From Discbound to A5

Why I Switched Planners

Earlier this year I started a new job and quickly learned my current planner setup would not work.

My previous role was execution-focused. I was responsible for tracking multiple deadlines in order to get marketing campaigns out the door. It was fast-paced and involved a long to-do list and dates to keep a track of.

I remember myself starting the role at that time struggling to find a planning system that worked for me. The first thing I tried was a Poketo Project Planner. I love the idea of this book, but it was simply too large for me to carry to several meetings a day.

Next was the Moleskine Pro Collection Notebook. It worked for a bit. What I really loved was that it was based on the "Cornell Notetaking method." However, I would find my to-do list and daily notes would often expand to the next page. So I was constantly writing on multiple pages for a single day of work. In two month's time, I needed to purchase another notebook.

Then one day as I was browsing in Staples I came across Martha's Stewart Gold Discbound planner. Discs were never really appealing to me but one of the cons with the Moleskine notebook was that when you flipped the cover it slightly rose when writing on one page. I would often need to see one page at a time while glancing at the computer and have to hold the book while typing.

So I purchased a Discbound and used the Daily Planner pages from 8lotus.com. This was my most successful planner system to date until my job function completely changed.

My new role is less execution-driven and is instead focused on strategic operations. Whereas my day to day used to be checking off steps in a workflow and hitting deadlines, I now have big bucket priorities and simpler to-dos.

So I moved out of Discbound and into a new A5 planner from Michaels.

Now that I’m in A5, I’m excited to be able to customize and create the perfect system based on my current needs.

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