Planner 17.0

How 2017 is stacking up so far…

Struggling with whether this is a post or a project plan, and not really feeling like it does a super awesome job of being either, but there’s an idea that’s been nagging at me for years – I need to find time to do it, and apparently to talk about it, and try to make it real.

This is an experiment in trying to strike a balance because time is a precious resource around here, and I’d really like to make this idea come to life, mostly because I want to use it. Plus, after seeing the image results when a friend told me to Google ‘Bullet Journal,’ I think other people would want to use it too.

This is super frustrating though – I don’t really think this is ‘story’ enough to be a post, but it’s not detailed enough to be an actual project plan either. Decisions had to be made – do I take the time to plan it all out, draft it all up with all the deep-dive information, detailed project plan, concept document, and implementation scheme…or do I run with it as is and try to just make it happen? I’m fighting my own nature here, trying to prioritize doing over planning, and my knee jerk that I need to make it ‘right,’ which, given the subject below, it a bit ironic really.

So, here goes.

Passion (one step short of obsession)

I have a serious obsession, verging on an addiction one could say, with journals and notebooks and pens. I buy them compulsively. Don’t misunderstand, I do use them, but there are just so…many…notebooks…on my desk, in plastic tubs in the garage, in the shed, there are a lot. The best part of the Google image results was seeing that I’m not alone in my journaling/task tracking mania.

I have been so obsessed with organization, task tracking, and journaling over the years that I created my own, customizable journal pages, which I would print and bind into a sturdy, functional task, and time tracking planner. I made it available on my website just in case anyone else would find such a thing useful.

While tracking time was beneficial when I was working as an Independent Contractor, one of the things I ended up documenting was how much time I was spending making a bespoke journal to track my time. When I got a job with a startup, plus my own things still on the side, I had to get a bit more streamlined.

So. Many. Circles.

Also, there was this fantastic shop I found during a visit to Japan last year, and their glorious notebooks - I bought four or five, that’s all that would fit in my luggage. I’ve since ordered more…since going to Japan I’ve bought at least 40 more notebooks of various kinds. They’re beautiful and work wonderfully for my current need to document meetings, take notes, and set tasks for the day, and get that dopamine surge when I check items off.

Yes, I’m a tech guy, working at a tech place, and I’m using a paper journal to organize and track my days. It’s a bit weird, right? I’m sure someone thinks there’s an app for all that. But there really isn’t – at least not one I’ve found that I’m satisfied with. Also, there’s something so satisfyingly tactile about writing out my plans, ideas, inspiration (and for some reason I’ve never been able to comprehend, pages and pages full of circles – it’s my doodle of choice), that I keep going back to paper journals.

But then, paper lacks some features I’d like to have, like tracking and predictive analysis, and leaves me feeling like I’m missing something in a whole other way.

The Project

With a large selection of pens…journal-specific, naturally

Here’s where we get to the project I want, need, to find time to do (if anyone else would like to step up and help make this one a reality...I want this that badly.)

I need a unified, cohesive system that bridges the cardinal and digital productivity journal. It needs to scan journal pages out of a hand-written paper notebook, analyze the data, and draw the next day’s customized planner page using pens in a plotter device.

That would be the basics - the bare minimum really, because it needs to do so much more than just that.

XYZ in the works

From there, it needs to scan and store images of the pages in the cloud, accessible from devices anywhere. The system needs to include OCR to create a searchable record, with learning capabilities to read my writing and reproduce it when creating new pages or lists. The system itself will learn as it gathers data, suggest changes for the task tracking or journal page setup, based upon what it sees in the paper version.

It needs to track each day by date to provide similar-day and year-over-year comparisons. It needs to be able to add additional information to previously scanned pages, or versions to ensure all updates are captured. It needs to pull from my calendar with events and meetings migrated to the next week or day page, and then populate calendar or reminder lists with items added to the day’s written record.

It needs to be able to decipher specific symbols to organize information into lists, pulled from each page and reorganized into discrete data sets that are accessible from the app, and can also be migrated into the paper journal, using the pen plotter.

It needs to track habits – hydration, exercise, mood, food, energy, or productivity – and provide data, statistics, progress reports and predictive feedback. It will use the data to discover patterns, identify root causes for problems, and warn of impending doom. “Caution human, you’re not drinking enough water - if you do this for five more days, you’ll have another kidney stone!” Or, “Hey, you keep scheduling 15 tasks every day, but you can only schedule 10, complete them all, and still meet your goal to get six hours of sleep.

”It doesn’t have to start out smart, but it needs to get there eventually. It could have plugins to track or analyze specific things, with enough computing power behind them to build correlations and support deep learning.

The user will be able to decide if they want to separate the professional and personal lives, or keep them side-by-side in a single paper and virtual journal. Then, it should offer social features, a connection to your online personal or business life: meetings, events, suggest articles or posts, sharing, and connecting with colleagues or friends.

It would be a virtual assistant that combines the best of paper journaling, with the user’s preferences for simplicity or complex customization, and all of the efficiency, data, and analytics the age of technology has to offer.

Once the whole system is up and going, the day-to-day process would look something like this…

Can we, Please?

The plans for the system should be open source, so anyone can create mods and make their own bespoke solution. Icons would appear on each part of the virtual page and allow the user to select the icon to see, and edit, the code behind each piece of the planner page.

The plugins and analytics capabilities will take a bit more programming and server power to deliver - so those would likely have to be add-ons that develop over time.

I really want this to be real. I really want it now. I just have to finish designing the Z-axis, a quick-change multiple pen holder system, write all the code, design an interface, and a bunch of other things to get this going.

Who’s with me?