GTD Method: Kikki K Paper Planner

They say our strongest passions contaminate us in childhood.

I was a good little girl, I knew I shouldn’t ask parents for toys unless it was a special occasion. Only when it came to stationary and printed materials I used to lose my mind.

Once, dad took me to his workplace and left me to mingle with his colleagues. A lovely lady gave me a notebook and a pen, but I knew that I was not allowed to take anything from strangers. Yet, it was not a typical 12-page school notebook, but a 90-page one that only adults use. And I had to have it. I somehow sneaked it under my skirt and transported home without parents noticing.

Not much has changed – I have grown up to be a stationary (and books), hoarder. Yet, as an adult, I also started having goals and responsibilities and turned to planners to help me keep track of them. In my previous post, I talk about how I have to abandon yet another planner, as it became just an art tool for me.

Instead, I adopted a GTD method of planning and time management which teaches to function productively with a positive sense of relaxed control.

I wanted to combine the reality of adulthood with a joy that a physical planner and stationary bring to me, by creating my ideal system, my ideal planner.

Here, I document the process of setting it up, based on the simplified version of GTD method and other time management techniques. I will keep updating this post every time my planner gets an addition.

Planner used: Kikki K Personal Large A5 planner Planner

It works perfectly as it is ring-bound, so I can add as many new sections as I need. But also, Kikki K planners have a variety of pretty designs and accessories that come with them.

Inbox

Inbox is my mind-dump – I put everything that comes to mind (from to-do’s to ideas) here for future processing. This is by far, the most important part of the system, as it takes a storage function over from my brain.

Calendar

I start the calendar section with a monthly divider and a quote that I like. This one is actually a title of the album by Khruangbin.

The format used for my calendar is a weekly vertical spread with boxes that could fit Erin Condren Style Stickers. This is my space for artistic expression.

No to-do’s go into the calendar, calendar is just for time and day specific appointments and information (such as birthdays, meetings) – anything that will 99% happen on this day. All my to-do’s for the day go onto the next actions sheet which I can move from one week to the next.

Stickers

Calendar is also my creative space, which is designed specifically to fit Erin Condren Style stickers. This allows you to customise each week and never get bored with a visual appearance of your planner.

Seasonal Inserts

Again, this is more for fun rather than functional planning. I like to create seasonal bucket lists with generic things I’d like to do, as well as a memory/bucket list space where I can write about most notable books, films, dishes, etc:

Project list and Projects

Any ongoing to-dos that have multiple actions to complete them (for example: ‘plan a birthday party’), have a separate project insert.

The sheet includes an ideal outcome – so that I know what goal I working towards and a list of actions that fall under it. I keep track of all projects in the little project list index insert.

For smaller projects, I have small project inserts:

Context List Index and Context Lists

Context lists help me to group to-do’s by physical or resource-related contexts. For examples: at a supermarket, online shopping, at the computer, city centre, etc.

Someday/Maybe

This is a section where I put anything non -urgent, that I want to review at some point in the future. It can be something like: ‘get a new sofa’, ‘learn to make sushi’.

Reference

This section is a keeper for any information that I would like to have at hand. It can be my national insurance number, an interesting quote that I heard or a recipe.

You can create your own inserts, or you can purchase ready-made ones here on Etsy.