The Great Calendar Debacle of 2008
Kristen FischerIf you’ve been listening to the podcasts here at FreelanceSwitch.com, you know that I am a sucker for nice office supplies. Anything with color, anything with a cute design…these are the things that make my office a restful, organized place for me.
But there is that time of year that stirs it all up for me—when I need to refill my planner.
Don’t ask me why, but I can never find the pages with the layout that I like. I go from store to store each year searching for weekly pages with horizontal daily planning room. Instead, I find pages with tiny one-inch columns and scores of hourly markers down the side that are ideal mostly for busy doctors. This is my challenge.
I own one of those fake leather binder types of planners, which cost me about $40 a few years back. (It’s about 5”x8”, and a dull shade of wondrous lavender, to boot!) To save on buying a new planner each year, I always plan on getting refill pages for it to kick off the New Year when I’ve run out of old pages. Simple, right?
This is always a nightmare for me. Every. Single. Year.
I began this year’s hunt in December, as dates were starting to fill up for January. Having nowhere to write things down, I began to panic and reach for the Post-It’s. I’m a very visual kind of gal and I need to have things organized in simple, bulleted lists. I also need the right planner pages. To me, this means having a yearly tabbed calendar and weekly pages where I can prioritize my to-do list horizontally. It’s just what works for me.
After hunting around on the Internet and finding the pages I liked, I balked at the price. Here they were—perfect pristine refill pages without the number slots. There were simply about 10 or so lines to write out my list of to-do’s each day. There were no restrictive columns or unsightly extras—just what I needed. They ran about $25. But they had a garden design. I can’t even grow weeds in a pot. I decided to shop around.
Then came the Moleskine. I was set on getting one of their planners because everyone raves about them. So I thought I’d give Old Lav a rest. Just when I ordered it on Amazon, the universe must have somehow collided. About a week later (and closer to January, with dates piling up on Post-It™ notes, now) Amazon emails me to tell me they’re out of that planner. Do I want to reorder in the smaller size?
No way, Jose. Again, I need simple clean pages. Why is this so hard? And is everyone on earth really writing in one-inch columns and enjoying it? (It’s okay if you are.)
Back to the Drawing Board
Finally, after popping in countless office supply stores, I decided to follow the bread crumbs back to Target, where I found my pages last year after weeks of toil. Surely, they would have them!
But no! The small selection of pages all that had vertical columns running down the pages, with those ever-so-annoying hourly slots. There are tons of pages that enable you to plan your whole day over the span of two pages, but I realize I would be wasting paper that way.
Alas, there is a light. I found the tabbed calendar pages where you can see a month over two pages and bought those there. They were six bucks. Came home and put them in. Okay, Kristen, I thought to myself. You’re halfway there. You just need the pages where you have your week spread out over two pages and you have plenty of space to make your obsessive (sometimes color-coded) to-do lists.
A few days later, after a trip to Barnes and Noble, I score a cute lavender planner for just six bucks. I decided to stop being fanatical and just settle for what’s out there. Now my Target pages are obsolete, but at least I have a planner. After going through and writing birthdays and now importing my January reminders into the thing, I realize it’s true—I just can’t do this all year. I can’t ignore the numbers running down the sides of the pages. I can’t make my handwriting smaller to fit in these puny columns. So I slept on it. Woke up, tossed the planner in the garbage, and went to a different Staples.
Perfection at Last
There before me, like a Christmas miracle, are my pages. On the bottom row where no one would ever see them, among countless planner refill pages with icky designs and planner pages that promise maximum organization but make me want to shoot myself, they are there. Unfortunately the only design is pink and purple flowers, but they are at least there. I can live with flowers after all. The pages are about 12 dollars. But I don’t care—I’ve got to have them. If I don’t end this debacle once and for all, I may start writing February’s deadlines into the wood on my desk.
And so, the great calendar debacle ends. After weeks of countless shopping. After seeing droves of brand new organizers with the pages I like in them staring before me, I have managed not to rip them out and run out of stores. After seeing thousands of columns on plain black-and-white pages, I have risen above and not given in. I’ve conquered.
What You Need to Run Your Business—No Matter How Bizarre
Aside from my bizarre quirk about the right planner refill pages, there is a moral to the story, I swear.
Whatever you need to do business, get it. It could be the right lamp or that desk that’s perfectly ergonomical. It could be the printer that flawlessly fits on your desk, as opposed to the one you’d have to rewire your entire office to accommodate. It could be planner refill pages that suit your to-do list style.
Whatever it is, don’t sacrifice your comfort. These things may seem small, but they are everything when it comes to helping you run your business smoothly. And you’re worth it.
