My tracker fell apart in a coffee shop in Portland so I switched to a monthly overview instead

I was sitting at this tiny coffee spot on Hawthorne and my weekly spread just totally collapsed... ink smudges everywhere, a coffee ring right through my habit tracker. I spent 15 minutes trying to salvage it and gave up. Now I do one big monthly page with just the basics - no dailies or weeklies unless I need them. It's way less pressure and I actually stick with it. Has anyone else had a moment where their setup just failed them in public?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandrat2426d ago

Your weekly spread just totally collapsed" - ah yeah, I've been there. Mine gave out at a Starbucks in Seattle once, ink running everywhere thanks to a leaky travel mug. I see where you're coming from with the monthly overview, but honestly I think that kind of failure is part of why I stick with my system. A good planner should be able to handle a little chaos, you know? If it falls apart over one coffee spill, maybe the problem isn't the format but the planner itself. I've had cheap notebooks that couldn't take a drop of water, but a decent one with thicker paper or a waterproof cover can bounce back from a latte disaster no problem.

wyatt_green3126d ago

And @sandrat24, my dog actually ate half a planner once. Still used the other half.

riverreed10d ago

Is it really fair to blame the planner when the real issue is you're trusting a flimsy one? I gotta disagree with @wyatt_green31's dog story being a good argument for sticking with a half-destroyed system, because a planner that can't survive a dog or a coffee spill just isn't doing its job. @sandrat24, I've had the same cheap notebook from the drugstore last through rain, mud, and a toddler's art project, so I think durability comes down to the specific product, not the format. A good planner should be tough enough to handle regular life, not some special case that only works if nothing goes wrong. If yours fell apart from one leaky mug, that sounds like a failure of the planner itself, not proof that we should accept chaos as part of the game.