Gadgets

I’ve been observing with interest the latest, I’d say, fad of using personal planners. Planners aren’t new. In the 80’s and early 90’s, any fresh young executive worth their salt would clutch in their hand a Filofax, bursting with appointments, cards and papers. Heck, I had one. It cost me a lot of money, and I thought I was the bee’s knees. I was young and ambitious and out to save the world! *cue superhero music*

And then, I grew up and realised that I wasn’t using that expensive white elephant planner sitting on my shelf, gathering dust. Mobile phones evolved from the Nokia 3210 (hands up if you remember the days of tiny monochrome screens and colourful cases!) to the hand-held mobile computers we hold in our hands today. Suddenly, everyone was going digital and ditching the paper. Why carry bits of paper when you can hold it all in the palm of your hand?

But you know, I’m not surprised at this gradual swing back to using pen and paper to keep track of things. I’ve found that despite being fairly digitally savvy, I remember things best when I write them down. Also, having something written on paper doesn’t disappear if the battery runs out 😛

Yet, I sat back as the personal planner craze hit, and many people surfed that new wave. I wasn’t creative. I wasn’t about to stick washi tape and colourful stickers in my planner or decorate it with colourful drawings. I love how people do it and how creative they can be, but I’m just not one of them. I couldn’t quite care what my planner looked like so long as it served my needs – to help me keep track of what I needed to do.

On the advice of a friend, I tried out a cheap ring planner option. It reminded me of my Filofax days, and like my Filofax days, it pretty much remained unused in the end. I just couldn’t get the hang of the different folders and whatnots, and it was bulky, and the rings get in the way of writing. I wanted something simple and streamlined that didn’t restrict my movements.

And I found it, in my personal planner system! 😀

2018 UPDATE: By popular request, I’ve updated this post to show how I’ve kept up and further modified my simple bullet journal planning system to help it work better for me. Read further below.

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