BLP Ep #136: Mixed Bag!

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Today’s episode is a mixed bag!

Planner Peace

From a physician with 3 young children (younger than mine!):

“I started using the Planner Pad (thanks to this podcast!) and love being able to list out weekly tasks both by category and then assign them to a day. However, I was finding that I would list too many tasks per week and then have to copy them forward. The Planner Pad people suggest a system that involves folding over vs tearing off the top corner to track undone items. 

Instead, I now use an accessory notebook to hold my yearly and seasonal goals, which I do Jan/May/Sept, in the front, and lists of to-dos by project in the back, so I can limit myself to listing only items for that week. 

I am using a Moleskine cahier for this which works well because the back pages are perforated so I rewrite the lists and tear out the old ones during my monthly review. I use the remaining front pages to list accomplishments and highlights by month. I use the paper calendar for long term planning, which I sync to my work Outlook once a month, and then transfer meetings back to the paper planner on Fridays. After I choose tasks for the next week, I list any weekend work or home admin tasks on a single sticky note and put it on the front of the planner so I don’t have to open it up or otherwise think about work until Monday. 

The other piece of my system, for managing information, is using a wiki software (I use Voodoopad but there are several). I have 3 wiki files on my computer: one to take notes on journal articles or drop in screenshots of slides from scientific talks; one for active research projects, where I put meeting notes etc; and one for personal/family information, where I put random parenting/fitness/household tips. I find this more useful than Evernote because adding links is an easy way to have all the information accessible and easy to synthesize. 

Anyway, just wanted to share since I feel like you get a lot of questions about handling meeting notes and I find this system to work really well. I really appreciate the podcast as inspiration for keeping things together despite tiny chaos agents small children. Thanks so much!”

Academic physician + mother of 3!

Planning Wanderlust

Yep. I moved. I KNOW. I’m now in the Sterling Ink B6 weekly and using the Stalogy a5 (which I was already using as a notebook) as my daily pages.

I then go through some things that are working (running training plan; goals notebook; desk in my closet!) and some things that are still a work in progress (those big home organizing goals).

Planner recs for a physician in fellowship training:

Something not too big + fairly minimal! Don’t recreate the EMR in your planner obviously – unnecessary + not HIPAA-compliant!

Ideas:

Hobonichi Weeks

Jibun Techo

Small Mochithings find

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