I’m back today with my second post in the planner archives series – this edition is my first real trials of a ring bound system. My first post shared my tiny bound Exacompta book, and I honestly have no idea what I used between 2005 and 2008. I do remember dabbling a bit in electronic planners, but I’m sure there were some other paper versions in there that simply got lost.
Regardless, I jumped onto the ring bound planner bandwagon in 2008. It was my last year of community college before transferring to a four year school and between classes, running the school newspaper, working part time, and completing an internship, I really did need most of the space!
I have no idea where I purchased this binder, but it is a 365 by Franklin Covey. It isn’t leather, but is surprisingly hard wearing and soft to the touch.
Inside on the left is five card slots and a clear ID window. The clasp does stay open on it’s own once the binder has been sitting open a few minutes.
The back of the binder has a simple notepad slot and a fully elasticated pen loop.
After a few reference calendar sheets, we enter the meat of the planner: the weekly/monthly pages. Each tabbed month featured lined boxes with a Sunday start. I now know that I prefer Monday start calendars, but this worked just fine to write in deadlines and events.
The daily sheets I believe are the same as the current Franklin Covey Original setup with an ABC prioritized task list, daily expenses, and appointment schedule running from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. The time slot set up was perfect for noting class times, minutes spent on articles and layout, and my work schedule.
I kept the entire year of daily pages in the binder with pretty much nothing else other than a few sticky notes. My how times have changed!
If you’re a ring bound planner user, do you remember your first model? How much has your system changed since day one?
My first model was the same one I've been using – a FC compact two pages per day. My first binder, though, was the vinyl open binder – the cheapest one they made. And, of course, in black since back then black, brown and burgandy were about the only colors available.
I definitely use it differently than I did at first.
Well 20 years ago I was introduced to FC DO2P, I stray and try other stuff but this is always what I come back to.
Hooray for color options!
Isn't it funny how that always seems to happen?