Choosing the right planner for the way you work: a series

Getting organized is hard work! I read a news story recently that reported we lose three days a year just looking for things. Imagine what we could do with an extra three days- go on a romantic weekend trip, take the kids on a fun trip, complete an entire project, take a spa retreat… We even hire people to organize us!

The reclaimed time aspect of getting organized is probably the most important part of the process, but getting organized helps us save money, too. Besides not buying extra things we already have but can’t find, organizing our time ensures that we pay bills on time and not incur late fees, sign up for things early when costs are lowest, and buy things we need when they are at their least expensive.

We can save time and money, and feel less overwhelmed by having a good system for keeping our time organized. In my practice, I often hear patients say, “I forget things I’m supposed to do a lot, and let people down. I used to be able to remember everything without writing things down when I was young.” There are a lot of reasons that you can have trouble with memory, including medical and psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression, pain, poor sleep, and head injury. I don’t know about anyone else, but keeping track of my schedule has become monumentally more complicated as my professional responsibilities, (multiple ways to keep track of licensing and board responsibilities and continuing education units, anyone?), childcare and household responsibilities, and social commitments increase. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t have to keep track of as many things- my work shifts, classes, bills and dates. In my forties, I keep track of my patients’ care and schedules, my own teaching and professional requirements, my kids’ schedules, my spouse’s schedule, financial information, household maintenance, blog and hobbies, and my own health maintenance. That’s a lot more information- of course I need to write it down now!

But an easy step to help with information overload is figuring out a system to get your time under control. I use a two step process plus modifiers to help my patients. There are probably a lot of ways to divide personal organization, but this is the way I like to think of the issue.

Are your days mostly task-oriented or appointment-oriented?

Look at your normal, average day.

Are you mainly going to meeting-after-meeting-after-meeting-after-appointment-after-meeting-after-ohdearlordnotanother-meeting with just a few (or a lot) tasks? Do you have a lot of appointments to schedule in the future? You’re probably more appointment oriented at this point in your life.

Or, do you have relatively few things tied to a specific time during your day, but a long task list of things you get done on your own schedule? You can still have a few appointments, but those are maybe just a few a week.

For example, I have morning rounds, afternoon rounds, teaching classes, meetings to mentor residents, and scheduled meetings for providers and patient’s families, as well as my own family commitments and my own wellness commitments. These are mostly scheduled times, with some tasks as well. I’m more appointment oriented.

Write down which category you fall into, and let’s go on to the next decision point.

Are you a paper, digital or a hybrid kind of person?

This one is harder to decide, typically. There is good data that people in general learn and recall better when they write things down. But there can be good reasons to use digital- including repeating appointments, sharing a calendar, etc. Digital also tends to be lighter if you need to lighten your load while commuting.

Benefits and drawbacks of paper

We already discussed that you remember things and learn better when you use paper. Also, jotting down an appointment typically is much faster than the multistep process of turning on your phone, computer, or tablet, opening the app, entering in data, and saving. You can express yourself better with beautiful planners, papers, and pens. You don’t have to charge paper. A paper planner can be left open on your desk while you work for reference. Paper may be the only option if you work in a secure workplace that handles classified or proprietary data that doesn’t allow electronics. Certain methods of paper planning can really help you prioritize what is important to you instead of clicking “add all” to your digital calendar and suddenly have half a dozen appointments you have no intention of going to cluttering up your month.

On the other hand, paper can be damaged or lost, and there’s no real back up. Paper can be heavy to carry, and less convenient to add repeating appointments to. Some digital calendars can have nice linked information that you can find everything you need in one place.

Benefits and drawbacks of going digital

We talked about digital being more convenient to carry and add multiple appointments to. You can set alarms to remind yourself to do something. Often, digital systems have cloud back ups that can keep your data safer from loss.

However, digital systems can be lost if you’re not backing them up to your computer or the cloud, and I’ve found a lot of people who aren’t. Digital systems can be a lot harder to actually plan on and picture what your week or month looks like (does anyone really like the monthly view of a calendar on the tiny iPhone screen?). You learn better by writing, as we talked about before. Apps have annoying bugs and upgrades, and tend to be more expensive if you have to upgrade devices than a paper planner. Goal planning can be a little more difficult. You may not be allowed to have a device at work, depending on what you do at work.

The hybrid planner

You don’t have to choose one of the other, but can develop a system which uses aspects of digital planning and paper planning. I’ve written pretty extensively about this system here, which I’ll refer you to. Read this blog entry, then come back to this page.

So, write down which type of planner you need: digital, paper, or hybrid. Next week, we’ll go over which planners I think suit each of the six types best and where to find them. After that, we’ll discuss how to use the planner that you’ve chosen. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!