Using a Moleskine As a Weekly Planner

I have been using a tiny Moleskine as my weekly planner for years now.

YEARS. My current notebook is known as Barry the Fourth, and he continues the glorious tradition of making me look like I’ve got my shit together.

Remembering things is NOT my strong suit. It’s not even my WEAK suit. Heck, it’s not even a teeny weeny itsy bitsy yellow polka dot swimsuit.

Ever since I started using a moleskine for my notebook, I have had multiple comments on how organized I am.

Ha! I have fooled you all!

And now I pass this potentially lethal secret on to YOU, dear readers.

The Notebook

I have chosen a VERY SPECIFIC notebook for this task. You do not need to choose this same notebook, of course, and I have no stock in Moleskine that would cause me to unfairly recommend it over its competitors. Let me assure you, however, that I have tried BILLIONS (or dozens) of different sizes and styles of notebooks over the years. This Moleskine is The Best(tm), otherwise I would recommend something cheaper.

You will want the Moleskine Reporter Notebook, Pocket, Squared, Black, Hard Cover (3×5 x 5×5).

(This Amazon link works right now, but may not work forever)

(The book in the picture is a SOFT cover, which I accidentally ordered. In good news, this means I can tell you in no uncertain terms that you DO NOT WANT the soft cover. Bad news, now I’m stuck with a lame soft cover for the next year or so. Blurgh.)

You’ll notice a few things from this image right away.

1) I use the elastic closure band to keep my pen with the book. This is super important to me, as I use the book as a checklist and not being able to quick scribble notes would render the notebook useless. If I nab it from my bag and pop it in my back pocket, I’m still good to go.

2) The spine is on the TOP of the book, not the left side. This is the “Reporter”-style notebook and it’s very important as well. When the book is open, I have the ENTIRE page to write on, and the area where the page “folds” is smaller than a left-spine would be.

3) It’s small — small enough to fit in my pocket, and small enough for me to whip out while at the grocery store for a quick review of my shopping list. It fits in the same places a mobile phone would on a purse or bag. VERY convenient.

4) Decorating with stickers is very important. *firm nod*

Not even spiral-bound beats this (though it’s nice to tuck a pen inside a protective spiral). Though spiral-bound allows you to avoid the awkward fold of a left-spine book, it’s still in the way when writing, causing awkwardness. Plus, I haven’t found a small spiral-bound notebook that wasn’t so cheap it started falling apart after a month or so of heavy use. YMMV.

The Pens

I only use Sharpie pens in my Moleskine.

I went through a long trial-and-error process to figure this out, and it still can’t be beaten. I have a ton of colors (colors are ALSO very important *firm nod*) and they let me write neat, tidy letters which do not bleed, smudge, or glop. Glopping is a technical term and if you write with ballpoint pens very often, you know exactly what I mean.

The Inside

Inside, you’ll see the “Grid” portion of the book’s description on display. Instead of horizontal lines only, the guidelines create a small square grid. You can see that I use those lines to help organize the different sections of my notebook, including organizing my checkboxes for lists in their own column.

Each week gets a top and bottom page to itself.

The Calendar (Top)

I pick a different color each week, because I can.

My example here is the one I created for this week (or several weeks ago, depending on when I post this beast) and this is pretty much how it starts out. I draw the framework really quickly and fill in anything from my online calendar.

Yes, I still have an online calendar. Often, people want to schedule things well in advance, and the google calendar allows me to do so without double-booking. On a weekly basis, I only use my notebook.

Each day gets two lines, and as I finish a day, I color in the checkbox or add little notes, diary-style. If I had a bad headache or felt terrible, I note that down as well, so I can look back over time and track things.

The Lists (Bottom)

The bottom page is two lists.

Shopping (self-explanatory) and Misc (everything else).

Misc is actually very important. If I need to remember to research something or move something or bring something to work, I note it down here. If I had unfinished things from last week, I move them here to keep track of them.

The entire purpose of this area is to say “This week, in order to feel productive and accomplish my goals, these things should be done.”

I’m imperfect and I don’t always get them done, but even just the act of planning out my expectations for myself in the coming week assures that I’m not just sleeping through my life, telling myself that I’ll do it “later”.

It ALSO forces me to choose a week-sized amount of work to do. I can’t say “write a book” and have it be even remotely helpful. I CAN say “Write Rose Installment 10″ and have that be a perfectly legitimate thing I can check off the list.

Other Pages

I tend to use the BACK of the book to keep notes to myself. Christmas lists are a good example — I can add to the lists throughout the year as I think of nice gifts for people. (and as some of you can attest, I often do my shopping WELL in advance. Yes, my tree already has about seven presents under it).

Also, if I have a doctor appointment or dialogue at work and I want to remember things to discuss, I keep a list in the back so I don’t forget. I can add notes there from the actual meeting as well.

I’ve got a page in there that’s a list of website-related things I need to accomplish this year.

*shrug* It’s honestly so free-form that you can do whatever you want with it. I’ve been using this Weekly Planner layout for long enough that I know without a shadow of a doubt that it works for me, and works well.

How Long Does it Last?

A little over a year, depending on my use. The book itself has 192 pages (some of the last pages are easily detachable) and there are only about 53 weeks in a year, give or take.

I tend to use a lot of pages scribbling story ideas down, so I lose about half of my page count to that. =]

Anyone else?

What does everyone else use? Uncalendar is another popular alternative I’ve heard of.

Does this seem like something you’d be able to make use of?