Do I really need another planner?

So, work is nuts and I've been scarce around here. This time of year my firm does 25-30% of its business so that works out at about three times my usual workload. And I can guarantee one thing that will simultaneously happen at this time of year; I will go mad for planners and organisational journals. Because everything is happening in a whirlwind and I'm lurching madly from one crisis to the next my brain convinces me that if I had some hideously complex life planner it wouldn't happen.

Every year like clockwork I end up buying a journal or diary that I abandon mid-march, pick up again in July, lose track off in August and then November it starts again.

I have tried so many different ways of organising myself and none of them have worked well.

I've done an A4 diary with a day to a page with time slots. Not a chance. Tried it in A5 size. Another nope. Normal diary with a day to a page and no times, both A4 and A5. Nope. Sometimes filled it in, sometimes not. Tried a small pocket diary. Never kept it in my pocket or bag, and kept putting it down. So small I couldn't find it if I put it down because I move a tsunami of stuff around the house every day.

I've done David Allen's Getting Things Done, which involves always getting everything out of your head, onto paper and filed appropriately. I fell at the first hurdle. I couldn't get everything out of my head. I think I have an abnormal amount of thoughts, ideas, imaginings. As fast as I was getting them out they were going in/popping up. Losing battle.

I didn't get on with bullet journals - mainly because I didn't realise they are actually a hobby not a work tool. It took me a ridiculous length of time to put together the structure of it. I want a planner to already have all that stuff. I also couldn't get along with the wasabi tape and sticker business. I haven't got time to colour.

I've had a daily greatness journal, and while that has been the most successful to date I still only kept that up for 90 days because I had been putting off getting started with the smallholding stuff when I got here and that got me going. But the second 90 days? Nope, never happened. I actually found the questions a bit monotonous and I rarely, if ever, went back in the evening to reflect on my day. The only saving grace with that one is that as there are no dates, the next time I want to do a 90 day challenge I can pick it up and fill up the next quarter.

Gratitude journal? Ok when you're in a good mood, disastrous when you're in a bad mood. Once that bile is down on paper there's no going back. My hormone hate can be directed against even sunshine at the wrong time of the month :)

On a week-to-week basis I'm more of a do-er, not a planner. I don't have time really to sit and plan my day, week, month. I get up in the morning and just get on. In my mind I have periods of time when I know I must work and not do anything else, where I want to read and not do anything else, and the rest of the time I fit in what needs to be done. I look around and think "sink needs a clean" "there's a load of washing to be done" "what's the next thing in the inbox" and I just do it.

I have a list on my phone of things to buy and or do in town and I keep a relatively good appointments calendar on there too. I have a work notebook to keep track of work stuff and a personal journal where I focus on my emotional intelligence, self-esteem and mental health. I have a third book where I track my personal development through the films and plays I see, books I read, and programmes I listen to. That last one started because I sometimes beat myself up for not reading/watching enough good stuff so it was quite a surprise when I started writing it down and realised I did.

So, why this post?

Because, of course, I have been suckered in by the promise of another planner. I'm not going to say which one because I don't want to provide free advertising. I don't think I need it, I don't think it will add anything to my already over-pressurised life, but my goodness do I want it. I just can't shake the feeling that I haven't yet found the right planner, THE planner that will somehow be so absorbing and engaging that I will keep using it. And that THIS one could be it!

Then Martin said the fatal "do you want it for Christmas?" and that's where I am tonight.

Struggling over the decision on whether to have another life planner. Hmmm....