I, For One, Welcome Our New D*I*Y Overlords

July 18, 2006 2:45 PM

D*I*Y Planner : Tired of all those pricey organizers of dubious usefulness being sold by overpriced retailers? Why not roll your own with Douglas Johnson's DIY Planner?
posted by rossination (22 comments total)

"DIYPlanner.com is a community site whose focus is on paper-based productivity, planning, journalling and creative techniques. Here you will find the official D*I*Y Planner kits, as well as daily articles, scores of useful templates, handbooks and how-to's, forums for discussing productivity in its many forms, images to clad your planners or inspire you, and so much more" (source).
posted by rossination at 2:45 PM on July 18, 2006

See also: GTD, and my personal favorite paper-pda, and this flickr cluster for other ideas.
posted by ackeber at 3:59 PM on July 18, 2006

I've been an occasional visitor to this site for a long time now. The DIYPlanner is a well-designed and handy little resource; the fetishism and lite-spiritualist gobbledygook that surrounds productivity porn is less compelling by far. The 'hipster PDA' noise from the (e.g.) 43folders types comes off as fashionable procrastination and badge-making, but that's alright. Some good ideas fall out of the babble when you strip away the jargon.

ackeber, I remember that 'paper-pda' you link to. Solid.

Further advice on how to wring the most juice from a Moleskine: here. Aah, the red-hot self link, sorry.
posted by waxbanks at 4:25 PM on July 18, 2006

Remember a couple of years ago when the Internet was abuzz with talk of the hipster PDA? And it was just a bunch of frigging index cards? But Cory Doctorow and Jason Kottke got boners over it, so it was, like, the most amazingest thing in the history of EVER?

Sorry to be Lord Snarky von Snarkington, rossination. This actually looks like a pretty cool site.

And I actually don't remember whether Cory Doctorow got a boner over it, and I'm too lazy to look. But it seems like that was probably the case.

Next week: CARS! Will they somday replace our Segways?
posted by hifiparasol at 4:52 PM on July 18, 2006 [2 favorites]

Well, waxbanks, I just re-read your post. Now I look like a dork. Maybe Cory Doctorow will write a long post on BB detailing what a dilbert I am.
posted by hifiparasol at 4:54 PM on July 18, 2006

Lord Hifi: I agree with you, to an extent. It's funny when these sites so unabashedly praise what they even admit is 'productivity porn'. Nonetheless, there's usually some good stuff hidden amongst the crap, as you've probably seen.

Right. Now, off to OfficeMax...
posted by rossination at 5:14 PM on July 18, 2006

there's usually some good stuff hidden amongst the crap

... but is sorting through the chaff worth the time?
posted by mischief at 5:29 PM on July 18, 2006

In the time it took you to write that comment, I made myself a "next action" : sort through chaff.
posted by rossination at 5:30 PM on July 18, 2006

I'm stilll pissed that AFTER I got a daytimer so I'd be more organized I found out that I'd have to write stuff in it, and then check it all the time for it to work.
posted by cccorlew at 5:51 PM on July 18, 2006

Just a wee bit o' snark, but I love the Lifehack group on Flickr.
posted by jessamyn at 5:52 PM on July 18, 2006

Tired of all those cheap poorly-concieved faddish organizers of dubious usefulness being pushed down your throat by self-promoting hipster blogtards?

Why not roll your own with Google maps 37Signals with Flickr iPod?
posted by blasdelf at 6:02 PM on July 18, 2006

None of those links seems to work, blasdelf.
posted by cgc373 at 6:06 PM on July 18, 2006

Could I get that in a tag cloud, please?
posted by rossination at 6:31 PM on July 18, 2006

while i really love looking at all this stuff, i decided a while back that paying for a good planner can be just as fabulous and fetish worthy and less time consuming. $15 for a moleskine and ive got an ideal planner that will last a WHOLE YEAR. for less than pennies a day, i am happy and slightly organized. this is worth it. nevertheless, i am occasionally envious of the self-made planners that i see others toting.
posted by cubby at 6:37 PM on July 18, 2006

I used version of the DIY planner, the hipster PDA and a plain old pen and paper in my last job (Quality Assurance Manager in a little pharmaceutical company)... they took my Palm sychronisability away... I had to do something [the bastards... the rotten sneaky bas... sorry]

Anyway, I really enjoyed the time I wasted looking at the productivity pr0n (prawn? there's a productivity prawn... cool... is it pink? or is that a girly moleskine). But I hated the endless snarky comments, explanations and general grief I got.

In the end I used a pad and paper and post it notes. But I did it my own geeky way and drew a mind map for each day... didn't have to download diddly... maybe I should send that to the Doctorow fella...
posted by itsjustanalias at 6:53 PM on July 18, 2006

I thought that this was a fantastic post. Thanks rossination.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:52 PM on July 18, 2006

Why not roll your own

Because I'm in my @Procrastinate context.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:09 PM on July 18, 2006

I started with a simple to-do list pad; then I realized that I got more done if I copied it out every day, leaving off the stuff I'd crossed off, so I had a fresh start every morning. After a while, I started using a full legal-sized pad, and since I had the room, I would make a little section of the page into a one-line-per-hour mini-planner section; and I experamented with notes mixed in with the to-do list, marking action items with a little box next to it, but settled on a "notes" section.

Then I figured out that if I bought a moleskin, I could draw my little setup across two-page spreads, and I could basically fit three months into my moleskin, and that way I could plan what i wanted to do, say, next monday, or whatever. Great stuff!

One day I walked into the Franklin Covey store here in Portland and I came face to face with an awful truth: I'd spent two years learning to draw a Franklin-Covey planner. Submitting to Fate, I bought one, and have been extremely happy with it.
posted by hob at 11:54 PM on July 18, 2006

the fetishism and lite-spiritualist gobbledygook that surrounds productivity porn is less compelling by far

Aye, that and the impression that the productivity heads spend all their time re-arranging the way they work to the detriment of their work.

The best thing I've learned from these people, though, is this simple way to make a little booklet from a sheet of A4 - as someone who always forgets their notebook, I make a batch of these every so often and put them in all my bags and coat pockets. Changed my life it has. Or something.
posted by jack_mo at 2:11 AM on July 19, 2006

I would be remiss if I did not bring up the previously mentioned the PocketMod, which is so cute and quite obviously the Greatest Planner Ever. PocketMods have kept my life coherent since at least late-2005.
posted by nflorin at 7:15 AM on July 19, 2006 [2 favorites]

I love that term - productivity porn - it so captures the whole industry.
posted by trii at 9:24 AM on July 19, 2006

I must have 5 different organizer binders. All of which I start with the greatest of enthusiasms, for I love the idea of being organized. The clean lines, the blank pages, the modular breakup of the day into manageable bits...I love that.

But soon, it will fall prey to becoming a large binder stuffed with all sorts of notes, and fliers or printouts or whatever, and sticky notes everywhere, and eventually I'll just give up on the damn thing and go back to carrying a legal sized notebook in a leather folder thingy.

Until I see the next gleaming oxblood promise of chaos concentration, and the whole cycle begins anew. I think that I may be a productivity porn addict. And thus, this FPP makes me happy. Thanks.
posted by dejah420 at 7:59 PM on July 19, 2006