Chronodex

Pic from Google. Designed by Patrick Ng.

In the struggle to find better and better ways to keep track of appointments and have an easier glance at the time distribution of the day, some rather curious "contraptions" have been designed by very, very ingenious people. One of them is the Chronodex, whom I believe is Patrick Ng. So what is the Chronodex? Umm... it's the thing you can see there at the left. "But what is that?" That's where the fun starts! ^_^

Based on the idea of a clockface (you know, the old fashioned ones you see at different institutions, with three little sticks going round and round?), and it offers you a view of your day's activities at one glance. The way it works is as follows:

1. First, don't let the odd shape of "spikes" confuse you. No hour is "more important" than another. What it does is basically "mark" three concentric circles around the full circle at the core. It basically shows a 12 hour day, from 9h to 21h (or 9 am to 9 pm). The creator kept within the core 6h, 7h and 8h, but the idea is that people don't really use those hours (so much), however, if you need them you can use them too. The chronodex is actually really flexible, and easy to adapt to your schedule and your needs.

Pic found through Google Search

2. Now, assuming we really only need a 9-to-9 type of daily schedule what you do with the Chronodex is simply to color or shade in the segments of the clock where you have a given activity, task, meeting, appointment... you name it. You can color code if that's your liking, or simply shade it in any way you prefer. Using colors is quite pretty and visually nice, but if you prefer the more solid look, you can simply shade it with a pencil, a pen and separate different blocks that might touch by - say - changing the direction of the lines you draw into the shading, or the lightness-darkness of the shading. It's really up to you. 

Awesome but not mine. Pic found through Google.

If you color code, you probably don't need to add any comments, as you's know that blue is for your work schedule, yellow for meeting your best friend, pink is the book club, purple is time with the kids, red is some home chore related nightmare... and so on. Still whether color coding or not, with lines or arrows you can write around the Chronodex what the shaded block is about. If you print out a large enough Chronodex, or your handwriting is small enough, you could also  write into the time slots, or use codes, symbols or whatever you prefer.

Pic found through Google.

3. About the spikes, well, as I told you earlier, the spikes  work as markers that allow you to create up to three concentric circles, if you need them. Four, if you count the shaded inner blocks in the core. What that does it help you make the Chronodex more flexible and adapt to your needs. For instance, if your day starts at 7h or 8h... or 5h... whatever, you can use the spikes to draw an inner circle that will mark your a.m. hours, and leave the outer  portion for your p.m. hours... or the other way around. Really, whatever suits you. That way you get a 24 hour planning frame where you can add anything your want.

The concentric circles the spikes create also allow you to plan or keep track of simultaneous things. For instance, you could shade in a friend or a relative's program ("yoga from 9 to 12") in one circle, and in another you add the tasks you and your friends/family have to complete to prepare the surprise party you are planning.  And stuff like that happen often! Make sure you finish homework and send it while the teacher is occupied with another class, or the extra time you have to finish a project at the office, because the boss will be busy at a meeting from 2 to 4. Or stuff as important like mark in that TV show you can't miss, so you remember to set the recorder!

Honestly, the more you think about it, the more you wonder how come you ever managed to organize your life with a linear planner.

Pic found through Google. Design of Kent from Oz.

The beauty of Chronodex is that it drives people to think in a different way, but also to be creative. Kent from Oz, an Australian guy, took the Chronodex and designed his own version, taking out the spikes and creating an 18 hour spiral. The principle is the same, but this is a bit better for people with longer schedules. It's visually less "architectural", to call it someway, and it has the advantage of giving you an even flow through the 18 hours, as you don't have to break into a.m. and p.m. circles.

In this Chronodex, your day starts at 6h and ends at midnight, but additional hours can be drawn into as needed. Also, the simultaneous activities can be marked in simply by dividing the blocks in any way you prefer.

I've started experimenting with this system, and after the initial struggle, it has pretty much caught on me. I made myself a test page for my filofax fitting both types of Chronodexes on a week-on-two-pages format, and also checking three positions on the day slots: left, center and right.  The central position is pretty much the best, though that eliminates my task section.  From this test page some handmade Chronodexes have started spilling on ym regular pages, drawn all on the "appointment side" of the slots (and killing the task side), and by doing so my own Chronodexes have morphed to my own version.

Original picture, except from the small element pics on the corners.

It's a rather simplified version yet with two concentric circles with an inner a.m. and an outer p.m. disc. The point of it was to allow the potential use of a 24 hour Chronodex (by drawing in with plenty of space the missing time slots). Not like you'd use them all the time - which is why they aren't drawn into it permanently - but there are times when you need to schedule something at that time. Catching a plane, a game you don't want to miss that's being played at the other end of the world, picking up a friend arriving at an unholy hour or leaving to a trip. 

The flow isn't as smooth as Kent's spiral, and the general look isn't as neat as Patrick's, and I guess it will have to evolve some more, but I like it and so far it's working really well for me.

How about you? Would you Chronodex your schedule?

Filofax and What's All That About

So, what comes to mind when you think about planners? "Organization"? "Reminders"? "Brain Helper"? In the format and fashion you like, a planner is usually that calendar thing where you note down the meetings, appointments, dates and stuff you can't forget. It's a useful little tool we keep around - those who do - to help us in the future to remember the plans we've made or the bills we have to pay. However, from then on each planner-keeper usually adds, takes or modifies the planner tool to fit better their needs. For instance, people who work directly with clients and client cases often note the data of the case (in shorthand and using a lot of codes that would make no sense to others) in their planners, bloggers and videostreamers, or youtube posters also note info about their posts or keep track of their posts, and people into exercise or diets also make notes on their planners to keep track of their progress. A rather typical use of planners, common among women, is using it for keeping track of the menstrual periods, which as result has promoted the marketing of "planners for women", which are not only in colors normally asociated with women - such as pink - but also include planning and tracking tools such as a period calendar, birth control pill reminders, calorie counting tables and diet track sections.

