got a clean and shiny printout of my field notes plus all the nitty gritty details that keep the studio and the website going

  • Field Notes

  • Agile Photography Brand Book - Typography, Color schemes etc

  • Agile Photography Business Plan

  • Shot Matrix

  • Client Notes

  • Equipment List


Planner #4: The little black one, the work planner - Arc Junior

This one is small enough to fit in my laptop bag and easy to take into meetings (in pre-pandemic days when they were a thing). I keep a handful of pages in here with info that doesn't change (contact info, emergency procedures etc) but most of it's pages will last about a month or so. Inconsequential stuff will end up in the shredder, everything else will migrate into one of the 'Big' work planners

  • To Do's

  • Calendar

  • Contacts

  • Meetings

  • Projects


Planner #5: The big black one, confidential tech notes - Arc Full

This is were all the work stuff end up. It's the information that's specific to the company I work for. Regardless of how sensitive the information is (or mostly isn't) if it's in this book I'll treat it as highly confidential. Meaning that if it's in the office it stays in a locked drawer/cabinet and if its at home it lives in the safe. It's also useful when I change jobs to be able to quickly identify everything that needs to get shredded. This book is the slate that is easily wiped clean when a job ends and gets reset for the next adventure.

  • Projects

  • Systems

  • Architectural Designs


Planner #6: The big blue one, non-confidential work tech notes - Arc Full

This is home for stuff that is work related but in a fairly generic tech sense. It's notes on a technology, or a design principle. Nothing specific to a company or a project. This one outlives individual jobs so it's more of a 'big picture' notebook. This one is obviously handy to keep track of tech things but it's also helpful to keep me on track. Not having cracked this one open in a couple of months is a tell that I'm focusing too much on specific work tasks and forgetting to put some time into keeping my skills current.

  • Design Principles

  • Design Patterns

  • Front Tier Technologies

  • Middle Tier Technologies

  • Back End Technologies

Planner #7: The one that makes it all work - Arc Full

This is the one that makes everything easy. It lives in the kitchen and this is one that gets gloriously messy. It's where all the crazy ideas get jotted down in no particular order. And when the time is right these pages get moved into there respective planners.

  • Notes (anything that needs to be jotted down for later)

  • Garden

  • Music

  • Recipes

  • Video Games (don't judge - Planet Zoo demands a certain degree of planning)



And before you know it life is back on track. Enjoy it, it doesn't last long.






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