Monthly Meetings Notebook from Printed Portal

Ever had one of those regular monthly meetings that you needed to keep track of, and usually take notes on a scrap of paper, only to misplace them or discover they had been recycled. Examples of such meetings are local organisations, training /update meetings, team meetings etc etc.

Printed portal have published a new notebook specifically designed to solve this problem.

I wish I had this when I worked at my old firm. We had monthly team meetings where we discussed firm and team matters such as new starters/leavers, socials, training events, networking events, admin/computer issues, tenders and new clients and general firm updates that affected our department.

Not really tied to any particular file or client, any notes from these meetings were scribbled down on a bit of file paper. Each month came and went and I could never remember what had gone previously. My current firm does not adopt the same approach – only partners attend regular meetings. Simply a meetings notebook in a similar style might be more useful for me now.

That aside, let’s have a closer look at this notebook. The monthly notebook runs from September 2012 to August 2013. (so if you are thinking of getting a copy, better pick it up quick). But also for that reason I have not started using it yet. Each month has a block of pages:

the planner/calendar view

the Agenda, Any Other Business and Notes Pages

And finally the action/follow up pages

While I have not started using the notebook yet, I have done a simply pen test with my inky pens… Only the sharpie marker bleed through.

Currently the notebook is only available in Red, but Printed Portal have said if you have a preferred colour to get in touch.

Pinch, Punch, First of the Month

Welcome to August.

I have taken the opportunity this lunch break to review my July to do list. Surprisingly – it all got done.

The monthly to-do is for those slightly larger to do’s that are not allocated to any particular day. In July I decided to tidy up my finances. To dos included getting a credit card, organising my savings, and arranging my mortgage.

I am now pondering my to do list for August.

With a couple of getaways booked in I anticipate that the month of August will be less productive in my free time, so I’ve decided to tackle another area of my life where I have a few key goals. My Career.

Regular readers (and readers of my other blog) will know I am a trainee solicitor. As part of the training we are required to work in different departments for a 6 month period. This month I have to decide what department I want to go to next, and review my progress in my current department before preparing to move on.

So I have now drawn up another list to clip into my Filofax:

Have you drawn up you monthly to-do list yet? What area of your life have you picked “to do”?

Review, Refresh and Renew your Schedule

Gosh, how July has flown by. It has been a rather busy month (with August set to be even busier) and I am rather disappointed that my blogging appears to have taken a back seat.

That is changing now.

I am still playing around with habit tracking and scheduling my time. A couple of months ago I came up with this:

I stuck to the schedule for maybe a month but things changed. I changed the time I commute to work from 7am to 7.30am and I began to use my free time to look for a new flat to move to as my lease is up next month.

Time for a review, refresh and renew! Basically, time to sit down and change my schedule and work out what would work now.

My new schedule:

I have amended this to start the day earlier, fit in my morning routine (shower, breakfast and commute) and change the priorities which divide my time.

I have completed one online course, and the other is mainly audio and proving to be a drag to fit in at work. So online course has been removed in its entirety as has my reading time, which has been shifted to the evening (if and when I have time) rather than a daily goal. According to my habit streak app I only “read part of a book” on 6 days out of 70. Clearly that habit wasn’t working out for me.

Monitoring my habits has actually been a good way to see what is worth sticking to and what I need to take a different approach to. Just because it has not become a habit yet, doesn’t mean it won’t – it just means I am going about it the wrong way… And that it is time to review refresh and renew.

to do lists (and drawing tick boxes) #filofax #icad

Firstly, apologies to those of you who have been looking for notebook content and not index card mania. Bad news… ICAD is continuing until the end of July. Good news there are some notebook related posts in the pipeline.

Lately, I have been a big fan of the Tick box (aka checkbox) when writing my to do list. It is neater than scribbling or crossing out methods that I normally use. why? Because I don’t want to mess up the look of my Filofax, which is where my to do list seems to have migrated of late.

How many to do lists do you have in your Filofax?
(Or if you don’t have a Filofax, how many to-do lists do you maintain?)

I have tried numerous methods when it comes to managing my to-do lists but I always like to try new things. So I swap and change… a lot! Currently my Filofax manages my to-do lists for outside of work and my outlook calendar manages my work related to do list. As you can tell both are calendar based.

My Filofax to-do lists

In answer to the question above I have 4 separate regular to-do lists:

front page

I put my “random-thoughts-which-need-organising” to do list on the inside of the front cover for easy access. I use this when I get a flash of inspiration whether it is something I want to read, research, write about or simply even google.

month to do list

I keep a “things to do in “insert month here” list” which I write on a little square piece of paper that moves with my today marker each week until they are all checked off. Next month (July) I am getting my finances in order and hopefully getting ready to jump onto the property ladder.

diary to do list

Where I either need or want to do an item on a particular day I write this into the main diary area. This is usually phone calls that I need to make, emails I need to send etc.

next year to do list

This goes at the back of the diary for important things you don’t want to forget. More useful towards the end of the year but I have a few items on there already… Such as renew passport.

misc

I will also produce and insert my own separate to-do lists if they relate to a particular event or topic/category such as my #icad entry for today is my July writing schedule:

The card will then get punched and added into the Filofax, either in a particular week (if event related) or in a category in my a-z tabs if topic/category related such as my reading list, writing list and things to do on my blog etc.

There are endless choices. How do you manage to do lists in your Filofax? Or do they not have a place?