In this article, I describe my notebook system. It’s not just a note taking system, it’s much more than that. It’s my diary, calendar, planner and note system all in one. This system has evolved over the years and is still evolving day by day. Over time I’ve added different facets to it, as I’ve gradually come away from digital.

1. The Problem with my old system

I didn’t always have this system, throughout the 2000’s I gradually moved from the old paper-based systems to digital apps. First my day-to-day diary went to Outlook and then Google Calendar. Next the wall-based calendar went from a useful planning tool to just a wall decoration with pictures of Beagle puppies on it. This too was replaced by Google Calendar. I’ve now gone back to the Beagles.

My written to do list then went digital. I’ve tried many digital to-do apps over the years – Remember the Milk, Goals to Action, Zendone, Nirvana, Outlook to name a few. The same problem always returned. I will describe this later.

In my career in sales, I’ve always tried to write down as much as possible. I’m firmly in the ‘faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory’ camp. I’ve had Sales Managers early in my career who indoctrinated this into me, so yes, I am a convert. Eventually though I went digital with this too. I’ve scanned notebooks and used apps like Evernote to try to organise everything.

So, by the end of that decade, I was firmly in the digital camp. Oh, how clever I thought I was. But there was a problem that I alluded to before, that kept coming back. None of these apps were designed for me.

a. The problem with Online apps

I would go from App to App trying to find the perfect one. Eventually I realised there isn’t a perfect app. They are all designed for the maximum audience possible and so they lose their flexibility. The problem is that you would reach a point where the App couldn’t do something you want it to. I would have to design my own App or, heaven forbid, go back to paper.

b. Separate to do lists/calendar/journal/planner.

Firstly, you need many different apps to cover all the bases. Either that or the App is so generic that it won’t do anything. Sure, you have great Calendar apps that synch across all your devices, like Google Calendar, but this fails as a to do list and note taking device. (For me anyway).

c Several Notebooks all over the place

The first digital device I gave up was the note taking. I went straight back to notebooks. I had a day-to-day work notebook, personal notebook, journal and a little pocket notebook to carry round. There is a logic to keep notes from separate areas of your life in separate notebooks. I get that. However, I now subscribe to a whole life philosophy. Just like in David Allen’s book ‘Making it all work’ all the areas of my life need the same attention but not necessarily at the same time. Also, I might get ideas for personal projects whilst I’m at work and get ideas for business whilst I’m sat journaling.
So, my mind was made up – One Notebook for everything.

2. Benefits of having One Notebook for everything.

If you’ve got notes all over the place, like I used to have, then why not consider consolidating all of them into One Notebook productivity system. Here are the reasons why I think it’s a great idea.

a. Notes all in one place

Firstly, all your notes are in one place, which means it will be easier to access information when you need it. One of the worst scenarios that I can think of is when you know you have written some piece of critical information or a great idea, but you don’t know where you wrote it. Or it’s in another notebook, that you left at home! It’s worse than not writing it down at all.

On notebook = one place to look = simples.

One of the things that held me back from having one notebook for everything, was that if I was in a business meeting, I didn’t want customers/colleagues to see my personal stuff. A simple way round this was that with every business meeting, I started my entry with a new 2-page spread, so that nothing else could be seen. This will obviously mean that you are leaving unused gaps in your notebook, however you can always go back and use this for any other notes.

b. Cross fertilisation of ideas.

Another hidden benefit is that you get cross-fertilisation of ideas between the different areas of your life. As the personal melds into the business, you will get moments of inspiration as you suddenly make connections. This mirrors how your brain works anyway. You don’t have different areas of your brain for different areas of your life. The infrastructure of your brain can cope with everything all at once.

c. Goals to actions

The different areas of your life operate in real time in-the-now. As I said before, your brain can cope with that. Where your mind copes less is with different timescales and as David Allen calls them ‘Horizons of Focus’.

Let’s say you perform a brain dump, or as Allen suggests, a mind-sweep. You write down everything that you would like to be, do and have; you also list all the things you want to change and all the little jobs that have built up. If you then look at this list you will, I’m sure, have many items from lots of different horizons of focus. You might have a range from ‘Get dog food’ all the way up to ‘Solve climate change’ and everything in between.

