2021 Set up

If I’ve learnt anything from 2020, its that its difficult to plan too far in advance. I am going to try and make my 2021 set up as flexible as possible. If you’re a dedicated one notebook, bullet journaller, look away now – this set up will contain multiple notebooks which may drive you crazy.

1. Traveler’s Sized undated planner

For my home life and business work, I will be using our Traveler’s sized undated planner to plan. My rationale is that bills still need to be paid, menus still need to be planned and business stuff still needs to happen no matter what happens in the world. I will pre-date the monthly calendars but the weekly pages I will pre-plan a month or so in advance, so I don’t get too ahead of myself. This worked well for me in the latter part of 2020 so I’m keeping a similar set up for 2021

2. Everyday Carry notebook

For notes, daily reminders, logging of events and things in my life, I will be using our Pocket sized notebook. I go through one of our 80 page notebooks in just over 2 weeks, so I have tried a thicker version (160 page), but found the larger size to be too thick to be practical for my purposes. I typically slip it into my prototype leather cover, which I wasn’t able to do with the larger size and it also didn’t fit in my tiny handbag, so I’ll stick with the thin pocket sized notebook for now.

3. Work notebook and planner

I’m going to reattempt to keep my work notebook and planner all in the one notebook this year. I started this during stay at home orders, failed, reattempted when we were allowed out again, was marginally successful, failed again a few weeks later. I like the idea that its all in one place, but I just didn’t get into the habit of sitting down and working out what I was going to do each day and plan it out. I think its an element of the strange year and the fact that I changed roles and tasks a fair bit during the year so it was difficult to get into a proper routine, rather than the system itself, so I’m going to give it another go.

I’ll do this in our Traveler’s sized Tomoe River Notebook (I’ve really gotten into this size now) and do a monthly section at the start of the notebook and set up weekly pages for a month or so at a time. I didn’t do that this year, or well, I tried but things changed so much from the start of one month to the end of the same month, things became irrelevant, but I expect (naively?) that things will be a bit more steady this year.

4. Resolutions

I have so many notebooks that are more suitable for non-fountain pen use. Or rather, I would prefer to use non-fountain pens with, because I don’t like the feel of the paper with a nib, so I would really like to use some of these up this year. I’ve certainly purchased enough non-fountain pens to use with them, so I’m really wanting to use some of these up. I also need to buy less notebooks! You would think by the nature of our business, I would be sensible enough not to buy more notebooks, but no – this does not happen. They get purchased and then they just sit there. So I really need to stop.