I've always been a sucker for planners. Actually, notebooks in general. You see, I love collecting notebooks even though I don't use them. My notebooks are either cute but empty or full of weird unrelated stuff with trash handwriting. There was a time I even joined the hype of bullet journaling because of cool people like Little Coffee Fox and Amanda Rach Lee. I bought two dotted journals (I estimated the number of pages I'll need for a year) and a lot of brush pens. In the end, I gave up.
My relationship with planners is very questionable. Not being able to keep a planner is something that is stereotypically unbefitting of an xxxJ personality. But don't disown me, I'm still a great planner and it manifests in many ways. I just particularly suck at keeping notes and committing to whatever magnificent plans I make. So, for a long time, I have already reconciled myself with the fact that planners are not for me—at least the traditional ones. I would still look at them at bookstores, but definitely not have the urge to buy anymore.
For 2020, I had one planner, which is just a freebie I got from a friend. Guess what's inside. You're fckng right—it's almost empty. The only things written inside are: when I opened a joint account with my boyfriend, when I received my (sad) performance evaluation, and when one Japanese artist I follow died. The planner was basically empty, and for the three entries mentioned, it served more as an event log rather than a "plan-ner".
I don't know if it's an adult thing or it's just me being lazy. I realized that I don't really enjoy traditional planners. They are bulky and inflexible. Planners are meant to carry your plans for the day or week. But, appointments and meetings can always be rescheduled, and it's such a bother to cross them out and write them again on another date. The only permanent things that can be written in a planner are birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and historical events (e.g. diary entries).
So, in terms of utility, I now prefer digital calendars and applications. For example, Google Calendar captures almost everything I need to pin on calendar. Few clicks, and it registers the webinar I signed up for. Few clicks, and it reschedules what needs to be. It even automatically converts time zones. I don't even need to rewrite recurring events. Actually, any calendar which has sync function.
For tasking, I use Google Keep (rather than Google Tasks) and some offline checklist apps. Most of my checklists are buried unfinished, though. But, at least I tried. I mean, life is ever cruel, no matter how much I prepare. So, I'll just keep my checklists simple and flexible. And disposable.
For habit tracking, I have several apps for that. I use Daylio for emotion, activity, goals, and habit tracking. It's kind of effective, even though I don't check the analytics often.
I also use MindDoc (formerly Moodpath) as a virtual therapy app for mental health. The daily piecemeal insights help me relieve some of my distress, and the 14-day results also help me gain insight on how I'm coping up. But I hope you don't take my word for it, because we would heal better with professional help.
I also use Samsung Health for tracking sleep pattern and step count. I believe there is an Apple counterpart for Apple users. I don't have gadgetwear yet (because it's so expensive). But, this app is rather useful. It also has mindfulness and sleeping podcasts to help relieve stress. Seriously, I really like this app.
For activity tracking, most of my life revolves around work, so the answer would be my work timesheets. Timesheets are required outputs anyway, so why not use them to remind myself of what I did at certain dates. "On Month and Date, I did Forms A, B and C for Client X. And if I wasn't responding to your text messages last Friday, I was on a half-day emergency sick leave, trying to tape myself back together because I was too broken to function."
For personal diary keeping, social media handles that, but I might just restructure it. I was betrayed a lot of times during the past year, and most of them I let off the hook and became unfinished businesses, so they haunt me in my sleep now. I might just revert to handwritten diaries to protect myself, but whenever I look at my penmanship, I see hell. So, I might just create a purely anonymous account and never tell anyone, and the next generation would find my entries as archives when the social media website I used finally phases out. Or, I might just fully utilize this blog site.
Honorable mentions, I have a gratitude journal and dream journal. I haven't really dedicated to fill them out in 2020, so I can't vouch or even recommend them to myself in 2021. Anyway, I'll see later.
This blog turned out to discuss my irrelevant life rather than actually answer what happened to my 2020 planner (took up only five sentences).
As the year closes and 2021 nears, I'm reinforcing these guidelines. I'm inclined to digital recordkeeping, which is paper-free, less costly, more accessible, easier to backup and restore, and efficient.
Sike.
I might just buy a cute planner to add to my collection of unused stuff.
ㅋㅋㅋ
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