I do realize I am a bit obsessive. But after filling in dates and writing my infamous to-do lists in this, my official new calendar of 2008, I can tell you the year already looks even better. At least on paper.
Kristen Fischer is a freelance writer and author living in New Jersey. Her first book, Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs is available at www.creativelyselfemployed.com.
Greg Rogers
January 15th, 2008
I had a bit of wry smile as I read this, it pretty much described my escapades over the Christmas period.
Now, I have a particular penchant for Moleskines, though I’m not exactly sure why, I guess it might be because the look fancy and then I can pretend to be fancy with them!
However, it seemed that the organisation fairy had it in for me this time round and had taken a petrol bomb to the moleskine factory. Literally over 2 days the ENTIRE stock of every local bookstore, and nobody seemed to want to order any more for the half crazy obsessive in front of the desk.
Fortunately I took my search to the web to see what I could find there, and I uncovered some stationary delivery ninjas hiding down in London (I live in the Midlands in the UK somehow surrounded by fields). They had one large diary in stock which they practically ran to me in 2 days, thus saving the world.
We are obviously creatures of habit, and I for one am not going to fight it. I would rather get into a tizz about trying to get exactly what I’m looking for, rather than try to adapt to something new.
Phyo
January 15th, 2008
Interesting story of you, Kristen. Thanks for sharing. I have been a loyal listener to the FreelanceSwitch Podcasts and I find myself smiling when you all talked about organizing (you guys are really funny sometimes).
I have yet to buy a calendar of 2008. I have been using my PDA for planning so far.
LoveandSalt
January 15th, 2008
It would have been simpler to cut out pages the right size, score them, and write or type in the dates, then punch them out to put them in your planner or a three-hole folder.
This isn’t a criticism–I don’t know about you, but I always think of this type of solution after I’ve done it the hard way! Reading your post I thought–it’s just paper, she can do what she likes with it. But in the middle of the debacle these thoughts don’t come.
Don’t know if I could live with flowers myself… But I’m with you on those tiny spaces. Do you think as the baby boomers age manufacturers will make allowances for our (my) worsening eyesight and cramping fingers?
Mark
January 15th, 2008
I got the red 2008 moleskine planner at moleskineus.com just in time. When I returned to get a colleague one, they were sold out.
susan
January 15th, 2008
I am SO GLAD I’m not the only person who is so picky about her paper planner. I know how my mind works, dammit, why can’t a planner company reproduce it on paper? I actually wrote a post related to this a few weeks ago: http://voxfortis.com/blog/2007/keep-a-tick-from-being-a-time-bomb/
You have to use what works for you.
Patrick
January 15th, 2008
That had to be the most long and drawn out story of Kristen’s day but I do understand the ending.
Jenny
January 15th, 2008
Don’t know if you’ve been there, but thedailyplanner.com has a ton of planner books and refills, including Moleskine. That said, have you considered printing your own ideal planner pages? Diyplanner.com has some great ideas for making your own planner, including templates, which you might want to consider.
amanda
January 15th, 2008
I too have posted obsessively on my blog about planner woes (http://yupsicle.typepad.com/amandicon/2008/01/personal-planne.html).
Last year saw me abandon web and gadget based tools for paper, and this year saw me abandon Moleskine for old reliable, a Franklin planner that I bought back when N’Sync roamed the earth. So far so good, but it’s always - ALWAYS - reassuring to know I’m not the only one who wrings their hands over calendar pages.
Kristi Holl
January 15th, 2008
Thanks for a great laugh this morning! I had always done this yearly type of search secretly because I was the only obsessive planner/hunter I knew. Somehow it makes you feel less obsessive when you find another soul just as determined to find the perfect planner. Now for ways to get everything written in the perfect planner DONE.
Thursday
January 15th, 2008
I have to agree — most planners have obscenely small writing areas. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I’ve given up on them entirely: I use a paper notebook and Google Calendar. It works out.
BlueSquares
January 15th, 2008
I once had this problem. Then I decided to simply print them myself for free. I found a great site. Link below.
Btw, I bought a generic 8.5×11 leather binder at OfficeMax for $30 with a normal 3-ring binder setup. No proprietary Franklin Covey ring-holes for me. Works like a charm and I can still sketch with the normal letter size. Feels much more professional when I’m at client meetings than the smaller ones.
http://www.diyplanner.com/
Emma Anderton
January 15th, 2008
hahahaha this post made me giggle! There are so many of my friends that laugh and ridicule my obsessive organising/de-clutter/to-do list regimes and like most of the above, i thought i was the only one (that colour coded as well!)
organisational tools excite me (not in that way!) is that so wrong?
ps. i so happen to be using a small moleskine with a pesky 1 inch daily space, but it is constantly accompanied by its plain-ruled bigger brother where i can flow out my to-do lists if neccessary. (And they look good too! Just need an iphone to complete the set…)
Emma
Rene
January 15th, 2008
hahaha !! Super funny… I am excaly at the same point as you : There is totaly NO agenda/planner in this world that fits my needs.
