Simple, yet effective.

For this, I use a Moleskine Cahier notebook in the medium size. It's a sturdy and lightweight with room for at least 2 months' worth of planning. It's also cheaper than most planners. Each two-page spread is roughly the size of a sheet of A4 paper. The downside is that I end up carrying around completed notebooks as they have so much useful information in them. To counteract this, I have brought a one year Moleskine notebook which I will be using from January. This has a higher initial cost but will work out as cheaper over the course of the year. The main issues will be if it is sturdy enough to survive a year of being carried around with me everywhere. I use my Lamy pen for planning- it's the best pen I have ever encountered and makes my handwriting nicer.

It combines two other popular planning techniques with the bullet journal.

The first of these is the ‘rule of three' which I learned about from Chris Bailey’s book, The Productivity Project.

This involves outlining three main objectives for each day and focusing on them first. At the top of each page are three lines to write these, ensuring I can refer to them throughout the day and stay on task.