Planner Hack: Temporary Planner Pages

On a regular basis (like every single day), I get lazy. I'll do my planning, but not follow through. I'll write half of a word and believe, foolishly, that I will remember what I meant later. I use tags to move around reminders so that I don't have to rewrite routine tasks.

And, sometime, I rip out a planner page and move it somewhere else.

No bothering with rings for me. Nope. Just rip out quickly and move to someplace else.

It works because the quick rip leaves tiny tears between the left edge of the paper and the hole punch holes. Those tears allow you to press the page securely into your planner.

It occurred to me that such a trick could be used for good instead of evil.

If you make a temporary list (say, a task list for a big meeting coming up or an errands list for a certain day), there is no need to go through the trouble of opening the planner to the dashboard to get blank paper, writing on the paper, undoing the rings, and moving the paper to the area where you need it (like project pages or in the weekly spread).

Instead, if you rip the paper out quickly, you can then press it gently into the rings anywhere in your planner.

For example, tomorrow I substitute teach. It will be a light teaching schedule with many breaks, but I won't have proper wi-fi access. I will need something to do during the breaks.

In addition to my usual daily docket page, I plan to make a temporary task list of things that need doing, but can be done at the school and without wi-fi (such as calling for a doctor's appointment, entering my receipts into my accounting app, and revising a document in Word). That list will be placed next to my daily docket in my weekly spread.

I want to keep the list, so I can continue it when I next substitute teach, but it will move to another week by then.

Of course, I COULD just open the rings and move the paper. But this technique has so many advantages over opening the rings:

* Tearing out the page forces me to complete the list BEFORE the little slits next to the hole punches wear out and allow the paper to fall out of my planner.

* The torn pages remind me that this list is temporary.

* Having torn pages makes it easy for me, psychologically, to toss the list once complete. (You know you have the same problems with hoarding planner pages!)

* I get to be lazy!

NOTE: I do NOT recommend this hack for permanent pages. Only use on temporary pages, as the effectiveness wears out and pages will fall out of your planner if you move them too often.

Be sure to comment below if you have other ideas for ways to use this hack. Of course, comments on my hoarder tendencies and how you share them are also encouraged.

Etcetera.