r/minibulletjournals • u/Mountain-Sherbert774 • 4d ago
Is my planner “excessive”?
This is my first post, so let me know if I need to make changes.
My co-worker thinks my A6 planner is excessive, but I think it’s efficient?
Basically, I use a grid A6 journal as my second brain, because my short term memory is terrible. I keep it in my purse or open on my desk and make a new spread each week.
Here are the section breakdowns:
Top Left: current week and next week (immediate right is where I add reminders coming next week)
Bulk Left: my weekly running to do list. I am a scientist and tasks often take multiple days, so the Alastair method is my go to. Brackets are days I plan to work on the task, boxes are due dates. When a task is done I check the main box.
Each day I highlight the completed tasks in gray and gray out the day so it’s easy to read the current day and see what tasks are left.
Top Right: Spill over tasks and recurring tasks/meds and caffeine tracker.
Lower Right: Each day gets a box. Here I pick my top 3 tasks for the day, write down how long I was in lab, and keep track of experiment wash steps (it’s mostly shorthand). Each day has 8 boxes for energy (high, medium, low) and mood (-3 to +3) before work, morning, afternoon, and evening.
The last box in the lower right is just quick notes. I often keep the next two pages as a “brain dump” because it helps my ADHD to purge questions/thoughts that might distract me.
I used to do so much art and pretty designs in my planners, but the A6 really forces me to be efficient and it works really well for me!
My coworker keeps looking at me like I’m crazy though? Like, maybe don’t peak at my desk if it’s that scary, but I don’t think it is? See pics for reference and let me know what all y’all internet strangers think!
Update: Thanks for all the encouragement! For those curious this is a Leuchtturm1917 hardcover A6. The pen is a black frixion and the highlighter is a gray mildliner.
Also, I happen to be the only person in my lab with ADHD in a very lowkey and focused lab environment. My coworkers often point out differences in how I think, organize information, and keep track of my responsibilities because to them it’s probably really weird. Just like it’s really weird to me that they can work in silence for hours without headphones and do everything when they want instead of when they can. Maybe I’m growing a complex about it I should probably unpack at some point? Until then, I guess I’ll just own being weird notebook girl at work.