How Goals to Actions works is that you label each item with whether it is a task, project, target, goal, mission or vision. You can then treat them differently and appropriately. You can even separate tasks down to how long they will take. For instance, jobs that will take less than two minutes or two hours or a day.
I will show you how to do this later.

d. Calendar for planning

In my notebook lives my calendar. I do use a Google calendar to synch across all my devices, but I also like the kinaesthetic value I get from physically writing out my calendar in the Notebook.
Having a digital calendar/diary is great for reference and having this synched means that it is always available. When I am in planning mode, however, there is nothing better than having the written planner in my hands. For me, it seems to allow my planning to flow.

3. Choosing your One Notebook

The first thing you will need to do is obviously choose the right notebook. I’ve experimented with various sizes of notebook such as A4. This was fine in meetings, as it is what most people use, but it was too cumbersome to carry round. I finally settled on A5 (210mm high by 148mm wide). My preferred paper layout is squared as this helps when you draft charts in landscape layout.

I always make sure the notebook has a bookmark ribbon and a double ribbon. These will help you mark off your current page or some page you need to refer back to quickly.

4. How to build your one notebook productivity system.

Some notebooks already come numbered, which is ideal. If not, you will number the pages in one of each corner. You don’t need to do this all-in-one go, I just number each page in sequence as and when I come to it.

a. One Notebook Index

On the first 2-page spread, title this Index. As you start to add entries into the notebook, put the title and page number on the index sheet. The index sheet will be page 1-2.

b. Calendar system

The first thing I do with a new notebook is add my calendar system. As I said before, I still use Google Calendar across my devices, but I still like to use a paper system for planning.

i. Year Planner/Future Log

On the next 4 blank pages after your index, number the pages (3-6), title them Year Planner.

Here I use one single page for 3 months. In an ideal world each new notebook will be started in January, however you may be starting yours in October. In that case use the first blank page as November, December, January and give each month a third of the page. Continue on the next page with February, March, April. Then on the next 2-page spread, continue through to October. You could use more pages to finish off the calendar year if you wish.

Enter Year Planner onto your index.
Now you can fill this in with the important events for the following 12 months:
Birthdays, Holidays, key appointments, deadlines. This will then give you a bird’s eye view of your life in the following year.

ii. Monthly plan

If it is indeed October when you start your new notebook, then the first month plan will be for November. Use the next 2 blank pages (7&8) and title them November [year]. Add this to your index.
On the left side page will be your monthly calendar, with date and day name. Enter all your key entries from the year plan, for that month, plus any other reminders. Choose a date for your Monthly Review and enter this. I do mine on the first day of the month.
On the right-hand page, will be your list of tasks for the month. it will also be for your goal stepping stones (more on this later).

iii. Weekly Plan

On the next 2 blank pages (9&10) start your first weekly plan. Divide the left page into 7 with date/day. Here you will write in your main appointments for the week, plus any recurring weekly activities. On the right-hand side write down your weekly goal steps, tasks and everything you want to achieve that week. I don’t put the weekly plan into the index as you should find it easily enough if you follow the chronology. I plan this out for each upcoming week, at my Friday weekly review.

iv. Daily plan

On the next blank page {page 11 in our new notebook) you will start your first daily plan, which will be the following day from when you are writing. Starting from when you awake till when you go to bed, mark down the hours. I usually put one line for every half hour and use this daily plan to fill out my day.

I will list everything, from morning routine, meals, getting ready and all appointments. The aim here is to fill the day with planned activity, so that you can see at a glance what free time you have, for working on goals and projects, or leisure. In the gaps in the daily plan, you can add key tasks and priorities.

It’s not unusual for things to change during the day, but here you will have at least a plan to keep you on track.
I will repeat this every evening for the following day’s activities.

b. Journal of what happens: Meetings and Agendas

My one notebook for everything also becomes my journal. On the next page after each daily plan, I will write notes and ideas from everything that happens. As actions arise, I will write them down here, so that I can carry on with what I was doing. I will refer to these each evening, so that I can add these actions to my task lists.
For specific meetings, as I said before, I will start a new 2-page spread with a title and date. I will also write out my preparation notes and agenda in this entry, plus an entry into the index.

