Then and Now: Notebooks, Planners, and Other Brain Back-Ups

 

I was just talking about notebooks and planners in my writer's group last week, which is when this post was supposed to run. Apparently my brain really does need back-ups -- I never hit the publish button.

Better late than never? Sigh. It's a process.

Then: 

I am the notebook queen. As a writer, I never want to risk losing a good idea, so I have notebooks in a variety of places: the car, the chest beside my bed, my office, the kitchen. Inside every purse I own.

These notebooks collect my writing thoughts, but they collect other things as well. The titles of books I want to read. Things I have to do. Stuff I want to remember.

As organizational systems go, they're not the best, but I don't expect them to be. Their purpose is to work as a temporary measure until I can get the information where it belongs -- in my calendar or on my to-do list. Without my notebooks, a lot of information would slip away, or, just as bad, I'd be forced to try to remember it all.

I guess you could call them my brain back-ups.

When you think about it, multiples are common in organizational systems. We don't have just one cabinet in our kitchens or one drawer for all our clothes. Multiple tools in various places or serving various functions can be efficient if we have a system for their use. And they work especially well if we use them to target our weak spots.

For me, keeping track of everything in my head doesn't work (weak spot), and seeing reminders of what I have to do does. Sure, I could put it all on my phone, but that doesn't work as well for my I need to see it personal style as going "old school" with paper and a writing implement. And, using notebooks instead of scraps of paper helps keep things contained, as well as limiting the number of places I need to look to see where I might have written something down.

Is there a weak spot in your system? What measures can you put into place to shore it up?

Now: 

The older I get, the more brain back-up I need. As I've shared previously, I have an entire (shallow) drawer devoted to my various notebooks, including several planners that have been pressed into service as a cross between a notebook and a calendar.

Although I still have more notebooks than any one person needs, I've begun to streamline my process a bit so that every notebook in my drawer has a specific purpose, whether it holds plans for a book, interesting markets for my work, or a place to keep track of time spent writing. 

Finding a planner that's set up to mesh well with the way my brain works (a key element to a brain back-up) has helped a lot, taking over the job of a catch-all notebook and making it easier to assign time slots to to-dos. I like it so much, in fact, that I asked for another one for Christmas (and ordered an extra just in case) so I could move seamlessly from one into another when I ran out of pages in the first one. This week, I started Volume 2.

It can take a while to find the right tool and, until we do, it can be easy to convince ourselves that we are the problem. We aren't. A tool should always work in our service and, if we keep our styles in mind and surrender to the inevitability of experimentation (at least sometimes), the journey to the right tool can be fun in and of itself.