My name is Joanna and I use a paper planner. Gasp, I know. Last year, I ditched my app/online/digital planning tools in favor of good old pen and paper.

Here’s why: After years of working at home, I started sharing a studio with a crappy wifi situation. Instead of letting it drive me crazy, I embraced the sad internet situation and started to work offline as much as possible when I’m there. Total productivity boom!

The only downside? Accessing my digital planner there was frustrating. So I started experimenting. For months, I printed out a weekly calendar layout from Apple Calendar and marked it up with the week’s events. It was ugly, but it did the trick and taught me a few things:

• As a visual person, seeing the white space in my week really helped me plan my time better than having it in list form.
• A vertical planner worked best for my brain.
• Carting a loose piece of paper back and forth in my bag was a recipe for disaster.

Next, I started looking for an off-the-shelf paper planner with a vertical layout that didn’t offend my design sensibilities. Tall order! This one [link removed] comes closest so far to doing everything I need.

It has an area to jot down action items for each day. I keep a separate “life” to-do list, so each week I’ll assign a few items from there to the days on the planner. Dishing out that list in easy-to-implement bits has finally whittled it down to a happy level.

The planner also has a notes area in the margin where I write the status of every project on my work schedule, leaving a little space after each one so I can update statuses as the week progresses. Nothing elaborate. Just the project name or abbreviation and status.

Every Friday, I spend about 5 to 10 minutes transferring appointments and deadlines for the upcoming week from my digital calendar (currently Apple Calendar) to the planner. I block off chunks of time (including travel to and from) for every meeting and appointment. This lets me easily see when I’ll have large blocks of time for creative work.

The key to planner success is to think of it as a planning tool NOT a calendar. That means I don’t go crazy filling out events beyond the upcoming week. Since I cross off events and items as completed, there’s really no need to keep the planner after the year is over. And since it’s only filled out one week ahead, if it went missing, I wouldn’t freak out.

I can't tell you how much this method's helped my productivity. What's working for you?