DIY Life

Every so often, someone comes up with something new to do with a Moleskine or similar notebook. Often, these are DIY versions of existing products: "I bought a Moleskine knock-off and it doesn't come with a pocket in back, so I added my own." You know the drill.

Mike Rohde's Planner Hack is that kind of site: it uses a regular Moleskine to make a week-at-a-glance calendar. And to be honest, to me, it initially seemed pointless. Moleskine already makes a week-at-a-glance calendar that won't break the bank, and the process of making one by drawing lines all over the pages and labeling them sounds like a tedious one. Why not just buy the one that's out there? Then I thought about it, and further reading confirmed what I realized.

Earth-shattering epiphanies await you after the break!

There's a pretty good reason why you wouldn't just buy the Moleskine planner: you choose to give up your digital handheld planner for a paper one some time between late January and late December, when you can no longer buy calendars for the current year. You could go to the store tomorrow to purchase a 2008 Moleskine weekly planner, it's true, but you haven't been able to get a 2007 model for months. Indeed, Rohde developed his system in May, 2006. He has a Flickr image showing aspects of his system; he was also able to adapt the planner to GTD by leaving himself space for "next actions" lists.

(I was joking about my "earth-shattering epiphany," but I do think "lack of availability" is a pretty good reason for choosing a DIY approach to something like this.)

Let's face it: "analog planners," or plain old calendars and to-do lists, became popular again around the time that a lot of people with PDAs started to realize that they'd bought a machine with way more power than they needed, one which was sometimes kind of a pain to use. A Palm Pilot doesn't replace a basic calendar and address book with some space for notes; it replaces a frequently-used, three-inch-thick Day-Timer, a stuffed Rolodex, and the assistant who keeps it all filled in for you, or heavy usage of Outlook that you need to be able to take away from your desk.

Whether or not that describes you, why not give paper a whirl? Planner Hack will get you started.

(And as a bonus, if you're looking for a few more things to do to your Moleskine, check out the projects under the Moleskine keyword at Instructables.)