Tools of my trade: Volt planner

I can’t help myself — I try new stuff all the time, new ways of organizing myself, new pens, new notebooks, new apps. So when I’ve stuck with something for a few years, I know it’s really optimized for what I want to do.

Without further hesitation, I thoroughly recommend the Volt planner from Ink & Volt for organizing your days, weeks, months and year.

Image from Ink & Volt’s product web site. I’d show you my own, except, it’s a bit messier!

The Volt planner originally started as a Kickstarter, like many other interesting planners and notebooks. It’s the brainchild of Kate Matsudeira, a talented entrepreneur who pivoted from being a CTO in the tech world to focus on, in her words, “helping superstars shine at work”. I have had the pleasure of meeting Kate a few times at tech events, which led me to being an early backer of her planner Kickstarter back in 2014.

This is my third year working with the Volt planner. Here are the things that make it handy for me:

• Boxes rather than lines for each day give you flexibility: you can still write a timeline if that’s what works for you. Right now, I divide those boxes up and draw my own checkboxes for habits and to-dos, as well as incorporate time-based appointments. Seeing a whole week in one spread is optimal for me.
• Quality construction: the planner lays flat on my desk every day and the paper is of decent quality. Two bookmarks let me snap to the current week and month quickly.
• Just enough structure: through weekly and monthly goal pages, you can engage in higher level thought to structure your life. Or you can completely ignore those pages with no guilt. Most of the space in these pages is blank, lines, or boxes: you can hack it to work for you. Many fancy planners fall into the trap of strongly imposing their productivity worldview on you, which renders them useless if you disagree. With Volt you can come and go, but it gives you more prompting than just a regular planner.

The Volt planner is, at the end of the day, a great reflection of its creator’s values. Encouraging and authentic, without being gaudy or overwrought.

Finally, if you’re wondering why use paper at all in a world of electronic calendars, I encourage you to try it. I find that while electronic calendars are great at collecting information, it’s hard to beat paper for truly understanding it. Every Sunday I have a routine of creating the week’s layout in the planner, and it helps focus and prepare me for the week ahead.