Future Planning

No matter how big of a planner you carry around, at some point, you no longer have dated pages. And the smaller and more mobile your planner, the fewer dated pages that you can carry.

For me, I refill my dated pages every three months, so that end point is anything beyond September 30th. October 1st hits, and kabooma (as Loki would say). I have no place to write down appointments.

I solve this by having a Future section in my planner.

I use a Quo Vadis TextAgenda for my daily pages, so I just ripped out (okay, slowly and carefully removed) the yearly planner and hole punched it. (DIY Fish also has some great yearly inserts that would work for this purpose!)

Then, using Frixion highlighters (because they erase when I mess up), I highlight days that are accounted for in blue in the dated calendar of my planner.

For the future dates (October and beyond), I highlight any date that has something going on, then write the details on blank pages.

(Pens are carefully positioned to obscure private information.)

So, if I substitute teach on October 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, I highlight those dates on the yearly planner, then write "October: 1, 2, 3 - subst. teach for Ms. Smith" on the blank pages behind it.

When I refill the dated pages in my calendar (sometime this month, I'll do October through December), I simply copy the information from the Future pages to the Calendar.

Why highlight? Why not just jot down the dates?

Two reasons, really.

One is to give me an overview of busy times. I can see at a glance what is coming up.

But the other reason is actually more important. When I jot a date in the Future section, I'm usually doing it quickly, say while on the phone planning a baby shower with my sister. So I can jot the information very casually on the blank pages, but quickly make sure that I don't need to check the blank pages for a conflict. If that date is already colored in on the yearly page, I do indeed have to check for a conflict. If that date is uncolored, I color it in and have an at a glance record.

TIP: If you don't have future planning pages, don't wait to get a yearly spread. Simply get a blank piece of paper, write "Future" on the top of it, and put it right behind your calendar!

Etcetera.