Salon post: October 12

[jenett]

Hello!


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Topic of the week
It has started to be "everyone talking about planners" season, so - how do you keep track of stuff you need to do? Or plan ahead? Do you have a planner or app you really like? Tell us about it!

(As always, any topic welcome, if this is not one that you're into.)

What I've been up to
October is a week of presentations for me - brief one yesterday at a work meeting, one on Saturday in the Pagan community, one on the 23rd on campus history at a local library...

(I both like doing them and don't find them too tricky to prepare for, but they do take time. And three in a month is high for me.)


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Comments

[jazzyjj]

Well...Looks like I'm the first reply this week unless someone beats me to it as I write this, lol. I unfortunately have not had much in the way of quality time as of late to get much done that is of some substance. I believe I've already discussed the reason for this, and we're trying to sort it all out. The thing is that this neighbor has been extremely negative towards himself for probably several years. He's actually been more or less telling me and others to be his therapists, and I for one feel a bit uncomfortable with this only because I've never had that kind of training. He's a really nice guy, but I'm unsure what exactly to do at this point. But I do have several things in mind which I've been wanting and needing to get done. Now that I've got an iPhone, there are some 3rd-party apps that I've been meaning to download. But part of why I haven't been able to do that is because of constant log-in time-outs. But I've been researching this. I have however, done some things with my iPhone and really like it thus far. I've heard and read online that these things can be truly addicting, and it looks like Apple is very aware of this.





Speaking of my iPhone, there are some online courses which I've found that sound really good. I also want to go back to the place where I received 2 in-person training sessions. The only problem is that the guy with whom I worked is only there on Thursdays. I could certainly work with another technology person down there, but this guy did an excellent job with both our sessions. I think he's also available by phone though. I think they are all users of at least some of Apple's built-in access features. I know for one that the person with whom I worked is a screen reader user, and his boss is also visually impaired. My brother, who is totally blind from birth, trained at least one of the guys down there.

[ckd]

I've become a big fan of OmniFocus as a task tracking and planning app. Its main weakness has been being tied closely to the Apple ecosystem, but they are working on a web-based interface as an additional service.

[jenett]

Oooh. That's an intriguing idea. (I am a Todoist person, because I do stuff both at home on a Mac, and at work, on a Windows machine, and occasionally while travelling on an iPad...)

But I've heard great things about OmniFocus.

[sporky_rat]

I use both my Google Calendar and a paper calendar. I spend a little bit of time on Sunday afternoon after I get home from church filling in the week. The last Sunday of the month I fill in the month to come. I use a Hobonichi Techno Planner.
It helps me not be tied to my phone.
Any of the big things I need to be aware of months out or several weeks out are written in with notes to myself a certain amount of time before the actual date.

[alexseanchai]

I'm going to try out Briana Saussy's Book of Hours in 2019. I could in the remainder of 2018 if I could find where I put the file...

I'm also giving Trello a test run.

[jenett]

I love her content a lot! You might find this (lengthy) post from her really helpful too. Planning by Starlight

(I am planning more planner stuff on the SKFW blog sometime in late November/early December.)

[telophase]

I'm a bastardized bullet journaler. I never thought I was the DECORATE ALL THE THINGS type of journaler, so I started with classic BuJo-ing, but after six months of using it, and occasionally decorating pages because I got bored, I looked back and realized that the weeks I spent time decorating the layout were the weeks I actually got things done. :/ I guess it's because I spent an hour or so on the weekend thinking abnout the things I was going to do the next week?

I now carry a traveler's notebook with a planner insert I made myself that's done in weekly spreads, and usually spend some time on Sunday sticking random washi tape and stickers on it. I won't say it's pretty, but it's got crap pasted all over it. :)

[jenett]

I am a "My actual tasks live in Todoist" but I have been playing with a traveller's journal set up for doing very brief notes on some magical/ritual/herbal stuff, and have been finding that spending a few minutes doing simple pretty things makes a big difference for me.

(I do a Tarot card of a day and a song from a playlist, and I do a divider down half the page that is vaguely related to the Tarot card. For the suits, this is pretty easy, but for the Majors I've started doing something of a sketch, and that makes me think about things differently.)

[telophase]

I really like my TN because there's just something about holding it and carrying it around. It feels like if I open it I might find field notes from my caravan travels to Outer Mongolia or something, instead of the actual contents, which are a workout tracker, a planner, an insert for random notes, and a project tracker to keep track of covers. XD

[jenett]

I realy love the tactile sense of it too! I haven't been carrying it around, but I love pulling it out at night.

(I have a blue leather cover, a bookmark, and two notebooks, one of which is the lunar month notes, and one of which is a wish list selection.)

[pameladean]

I've always been terrible at noting down what I need to do or using any kind of planner. I use Google Calendar, since it will sync to my Android phone. But in all honesty I have to admit that mostly I use the act of putting an event into the calendar as an aid to memory, and am really not in the habit of looking at the calendar every day.

I did manage to get into the habit of checking the calendar before scheduling a medical appointment or making any social commitment, and that is in itself helpful; but I need to check the calendar. I'm thinking it might help to put more things on it -- not commitments that involve other people, but rather my daily writing or household chores or whatever, so something will show up most times I check. Otherwise it's very boring and seems pointless.

I'm lucky not to have a highly-scheduled job. Well, if I'd ever had one, either I'd have learned to cope or I'd have been fired quickly, I guess.

P.