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PTPL 060 · A New Circular 24-Hour Template Download for Hand Written Plans

Plus Gandhi’s Best Advice For Making Simple Notes That Mean Something


Productivity Inspiration

Gandhi encouraged the people around him to keep a diary. Or, you could say, he saw the value of note making. Seems like he was rocking interstitial journalling long before the phrase was coined!

You must keep an account of the yarn you have spun. Thoughts coming into your mind should also be noted down. You should keep a record of all that you have read. — Mahatma Gandhi

In this inspiring post on the notes of Gandhi by Jillian Hess, you can find her five takeaways:

  1. Keep it simple
  2. Record how you spend your time
  3. Be honest
  4. Make your own notebook

There’s more gems in the full article. I hope you’ll find a moment or two sometime soon to give it a read and glean your own takeaways.

Handwritten, hourly planning on the iPad

Continuing from last week, I’ve been using my iPad as a scratchpad most mornings before starting work. For me this is generally around 6–6:30am. Check out the circular newcomer to the collection of 24-hour planning templates available for free download —

Almost-black screen, with several circular donut-style grids, comprising 24 blocks each (one block = 1 hour). The date is handwritten in a blocky style within each circle. We can see 3, 4, 5, and 6. There are handwritten notes in and around the circles, but it’s too small to read. There’s a large, blocky, white number 7 in the bottom right hand corner, with tasks for that day written on and around it.

I love it! So much more of a sense of flow than with the rectangular version.

You know what I love more than this template for planning my day? The serene knowledge that I’m free to employ something else tomorrow, or to use nothing at all and just wing it.

Now, this scratchpad is not where I keep the record of my day Gandhi was talking about. That goes into my daily note — a Markdown flavoured plain text file that lives on all my devices — often via actions in the very very useful Drafts app.

It feels like I’ve traded my unlined skin and grey-free hair for this sense of peace. What a bargain! So many times in the past I felt harried, inadequate, and lost in the thicket of tasks and conflicting productivity advice. It’s wonderful to finally feel comfortable with my own ever-evolving style.

How do you plan your day? Freeform (the style, not the app), with a small list of tasks to be done by nightfall, matching every single hour to a task or area of responsibility, or some other way?

What might happen if you chose a different planning style for tomorrow’s plans?


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