The closest one I have found was by QuoVadis in a Renaud-Bray store… but guess what… the company DOES NOT do it in a regular year dates (jan-dec) but only in a student year dates (august-april)… WTF?? In fact, it is the student edition, superb, about 6×8″. I have contacted the company to see if i could order one on the web or the phone or else (with a jan-dec dates) and nobody answered me, and the stores told me that they don’t have it at all in the kind I was looking.
After soooooo many searches again this year in many stores, I told myself to buy this fake-leather 8,5×11 (just too big) agenda that shows week colums as 3-4 top to bottom of the paper at least, 18$.
Please someone start a company that does agendas or planners that fits our needs !!!
Anon
January 15th, 2008
Being picky is not the answer usually. I see so many posts on various blogs these days about “maximizing your productivity,” but it seems to me that it’s usually better to just get the job done, spending my time and money to improve my skills rather than my tools. Like they always say, “a poor craftsman blames his tools.” I encountered this just a few days ago. I’d been trying to sell myself on Eclipse with plugins for PHP development (as specialized a tool as possible), and it struck me that I was wasting time that could’ve been used to study the language more just trying to get up and running. So back to TextMate it was, even though that’s by no means a lame editor :^)
Yogi
January 15th, 2008
My wife is exactly the same. I had no idea this was a universal affliction.
Carol
January 15th, 2008
I have this problem every year, too. I found something from DayPlanner (?) that works really well for me, but it’s not the most popular planner company and I have to search really hard to find it every year. I live in mortal fear that they’re going to discontinue that particular format.
It’s so hard to find a planner that includes Saturday and Sunday as separate days! I know these things are geared towards traditional corporate businesspeople, but what about those of us who have schedules on the weekends, too? Or work in the evening? I get up at 4:30 am yet most of the planners start at 8:00 or 9:00. Is it so hard to make one that includes all 24 hours so we can decide what our own schedule is?!
Justin
January 15th, 2008
Completely identify. How’s this for sick - I only continue to use the (expensive) Franklin Covey pages I use (which take forever to find for me as well) because I love the canvas binder I bought for them years ago. We all think we’re unique, but when we’re alone we do the same stupid stuff!
Paul M.
January 15th, 2008
I am also a freak when it comes to office supplies. I should open a shop with them! Why don’t you post a pictures of your new pages/calendar? We want to SEE the result of your struggle.
kristen
January 15th, 2008
Haha wow guys, glad you related to the article. My first thought after reading all the comments was, “Oh my, there really are others!”
We should form a secret society or something–I think we already have!!!
Lucy
January 15th, 2008
Oh my gosh. Last year after many fruitless searches for the perfect planning pages to fit a lovely black-leather zip-binder that someone gave me, I ended up spending hours on my computer designing and printing out lavender week-at-a-time pages with big squares and no lines. I had to go to Kinko’s to buy paper and have holes drilled. That in itself cost me a fortune but I figured the binder was free and I could use the paper for 2008. No such luck. Wherever that calendar template was, it is gone. Darn.
So this year I ended up buying Flavia pages from Day-Timer for $20 which are pretty but have lines and the colors and designs are distracting and I can barely read the dates without my glasses. I hate it.
Maybe I will just cancel 2008 altogether.
Lucy
Jennifer
January 15th, 2008
I eventually gave up on finding an agenda in the store that would fit my needs. I ended up making my own pages and having them printed and bound at Kinko’s. Total cost: $5.00 Now I have a customized week-at-a-glance view that includes my schedule, a goal/habits chart (Benjamin Franklin style) and an exercise tracking chart. I printed two pages per sheet, double sided, and had Kinko’s cut them in half so the resulting planner is roughly 4″x6″. I love it!
ELK
January 15th, 2008
I, personally, use a franklin covey weekly planner, compact size i believe (second to smallest). I like it because I can look at my whole week in a few seconds. I beleive when I started it (two years ago) I bought the starter pack because it came with a nice zip up leather case and the whole year of pages and the “7 habits blah blah) stuff to plan your life out in the back. $ wise it was a better decision. You can also get the refils at Office Depot.
Dirty confession… I havn’t gotten my ‘08 refilt yet!
