Long - long ago there was a personal management system called ‘Day-Timers’.  It used to be advertised in airports.   If you’re over forty you may remember it.

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Thirty-five years ago, I invested in the notebook sized Day-Timer and despite the rise of tablets and smart phones with personal management features, I have remained loyal to this low-tech system. 

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The only hardware is a notebook for each month.  I discovered that the wee notebooks that always special for 10c at ‘back- to- school’ time are exactly the same size as the Day-Timer refills.  Consequently my system now costs me $1.20 a year.

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These note books have 32 leaves, or 64 pages, giving two pages for each day of the month plus at least two to spare.  At the beginning of each month I work through a new notebook filling in the date and day of the week.

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In the notebook for the month just gone I wrote all my ‘must dos’ and any appointments.  At the end of that month I check it for stuff that is still pending.  After a month of living in my back pocket except when it’s hauled out to record something I must remember, the notebook looks very scruffy, but always they make it intact to the months end. 

 

Invariably some of last month’s ‘must dos’ become ‘haven’t dones’.  These get pick up and, if still relevant, transferred to the new month. 

 

Last month’s notebook then gets filed.

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I now have one and a half banana boxes full of wee notebooks bundled up in year lots.  I don’t record stuff that has happened, just stuff that needs to happen, so my notebooks aren’t like a journal or a log, never-the-less within their pages are enough names, numbers and activities, that more often than not they have enough information to satisfy any needs to refer back.

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Like my phone, I have grown dependent on my notebooks, and misplacing my current notebook causes disproportionate anxiety.   I’ve yet to come up with a system to stop me misplacing stuff.