The Perfect Planner

Yehey! Today I have crossed out most of the urgent and/or important tasks on my to-do list. Some of them were musts that have been bugging me for days, even weeks (BIR, printing jobs,birthday presents for my sister, etc.). Others were errands – stuff related to the kids’ school activities, things to buy for an uncle, etc.

But the real highlight of my day was (okay, brace yourself… here comes the geekiness) having chanced upon the most perfect planner!

For more than two weeks, I have had this nagging, almost irrational urge to start hacking my spare notebook into a 2010 planner. It’s a black, pocket-size, lined Scribe notebook (a Moleskine knock-off) that has been sitting in the darkest corner of my closet for months. Inspired by things I’ve stumbled upon during hours of mindless web surfing, I wanted to turn it into a year of 2-pages-a-week planner with lots of spare pages for to-do lists, notes, and scribbles. More pressing demands (like sleep, for instance) have been keeping me from diving in.

I have made a few visits to my favorite bookstore and somehow the planners that were available then did not suit my needs. They were either too small, or too bulky, or downright unattractive, or too expensive. And none of them had enough space (at the end of the year) for notes. Once, I managed to gather enough courage to check out those red Moleskine 18-month planners but I can never make myself spend that much money for a notebook, no matter how fancy it is.

But today… ahhh. I cannot hide this silly grin on my face. I went to National Bookstore for some laminating jobs and found this:

It’s black, covered with decent-looking faux leather. It’s the right size – handy yet has enough space for each day for important dates, meetings, and tasks.

The paper quality is good enough for me as I only use ball-point pens or a mechanical pencil for writing. The bonus part was the second half of the planner which comprised of pages and pages of lined notes. I plan to split these into two parts using sticky tabs – To-do Lists and Notes/Important Things to Remember.

I am optimistic that these notes would be enough to last me through the year as I have a separate Hipster PDA for (3 x 5 index cards held together by a carabiner) that I use for special lists and MITs.

And here’s the best part: it’s very cheap. Only 79 pesos (or about one and a half dollars) and it’s locally made! It’s such a great steal… makes me look forward to a great year ahead.