ChrisB
January 15th, 2008
Cute story. I’d suggest designing your own (maybe in Excel) and then you can get just what you want.
Kim
January 15th, 2008
I have been using my trusty Moleskine daily planner for several years now. As an illustrator and organizer I don’t go anywhere without it. That way, I can plan and sketch all in the same place. Then, I add my iphone on top and I never, ever have to carry a purse or a binder anymore.
Maude
January 16th, 2008
Like Rene, I’m a QuoVadis Fan. I’ve got the Minister Version and it works well for me. I need to see all the day of the week though, or I’ll certainly forget something… Web app don’t work for me either, cause I “emotionally” need to write things down.
marie holzer
January 16th, 2008
Due to my penchant for obsessively hoarding my calendar, I went entirely electronic (online calendar only) for a year. I did it because I used to carry around a planner - a leather satchel looking thing - everywhere, methodically checking every hour to make sure I was doing what I needed to be.
After a year though, I’m ready to reincorporate a written calendar into my life again. Reading your post made me laugh at myself and remember how I need to accommodate my obsessive comfort but relax enough to not become a slave to the scheduler again.
Great post and love listening to you on the FreelanceSwitch podcast!
Linda
January 16th, 2008
Man–I love my Moleskine planner–it’s the kind with one week running down the left side and a plain lined page on the right. But this year I ended up having to order it “used” (aka new, but being sold on Amazon) because my regular office supply place and the Moleskine website had both sold out. Anyway. I’m glad you found a good calendar that works for you! It can be really important.
Nate
January 16th, 2008
I picked up a Moleskine planner at Dick Blick Art Supplies. It was cheap and they had plenty in-stock. There’s also a membership card for 10% off purchases, which is free for students and teachers (of which I am both). It’s the first planner I’ve ever felt 100% comfortable with, for what it’s worth.
Ilise Benun
January 16th, 2008
Great article, Kristen and I have to agree that the perfect planner is important. I’ve been hearing similar calendar dilemmas for years from my Marketing Mentor clients. They are all self-employed, and most find that a good planner is the key to keeping them organized. They also felt that when it came to marketing their business, they wanted to have everything in one place. It’s difficult to find that perfect calendar when you already know exactly what you are looking for- and sometimes despite endless searching, it’s just not out there.
I hope it’s not too self promotional, but I wanted to put in a plug for our response to the dilemma: The 2008 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan/Calendar. It was designed specifically with the needs of our the creatively self employed in mind. There are two versions, one for Veterans who already have an established business and want to develop their marketing, and one for Rookies who are just starting out. The calendars include a year-long marketing plan to help grow your business and keep qualified leads in your pipeline.
Both calendars have plenty of space to write in each day, and also room for notes and events, leads and prospects, and a check off daily and weekly to do list. We hope this calendar adds something refreshing to the calendar marketplace, especially for self employed individuals, and thought it might be a relevant comment for this blog. Thanks, and happy calendaring! (You can find more info here: http://www.marketing-mentor-store.com)
Tessa
January 17th, 2008
oh the trials and tribulations of finding that perfect planner. it doesn’t exist.
this year i made my own. bough a moleskine (of course) with sqaure pages and stated drawing. it took a bit of time, but now if it isn’t working then it’s my own fault and i’ll change it next year.
and now at least i don’t have pages and pages that i just have no use for. if i need to know the dialling code of a country then i’ll google it.
good luck with your planner!
Kelly Bevando
January 18th, 2008
My wife always had trouble finding a calendar that met her needs. I took it upon myself as a graphic designer and former designer at Day Runner to create a custom book for her. She is a cosmetologist, and she does a lot of travel for weddings. Even though the calendar was designed with her in mind, it will work great for any small independent contractor.
The weekly pages have 12 hour days in 15 minute increments, and there is a notes column along the right hand side. Pretty common, except that I also included a full Sunday. There are overview calendars of the whole year at the front and back of the book. And the part that makes this book great for independent contractors is the finance section at the back. There are pages to keep track of income, expenses and mileage.
Take a look if you want. I have them for sale on lulu. http://www.lulu.com/content/1474407
I love the website and the podcast. Keep up the great work.
Kelly.
Rhei, writer Surefirewealth.com
February 4th, 2008
I made a personal planner at home. It’s super girly, it’s rectangular in shape and in every box there’s a background of my picture. Actually, I called it fashion personal planner. My pictures with different posing and outfit (I’m a fashion icon, don’t you know that? hehehe) It’s much better than buying from the store because it’s personalize and it will cost less. You’ll have fun while doing it at the same time it’s personalized.