If I ever have subsequent related meetings with the same customer or subject, I will refer to the page number of the previous new entry, at the top of the page. This way if I ever have to refer to previous entry notes, I can quickly find the relevant page.

c. David Allen’s Horizons of focus

Place all these items in separate lists in your notebook so that you can tackle like-items together. It would look something like this:

• Two-minute tasks
• Two-hour tasks
• Day tasks
• Projects
• Targets
• Goals
• Mission
• Vision

i. Which Horizon First?

Then you could start tackling the smallest horizon jobs first i.e., all your two-minute jobs together. Then start on your two-hour jobs. Slowly work up the horizons. When you get to Projects, these will need to be planned out, so that you breakdown the sequence of actions and you know what the next action is. Then you can tackle these actions. Once all your projects are underway, start on targets. For instance, your target might be to reach a certain sales figure, so what are the various projects you need to finish to reach this target. Again, once you have a list of projects, break these down in the same way as before.

Next come goals and these will be broken down into targets and projects, which can be broken down further. And so on, you get the idea.
With this method you are getting things done from the ground up and the sky down, so to speak.

I can recommend reading my post David Allen’s Getting Things done, where I explain more about action lists. Essentially what you will do is have one page for each of the following lists. Mark these off in your index.

ii. Purpose and Principles

Write down you big Whys. Why are you doing the job you are doing? What is your purpose as a parent? Why do you want to make money?

iii. Vision

How do you see your life in say 3-5 years. You can write this out as if it were a narrative that your future self is dictating.

iv. Long Term Goals

What do you want to achieve in the next 1-2 years, in all areas of your life.

v. Projects

What projects do you want to start and continue, to reach your goals. What else do you want to do, that will take more than one action to complete. Again, see my post on David Allen’s Getting Things done, which explains the mind sweep method of building up your projects list.

Projects List. With projects you will have a double page spread for your list of projects. Mark this off in your index.
Project action lists. For each single project, there may be further planning required, especially if they are complex and multifaceted. In that case, devote a new page to this project and place reference it in your index.

vi. Action lists

Allen recommends that you have separate task lists for each context. I.e. where are you when you nee to do this project? These contexts will be unique to you, but examples could be At home, At the office, On the phone, On the computer, Errands. Have separate page for each context list and mark this in your Index.

As well as actions to do list, I will also have a list of things I am Waiting For. These could be tasks I’ve delegated, or answers I am waiting for.

Someday maybe: for tasks and projects I’m not ready to do now or are just ideas, I have a someday maybe list. This acts as an incubator, which I review every week. If anything is appealing, I will add it to a list to do now. If not, I can just leave it there or remove it.

d. Checklists

I’m a great fan of checklists. Whenever I put one together, it goes into my One Notebook for Everything. They are a great way of remembering what you need to do to complete a certain task. For instance, I have a Travel checklist. This is a list of things I need to check of when I’m preparing to travel.
Some other checklists I have include the regular reviews.:

• Annual Review
• Quarterly Review
• Monthly Review
• Weekly Review
• Daily Review

5. Other uses of the one notebook for everything

As I now use this one notebook for everything, some of the other things included are:

a. Habit/ kaizen trackers

Where I gamify my personal development, by trying to beat my previous weekly score. Check out my short book Kaizen and Habit Stacking where I go into a lot more detail on how I make small and constant improvements in my habits, which add up to massive changes.

b. Gratitude:

Every morning I write out at least 4 things that I am grateful for. I enter this at the bottom of my daily planner.

c. Dreams Record

I used to have a separate notebook for recording my dreams, but now these also go into my one notebook. You could record these after the daily plan, so they are in chronological order. If you would prefer these to be isolated in the notebook you can treat these as if they were related meetings. Start a new 2 page spread headed dreams and enter the page number into your index. Then record your entries with the date below this. When you finish these 2 pages, proceed to the next blank 2 pages. On the top of both spreads, you can refer to the other spread page number so you can quickly scan through your dreams over time.

d. Books I’ve read.

As recommended in Routine Machine by John Lamerton, after each nonfiction book I read, I will write a report on it before I start the next book. This report is based on my notes taken from reading the book and you guessed it; I write these notes in my one notebook.

I’ve developed and refined my system over a couple of decades and I’m still refining it. Everybody’s system would be unique to them, but if you wanted to start from afresh, I would recommend the following 2 books:

• The Bullet Journal by Ryder Carroll
• Getting Things Done by David Allen

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