Hi! Belen is here today to share her fifth and final post for The Start Up Project. You can get caught up by reading Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, and Post 4!
Hello, again.
It has been a pleasure to participate in this blog series. You have now seen how I used my personal Domino Filofax to organize myself during the startup phase of my business. In my last guest post I will show you what I am doing now that the business is up and running, and now that I spend most of my work hours at my desk instead of running around.
My System:
1) Personal Domino Filofax in my purse – to carry with me for easy access and the primary repository for my personal plans and information. In GTD (Getting Things Done) terms, this is my “capture” tool.
2) Soft Flex Day-Timer® on my desk – the 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ binder holds my preferred “inserts” (Action Day Planner) and plenty of paper for meeting notes, brainstorming, etc.
3) Google calendar in the Cloud – to share work appointments, activities, and events with my business partner. She is not as tech-savvy as I am, so Google apps has been a nice, simple suite of office software to start with.
4) Since I have been switching planners so often this year I started scanning my completed pages (via iPhone + Scanner Pro app) and storing them as PDFs in Google Drive. At first it was just so I could be sure I didn’t lose any notes, but it has been useful so I plan to continue doing it.
My Collection:
I now have a bunch of different-size binders and I like to switch them out once in a while, just for fun. I also have no qualms about deconstructing and reconstructing any of them to meet my needs. Sometimes I just like to play around and see what happens.
On My Desk:
This Day-Timer was meant to be a temporary placeholder until I got my most-coveted A5 Aqua Malden. I finally got it, and didn’t like it, so I’m still on the lookout for an A5 that makes my heart sing. The way I see it, the inserts in a binder are the tools I need for organizing my time and tasks, so “pretty” doesn’t matter much. The binder itself, however, is a treat. I can use anything to hold my papers together – a rubber band would do – but I want a binder that is a pleasure to look at and hold in my hands. I know you know what I’m talking about.
The Tools:
My (current) favorite (work) planner format is this one by Action Day Planner. It works perfectly with my time-based business and my GTD sensibility. Above is the “before” picture. Below is the “after”. (The washi tape is covering up the spiral-binding holes so I could re-punch my own.)
Best features:
1) It has a gridded week view that starts on Monday.
2) It’s on cream-colored paper, with grey lines.
3) The task list is long with narrow lines. (GTD = “next action”)
4) There is a place for things delegated. (GTD = “waiting”)
5) There is a place for goals/progress. (GTD = “projects”)
As the week goes on the pages get messy. Doesn’t matter because the bigger the mess, the more I got done!
Thanks for reading! I leave you with a few word of wisdom that I found somewhere on Pinterest, rewrote, and stuck to my monitor as a constant reminder.
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