For those who walk deeper into the land of planning - and by "deeper" I mean past the phone's calendar, the wall calendar or the pocket week-per-page little agenda, or the monthly planner thin booklet you get for free with your purchase around the back-to-school season or the end of the year, and way into the complex apps and/or expensive paper planners - the calendar feature is just one of the many sides of the planning itself. From the selection of the planner - and here we are normally thinking about something that would last for... ever -  or the app to the detailed planning of all the elements that the planner must include, planning fans out and reaches pretty much every aspect of life.

This fandom of the planning has grown to quite amazing proportions, to the point where blogposts are written and videos are made depicting the ways in which people organize their planners or build them up, sharing thus ideas with others, that help them plan the tools for their planning, or simply get new ideas and inspiration for their own planners.

Now all of this is nice and cool, but there's also something that must be considered in the land of the planning, and that's how the planning itself and intention of the planner changes. Though originally one can think of the planner as something with a much simpler layout and little eye catching elements - do you remember those old planners we used to have waaaay back then in the 80's and 90's? - with mostly practical and informative elements, today's planners are taking on more leisure and eyecatching elements with colored pages, quotes, inspirational and spirit lifting bits, designs and space+tools for personalization and decoration. It's not only a matter of paper flags and post-its or colored pens and highlighters, but also a matter of stickers and washitape, aimed to make your day, your week, your month pop up from the paper and invite you time and again to check it and use it.

Though pretty, after looking at some of the pictures shared on facebook with these artistic, crafty projects, as well as the many videos about it, I started thinking if it maybe wasn't deviating from the actual purpose of the planner, specially when the decoration seems to take a central stage and the planning itself comes second. Indeed, when you spend enough time making your planner pretty, it's a delight paging through it, and this way you make sure you don't forget anything, but what happens when the decoration is so in focus that there's no space for planning, or that you wouldn't write anything down so it doesn't ruin the decoration? Of course, no such worries with electronical planning.

Then, the beauty in paper planner is that I don't need to get it, but if it works for you, then you go ahead and make it! Paper planner certainly give you the space to go as wild or as conservative as you want to. It does keep me wondering though, about what others consider planning and how they view it in general.

Belated Blessed Lughnasadh

Very, very belated Blessed Lughnasadh! Wow, this time it has really taken me sometime to post! Then again, this Sabbath coincided  with one of the most rushed days of the office, with reports to be sent, and people to be terrorized in order to get those reports done. I had been a little spooked myself as well, as I heard word that my old boss is moving the threads again to get me back, though this time he and his team would be moving to the building where I work now, away from the Moron Boss Lady. There are things I don't like about my new job, like the fact that I do feel my skills being wasted and my mathematical logic (and I'm not the big NUMB3Rs in this) being swept under the rug, but now from far the mirage of my old boss is fracturing, and it does upset me to see how the quality has plunged, how little questioning is going around. I have lots to think about and lots to ponder.

My friend Dragonfly took the chance and resigned to the company in the most recent "resigning promotion", which is this program where the company pays people to resign. This is the second such promotion in less than a year, and rumor has it, there will be more until the company manages to reduce the size of its payroll to half. Other companies would simply lay off people, but our company seems to be unable to do that, thus the costly procedure. I was surprised to learn that Dragonfly was doing so, and later on even more surprised that up until the last day she hadn't told her family. Times are hard - really hard - and the crisis is gripping the country, with little chances to get a job, but the place she was working at was a true hell, so yes, either she resigned or she would have been carted to the looney house.

This Sabbath has received us actually as we are reaping what we sow. Lughnasadh or Lammas marks the first harvest of three, when we finally start to see the fruits of our labour. It's a happy time, as it is always when we see that our work has finally been yielding results. On this Sabbath we can start appreciating, seeing just how good or how effective all that meditating and careful planning and hard working has been.

Now, in the light of the recent events, Lughnasadh also call us to meditation. As it marks the first harvest - again, first of three, so lets not consider it definitive - it marks also a moment to reviwe what we have done so far in the light of the results. Are the results what we have expected? Well, this is a good time to ponder whether our planning was right, whether we lacked more planning or more hard working (maybe both), if we were counting too much on luck or something else. These things we can ponder and learn from them for the next year. However, we must also consider the next two harvests because maybe our labour was on the type of crop that blooms later.

There is, however, something else to consider at this point. Maybe we have planned well, and have worked hard and diligently and yet our results aren't the ones we expected. Believe it or not - and this coming from an existentialist like me might be a shock - but not always everything is (entirely) our fault. Then Lughnasadh is the time for us to ponder whether we want to keep working these lands or these seeds, or if we shall make a change in our lives that would really take us where we want to be. Does it worth to remain with someone who won't appreciate our effort? Does it worth it to stay in a job that offers a dead end and where doing nothing yields the same result as busting your ass? Does it worth to keep up with a project or a group that eats up your time, feeds on your effort but then yields nothing? A friendship that demands, demands and leaves you feeling empty?

There are two more harvests ahead, but sometimes it's good to start now, with the first results, reviewing if you should either improve or go for a Plan B.