Hello. I'm Carl, Author of Your Time Your Way, creator of COD™ (Collect, Organise, and Do) and the Time Sector System™, and Founder of Carl Pullein International.
I'm here to help you get control of your time and become better organised and more productive.
Each week, I publish videos on the nuances of time management and productivity and share tips and tricks for gaining more of your valuable time back to do the things you want to do.
Agreed for all except project planning. While it’s best to use a whiteboard, iPad’s Freeform app is a great portable way to write things out and select/move things around
Used the Franklin Planner while working for a company known by its initials. My coworker and I set out to call on a customer and we asked ourselves what we needed to take along. We looked at our leather planners and agreed “only our bibles.” Seriously, thank you for what you are doing. Learned somethings already that I wish I’d understood years ago about realistic “prioritized task lists”.
Max office job promotion and salary increase but most importantly reduce work errors or project delays to max out bosses profits so management can max charity donations. E.g. (This forwarded email has “8” attachments.) or (Please see 8 files attached). Need to mention number of attachments in email chain to avoid political attacks, where someone sabotage by taking out some attachments, or “forgot” to attach. Prevent tampering by selling tech email app solution where the email chain with text print in italics, (app auto calculate and auto insert text) X number of files attached.
Hi, Carl. I ordered _Your Time, Your Way_ in hard cover from the US on 18 September and it arrived here in Australia on 1 October. That's under a fortnight. Great turnaround. If any viewers are in Australia, they should not be concerned about delays. And they can fill in the time between ordering and receiving the way I did: listening to and learning from Carl's videos and podcasts.
THANK YOU for these wonderful posts. (Rather would like to send you a letter). I've come back to analogue as well. I drive a manual transmission, mechanical watches, film, fountain pens and paper. So I am drawn to what you've shared with all of us. I feel exactly the same. I have found that my reliance on technology has hurt. Once upon a time I could recall phone numbers and even the license plate numbers, etc.... now.... I'm lucky if I can recall my own phone number.... this lead back to a pocket notebook and a calendar. My work related notes are now being converted back to paper because I find it difficult to remember things. At first I thought it was old age but it's because of technology. Look forward to your updates.
I miss mine. A disability keeps me from writing so I gave it up. Indeed electronic can be no good. I once "floated" a task for a couple of years. I didn't have to rewrite it just change the date so on and on it went. I did finally complete it.
I’m a lover of analogue methods and objects and trying to return to those ways, so this was fun to watch! PS: If you don’t think you’ll use your Apple Watch / other digital products anymore, I recommend donating them 😊
My planner journey started years ago when my father started using a Franklin Planner. I too used a Franklin Planner for many years. But then I moved away from them because they were too expensive. Later when my financial means increased, I tried going back to the Franklin Planner, but found the notebooks to be way to heavy for my busy schedule, which includes a great deal of travel. I ended up scaling back to smaller Tomoe River planner (yes, I use fountain pens as well). But, the principles that I learned during all those years of using a Franklin Planner, I still use today.
I suspect that is what I will eventually do. The Planner is heavy (although it's around the same weight as an 11 inch iPad Pro with keyboard). Which may become an issue when I start travelling later this year.
@@Carl_Pullein Just for fun I pulled out my old Franklin planner. It weighed in at 4 lbs! As I've gotten older, (and after a shoulder reconstruction) I have lightened my load when I travel. I went from an iPad Pro to an iPad Mini, and instead of carrying a luggable MacBook Pro, I use an LG Gram. Even though I ended up going back to a PC (which wasn't really all that different), I find the weight to be much easier for me.
I like the points you make about the Franklin Planner and paper processes. I'd like to adopt a paper process, except I must keep a current digital shared calendar at work. Have you created steps / process to synchronize the Franklin Planner schedule and tasks with a work digital calendar and task list?
I follow the FB method of transferring appointments to the daily pages when I do my daily planning. That was the way I did it in the 1990s. The difference today is rather than looking at the monthly calendar pages, I look at my digital calendar.
my biggest problem with a franlin planner is the massive coil in the middle. It makes writing impossible for me, I need my planners to lay flat. Leuchturms still work the best
I stumbled upon my old leather planner from 1999 and found it filled with notes, which brought a smile to my face. Among the notes, I found the FAX letterhead I used back then. I just visited the Franklin Planner website and ordered a refill. Thank you, Carl!
That's something I discovered when I opened up my old Franklin Planner from 2009. Flipping through the pages there was so much wonderful nostalgia. Happy memories.
Some of my favourite fountain pen friendly paper has been in children's notebooks bought from Lidl. Not a very professional look, but beautiful paper at a bargain price. Muji notebooks also have lovely paper, and a minimalist look.
Hello. I subscribed today because I used Franklin Planners through most high school until freshman year of college. I just stopped proper planning for 10 years then I started back planning in 2016 in hobonichi weeks. For 2025, I bought Franklin Planner and I’m currently integrating those methods into my current planner. So here to see your progress. Thank you advance.
Love a planner. It just doesn't work for me, going to and fro different places. I'd rather use iPhone and iPad than having to haul a planner as well as the risk of forgetting. When I found myself constantly making pics to 'take it with me', I realized physical doesn't work for me
Great tutorial:) Typically I use my calendar in full month at a glance view, and been looking to highlight a full "day box" in a designated color. Example make the entire box of every other Friday green as a pay period day. In month calendar view, the entire box doesn't maintain a full color, it's just a small bullet point with the chosen color. Which I suppose is ok but was looking to set it like a background highlight of the entire date box in calendar view so it stands out:) I haven't been able to find a way but checking if you have something up your sleeve on that one:) Thank you!
