The purpose of this post is to encapsulate – again – what I include in my Day-Timer, now that my system has been adjusted since reading Getting Things Done. My Day-Timer wallet currently contains four booklets:

*Advance Planner (monthly calendar booklet – stapled)
*2-month 1 page-per-day planning booklet (wirebound)
*Day-Timer pocket-sized notebook (wirebound)
*address booklet (stapled)

The advance planner I discussed in an earlier post. My use of it has not changed. The daily pages were discussed earlier, as well, and my use of them has not changed, either, except as described in my GTD post. I do have some add-in pages in it, which I will describe later. The address booklet is pretty self-explanatory, I think. (I don’t keep all of my contacts in there, just anything I might need while I’m out. My main contact-management system is a Rolodex on my desk.) The notebook contains my next action lists, project lists, someday/maybe list, and waiting list for my GTD system. (I am “test-driving” this format to see if it is a workable method for keeping these lists. It’s working better than I expected.)

My 2-month booklet holds most of my “non-task” items. In the front of the booklet (following a couple pages of long-range calendars) are a couple pages labeled “notes & memos.” These two pages face each other once I tear out the order page that is bound between them. On each of these pages I list my goals for one of the months covered by the booklet. (I won’t tell you what my monthly goals are. After a summer’s worth of having no structure whatsoever, they’re pretty embarrassing.) The inside of the back cover has a Getting Things Done quick reference chart glued in. (I will get more specific about these items in later posts. Right now, I am just letting you know what is in here.) Then, I have five add-in sheets.

The first is a “habit list,” from another blog (which I made note of, but don’t have in front of me; I’ll link it later). This is a chart which allows you to list your habits (or want-to-be-habits 🙂 ) down the left side of the page and mark them off for each day of the month. This, of course, does not come in a pre-punched Day-Timer page, so I have glued it onto one of the Day-Timer add-in pages which is otherwise useless to me, one on each side. This is between the end of one month and the beginning of the next, since it pertains to both. Immediately after it, I have added one of Day-Timer’s add-in calendars. The plan is to write my menu in here, although I am not currently menu-planning as usual, due to a move coming up (hopefully) soon.

At the end of the booklet, I have three pages added. These are pages I made up using add-in lined paper, and they will move from booklet to booklet as the year progresses. (They’re for reference, so I don’t need a fresh one for each month.) These are lists for daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly review, based on the GTD style of time/project/task management. The first page lists my daily review tasks. The second lists weekly review tasks. The third has two lists on it – monthly review at the top and quarterly review at the bottom. To add some interest/fun and to make these stand out, I added a bar of color above each list with a marker. I used basic highlighter colors so that if I choose, in the future, to color-code anything according to frequency, I can match it to these lists.

So, there you have it – that’s what’s in my current Day-Timer. Stay tuned for more information about my add-ins. 🙂