(last edited on August 15, 2014 at 12:09 am)
For today’s POD I thought I would take a break from the Emergent Task Planner and do something different. Reader “Steve” sent me a cool planning calendar he had made in Excel. It’s designed to print very large so you have room to write, and aligned all the weekdays of each month into columns. I thought it looked cool, and Steve said it was OK for me to make something based on it; he’d seen the format elsewhere himself many years ago:
I suspect Steve’s calendar (shown right) is far more useful than today’s 90-minute experiment, the Year of Sundays Calendar. I hadn’t realized how large Steve’s calendar actually was when looking at the PDF on my screen, and so I tried to fit it on a normal sheet of paper. Rather than use rectangles, which felt constraining on the small page, I wondered if I could instead use markers for the days themselves as anchors, and people could write AROUND them. Even with that, there wasn’t a lot of space, so I thought maybe I could just highlight the weekends and fade-out the weekdays enough so you could write over them as notespace. I thought that was kind of funny, so I went with it.
Useful? Maybe for planning weekend fishing trips. Or maybe the psychological fliperoo of focusing on the weekends and other highlighted time-off is a boost. I’m putting this out there just to see what happens, a lesson I learned from the occasional feedback I get from users of the Compact Calendar. One of the most unexpected uses I’ve heard of was a doctor that used it as a gestation calendar, since it was easy to count the weeks. Maybe this will spark an idea and someone will leave a comment that changes all our lives for the better.
» Download Sunday Calendar
» Download Sunday Calendar w/ more space
UPDATE: Thanks to CK for pointing out that November had 31 days. It has been corrected.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is recommended for printing. The built-in "Mac OS X Preview" and "Chrome Browser" PDF viewers do not always draw dotted lines correctly.
Enjoy!
Groundhog Day Resolution Posts for 2014
I am challenging myself to create a new product every day for the month of February 2013. The Challenge Page lists all the products in one place. Check it out!
7 Comments
Maybe it would be useful for religious professionals and others who preach or teach on the weekends – a sermon or lesson planner.
This looks like it could be useful for those who have a part time gig aside from their full time employment. Like maybe for a blogger, or a part time wedding photographer whose work starts on the weekends?
I personally like this ’cause it highlights the days that I have for me away from my full time teaching. I can visually see what time I’m spending on personal recreation, writing, and drawing. After my first year, I hope to increase this to more consistent blogging, and fiction writing and editing but I can see myself using a planner that just focuses on the weekend.
Great job Dave !
Keep up the momemtum…. Cheers from France
because in the old calendar, there is a clear understanding of what he told me I want to remember the date and adjust my processes
In the new calendar, the main focus for Saturday and Sunday – why? I work five days a week. And i like my job. So – why the weekend in the center of the calendar? It’s two days when all rush to do more housework or when people watch TV all day?
BUT someone might like this calendar. Then I would suggest a small addition: Make gaps between months more – so you can write the problem for a month and congratulate ourselves on their performance. Or just check out the appropriate event in the calendar (except holidays)
I was actually looking for a year-at-a-glance calendar this morning and in a different format than your compact calendar and am happy I came here first. This might be the format I need (though I’d like more room to write between the months)!
Devyn: Hm, that’s an interesting idea. Maybe there is a different planner layout lurking in here somewhere.
Karina: Thanks for the feedback…this makes me think of a weekend activity journal? Dedicated to just those things, perhaps.
Danila, Penny: I’ve made a version with more space.
Once again sorry for the criticism :)
PS “I’m watching you” PS “from Russia with love”