After many revisions, I present my "pocket planner". I hope HN finds it useful

http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do/downloads

by windsurfer • 16 years ago

88 36 16 years ago

windsurfer5• 16 years ago

The idea is to print out a sheet, cut it in half, and fold them in half twice. You write your weekly plans on the left pane, and your agenda on the right. The grey area marks roughly when it is dark out. I didn't include between 0000 and 0600 as I figured it took up too much space and isn't useful for an agenda.

It's an Inkscape SVG, by the way. I'd love to hear about any forks :)

anonjon• 16 years ago

I personally carry a notebook around with me to write down ideas and stuff, but this has potential from the planning perspective.

Is there anything keeping you from printing these out double sided to save on paper?

windsurfer5• 16 years ago

No, nothing. I personally use a heavy ink pen that bleeds through normal paper however.

San3• 16 years ago

While I like the general idea of your 'schedule as a bar chart' solution, I see several issues:

1) There is very little space to write down appointments. I'd like to be able to write down at least a name and a location, even for a 30-minute appointment.

2) What about moved or cancelled appointments? I'm afraid things will get messy very soon.

3) How should I handle overlapping appointments?

Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I encounter these things daily.

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

There's a lot of space around the daily timelines. For appointments I'd suggest marking it in the timeline using a letter or perhaps initials then making a note in the TODO area with the details. If the timing of the appointment would make that difficult (e.g. a 15 minute appointment, or an appointment that starts and ends at :30, putting the line for the hour division in the middle) then simply mark the appointment time appropriately and adding a note above or below the time with the letter or initials which ties in to the appointment details.

If you happen to have more than half a dozen appointments per week and have routine issues like moved, cancelled, or overlapped appointments then a simple tool like this is unlikely to meet your needs, you'd be better off with an application for a smart phone or somesuch.

Sukotto• 16 years ago

For a back-pocket planner, I think it's nice and simple. Clearly it's not intended to incorporate all the features of a dayrunner or whatever. It's just a simple todo list + time-blocking.

1) The space is adequate if your appointments tend to be short eg Bob and Cathy or lunch and not complex like Bob, Cathy, sys-eng group rep. re: develop timeline to cost out and deploy new server cluster for foobar project (see 3/10/2010 emails "foobar server" and 3/5/2010 "how do I price a webserver?". 6th floor conference room (call in number 1-888-555-1111 p:142678)

2) The downside of any paper-based time planning is that it gets messy if you need to change things very often.

3) If you have overlapping appointments very often then I think you need to fix a more fundamental problem with your scheduling.

Unless you are some sort of genius, it seems really unlikely that you can seriously pay attention to more than one thing or person at a time. By trying to split your attention, there's a good chance you are less useful than you would be if you told one of your appointments to take a hike.

Luc3• 16 years ago

Perhaps you could post the SVG, so we can edit it to make Monday the first day of the week like ISO 8601 intended it :)

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

ahem

http://github.com/windsurfer/Pocket-To-Do

icco• 16 years ago

Cool idea. I'd be interested to see what one looks like after a day of use.

I use just a sheet of paper from my notebook for notes and my phone keeps track of my agenda, but I could see how this could unify that. I'd need a much larger ToDo space, but that is what forks are for right? Thanks for this.

dryicerx• 16 years ago

This is really awesome! Glad to see productivity hacks that are not web apps for a change ;) There's something about actually writing stuff down physically instead of tapping them on to your phone... hard to describe.

I'll be giving this a go this week (after offsetting the times +6hrs)

joelanman• 16 years ago

yeh it's nice work - I'm really interested in ways that web-based infographics and usability ideas move into the real world - the Guardian/Observer print design has some good examples.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubmedia/4383021104/

I did a similar paper-based project a while ago - the business-card yearly planner:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelanman/367425390/in/set-7215...

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

FYI, your "action shot"s are not actually action shots, as they don't show your invention in use, just folded up. I highly suggest actually showing a real world example in your action shots. This would give people a better idea about how to use them while simultaneously showing their value.

ra• 16 years ago

Yeah, I'm quite intrigued to see where you're coming from.

Please show us last weeks, for example..

phoenix24• 16 years ago

this is absolutely priceless; nice job.

billclerico• 16 years ago

looks awesome. reminds me of marc andreessen's 3x5 index card hack: http://lifehacker.com/266387/marc-andreessens-guide-to-perso...

shadowsun7• 16 years ago

I love this, windsurfer. It goes quite well with my existing GTD system, and I really appreciate that you've made this available. Thank you.

Note: for college students who'd like to use it, consider reading Cal Newport's GTD for students:

http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/06/monday-master-class-ge...

windsurfer5• 16 years ago

I'm glad you like it :)

Note: I am a college student

San3• 16 years ago

Moleskine has something like this, called the Weekly Notebook. Each spread has a page for appointments on the left (one week), and room for notes or to-dos on the right: http://www.moleskine.com/catalogue/diariesplanners/12_month_...

It's a very nice product, and it looks a bit more presentable than your solution. This can be important when you are in a meeting or with a client (or just to yourself -- using a fancy planner motivates me to keep it neat and up-to-date).

alexkay• 16 years ago

Looks good even though most people use A4 paper, start their week on Monday and have their lunch between 12:00 and 13:00 :)

rue• 16 years ago

Except the Americans. People who simultaneously refer to Saturday and Sunday as the "weekend" and start their calendar weeks from Sunday are, truly, exceptional.

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

It's pretty common in the US, at least from my experience, for people to implicitly use Monday as the start date for the week.

graywh• 16 years ago

Some things are allowed to have 2 ends. Why not weeks, too?

davidw• 16 years ago

Here at 73primenumbers.com, we're always on the lookout for this kind of paper-based innovation!

RodgerTheGreat• 16 years ago

Reminds me of the 'PocketMod': http://repocketmod.com/

Capnemo• 16 years ago

Folded in four it is about the size of my iPhone which has calendar app in it

TrevorBurnham• 16 years ago

I think it will be competitive with the iPhone once someone contributes a patch for MobileMe sync. At least it bypasses AT&T.

windsurfer5• 16 years ago

Maybe I'll integrate some social networking features and location awareness. I could easily capture a percentage of the iPhone's market share with that kind of innovation.

pavs• 16 years ago

Looks nice.

Something similar that I have used in that past.

http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-online-emergent-...

http://davidseah.com/blog/the-printable-ceo-series/

I think these are a bit more polished with more options.

Edit: Online Flash version: http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/

Now I just use Things for mac. Works for me.

JoelMcCracken• 16 years ago

This reminds me of my muji chronotebook, which I bought after being referenced by Jack Cheng.

http://jackcheng.com/stuff-i-love-muji-chronotebook

Its really awesome. I find it the perfect balance of flexibility and structure within a notebook. The way times are laid out are cool, but yet remain unobtrusive.

lotharbot• 16 years ago

Seems like the "bars" could be substantially thicker, thereby allowing more space to write in details of appointments and such.

Mystitat• 16 years ago

Others have commented on this already, but this reminds me a lot of the charts I'd make for the first couple weeks of high school when I had new classes and couldn't remember my schedule. I think this is more suited for that kind of scheduling than something more corporate. It's just enough space to help you remember that English is at 10:45.

This would also be a good template for convention-goers to use to plan which events they'd like to go to. I can easily imagine this being a rip-out page in a convention pamphlet.

After many revisions, I present my "pocket planner". I hope HN finds it useful

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