September’s Notebook, Pencils and Planning

Is there anything as glorious as an unused, unsharpened pencil? Obviously, the answer is “yes”, but sometimes I cannot escape the siren song of a new pencil.

For my birthday this year, the wife got me a box of Blackwing Pearls. Blackwing Pearls are lovely pencils, but I have the strange habit of starting a new one before finishing the old one. This month, I must tidy up after myself. I have three part-used Pearls on my desk as I write this. September is the month I use those bad boys up.

Obviously, if I’m going with all-white pencils I need a black notebook, and thus my second Pocket Pitch Black Field Notes enters the fray. As I posted several months ago, I love the simplistic design of these notebooks. While other Fields Notes are beautiful (check out the Underland series) the Pitch Black edition rocks a plain black cover.

Work this Month

I’m always after clever ways to make better use of my time. I don’t want to work more hours; I want to make the best use of my work time. There are only so many work hours in the day, after all. Even more horrifyingly, there are only so many quality work hours in the day.

I’m a big fan of Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Sadly, there is a limit to exactly how much quality deep work you can get done in a day. Deep work requires focus, concentration and a lack of distraction.

To try and help me focus, I’ve decided to “theme” each day of the week. My schedule is relatively simplistic:

• Monday: Admin, websites, accounts, blogs etc.
• Tuesday: Design & Development
• Wednesday: Design & Development (half day)
• Thursday: Design & Development
• Friday: Design & Development

This is not to say, for example, I won’t be doing any admin or website updates on (say) Thursday. Some jobs have to be done on certain days. However, theming the day gives me a good steer on what I should be doing for the majority of the time.

Time Blocking

I’m also going to start experimenting with time blocking again. While I already block out certain hours in the day for certain tasks I’m going to give “proper” or “full-on” time blocking another go. I time blocked for several months last year and I definitely got more done. The relative chaos of the pandemic, however, put paid to that strategy.

So all in all September is going to be a month heavy with a frenzy of organisation and experimentation. I'll periodically report back and let you know how it is going.