@@Carl_Pullein Hey Carl, yes, that's what I thought:) I've lived without it this long so not even a problem:) The Fantastical calendar has that ability as well as the Google calendar. But thought just maybe I'd ask just in case I was missing something. lol
In 1990 I got my first time-system planner in A5. I loved the thing and used it intensively for years. I have always been in the IT industry and at some point I, like many others, am sitting on the mistake of doing everything digitally. I had all hardware and software available to me. It was clear that I also use this intensively. There is hardly an organisation app that I have not used. I have participated in every development, from the first laptop, to Palm-Pilot, all kinds of smartphones and tablets. All really great. At some point I started buying fancy and expensive leather notebooks. Why? Everything is great digital! So with force everything continues to be digital. It can't be that a computer person uses anything else. The digital helpers filled up, and I always had the impression that I was losing track and using all these tools and helpers for my own end. The older I got, the greater the longing for pen and paper, analogue processing and books made of paper and printer black. Things that I could pick up, touch, smell, feel. There came years when I barely had a week where I didn't switch back and forth between digital and analogue. With this I lost the overview even more and was not happy with it at all. Carl, since you started this analogue series, I've realised I don't have to go through this whole technical game. I can even map complex projects well in my time system. I have now gone so far as to completely empty and delete my Things 3. I will only be working in my time system plan until the end of the year. And then I'll take an honest balance. Calendar, tasks, notes, overviews, planning. My beloved fountain pens are also back in use. I realised it's not just a romantic transfiguration, but an intimate desire to slow down and simplify. I am still in the IT industry and am responsible for the IT of a large company. Digitalisation is a big word and is massively implemented with us. But how I achieve this is entirely up to me. I decide for myself which tools I need for this. Thank you for your incredibly great content.
Thank you for sharing that, Christoph. I understand the feeling that technology must be better, yet I've found that technology is not always better. My initial thoughts are calendars and notes storage is better in the digital space. The task list, though, is better written out by hand.
Mr. Pullein, I recently subscribed to your channel and am enjoying the episodes. I'm a former Franklin Planner user. Your experiment is very intriguing and I'm looking forward to your 3 month experiment. Have a great day.
Notion is free and Evernote is going up on price. I am cutting any and all apps that charge a subscription unless I have to have them. Goodbye Evernote.
When I graduated college in the early 90s about a dozen friends were hired by the same big insurance company over about a three year period. Their first month of training always included a week long class on using their new Franklin Planner. I wonder how/if that company is doing time management training for new recruits today?
Yay! After all these years I just did not make the switch to digital planning. I just have so much joy using analog planning. Hope you keep doing it and report back please.
Hey Carl, did you see the FP website still carries the Satellite little notebook?!? 😂 So happy to see this during the next 3 months, and I keep tons of notes and huge master task lists in ios Notes - and use paper planners with that -- eventually, if you end up discussing the blending of digital with FP (paper) and a great workflow for that, I would love to hear it, as you do this analogue experiment again. Thanks for the great info and videos you always produce!
@@Carl_Pullein Wow, that's a great idea! We (my husband and I) may do the same over here, thanks for mentioning it!! 😀. (Don't know if at some point you may show it on camera, we would love to see it, if you do...) - thanks again!
I eat twice a day. After my focused session in the morning and at 6:00PM. Eating times don't need to be on my calendar because I know when to eat (I'm hungry)
Magnificent video, mate. I love my Mac computers and Apple gear, but I’ve recently reintroduced my Filofax with Franklin Covey planner inserts so I can enjoy my fountain pens again and it’s made life more enjoyable. Also wear my Rolex more often than my Apple Watch again. Thanks for making this video. Regards from South Australia.
It's kind of crazy that the inserts have increased in price to $76.95 for the classic size. I used these for a long time and I know they weren't nearly that cost!
Yeah, I noticed that too. Also the paper quality isn't great. Lathough Franklin Planner do recommend wither the Leadership or 7 Habits pages for better quality paper. (Of course at a higher price)
Wish I would have known you wanted to try this. I used the Franklin Planner for years and left it in 2016. February of 2024 I went back and decided to splurge and buy a new planner with my calendar pages. I made it almost until the end of June and now I’m using my iPad and Apple Pencil using a PDF template. I would have given you mine
Well, this is an interesting turn in the path. I really look forward to seeing how this goes over the next few months. Very interesting, thank you! Years ago, I used DayTimer, which is a similar system to Franklin, I think. I really liked it but didn’t stick with it. The fact that Franklin planners are thriving says something doesn’t it. Every day when I read the tech news, it seems that there is yet another productivity app. Really makes me wonder what’s going on. If you look at Reddit, for instance, people always are talking about their dissatisfaction their current productivity app, and wondering what to switch to next. I’ve done this myself a few times. Really something to think about here.
Love it! I am actually going to join you on a similar experiment as I have been resorting to paper more and more often. I would like to use Franklin Planner but I think I am going with the Levenger-type disc bound system because I already have the binder and a punch and it is more versatile in my opinion. The issue I am having is that I can't find any daily (preferably 2 pages/ day) inserts that I like in the disc bound style, If any of your loyal viewers have any suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work Carl!
My system tends to be a blend of digital and analog. I use Apple Notes for work stuff and things I need access to in the long term, I use Reminders for running task lists for work and grocery/store lists, and I use a physical journal for keeping track of things in my personal life like monthly goals, exercise tracking, journaling, etc. I wear an Apple Watch, but have been thinking a lot about going back to an analog watch.
