ARC DIY-Invention?

I am in a couple of planner groups, some DIY, some filofax and some ARC.  I like all of them for different reasons, although my heart really belongs with the DIY focus.  I think that is pretty obvious.  But recently I have been on an ARC kick.

I was an early adopter of the ARC system because it spoke to that DIY part of me.  I had the punch right away began making my own books before staples even considered the "build your own line." Not to mention binding it across the top.  I made that before staples did... :)  There is proof on this blog!  (TIP: Want poly covers but not with the price tag of a whole new book? Buy pre-punched ARC poly dividers, cut off the tab and make it flush.  Presto a cover!) 

 

And today I feel like I invented something new!  Knowing my luck there is someone out there already who does this, has a you tube channel with 50 videos about it and sells it on etsy...but I don't recall seeing it. 

I was thinking about my ARC notebooks.  I have about 5 I think, some I have made, some I have bought.  I basically use them for work meeting notes.  Overall, I don't really use them for planning but I was thinking about how I could make them more useful to me at home.  

This AM I was thinking about my cumbersome sticker binder.  It is a just a regular binder with protective sheets that i slide my stickers into.  It is just a nightmare mess.  They want to slide out and all over. They are all goofy sized and most don't have room to hole punch the sides.  And I thought, wish I could just attach something to the barest edge of the sticker sheet and then make them into an ARC.  Then I remembered I had this notebook of thin thin paper that I wished I could ARC but it is just too thin.  The punches are basically mush after a few flips. I have used washi tape, for these projects but I don't want to to gum up my punch and I only have 150 rolls of washi tape, I certaninly don't want to waste it all on edging!  What if I ran out? 

I started thinking wouldn't it be great to have attachable punched edges.  So I thought about it and came up with a prototype. 

I bought some double sided sticky tape at hobby lobby and a sheet of lighter weight and heavier weight scrapbook paper.  This so happens to be the lighter and it works just fine.  I also grabbed one of those mushy thin sheets of paper that I like for meeting notes.

I just folded it in half, punched it and laid the sticky side down from top to bottom.  Notice the red?  That peels off to expose the other sticky side of the tape. You can see what it looks like peeled in the third picture.

I positioned the paper and stuck down one side, careful to not place to close to the edge of the punches.  FYI, this stuff is super sticky.  You only get one shot at adhering the paper flawlessly.  If you are like me, it took a few times, which is why the paper is a little wonk.  Then I just peeled the top side, folded over and put directly in a nearby ARC.  The paper turns just fine, and the doubled up scrapbook paper is not too light or too heavy.  It is the Goldilocks weight in my opinion.

So that is my invention.  I am sure it has been done, but I am going to pretend I am original for a little bit and just bask in my own genius.

Feedback and questions welcome, as always!

DIY Arc Planner for Work

I feel like I have been a very organized person in most aspects of my life, including work.  However, when I took on a different role last year, I found that my style of organizing tasks and notes just wasn't cutting it.

Due to the nature of my job, I tend to write down a lot of notes.  These notes are separate from meeting notes, and are of a more day to day type nature.  For virtually all phone conversations and face to face discussions, I am taking notes, even if it is just the name of the person and a few words that summarize what was talked about.  From these discussions I often generate to-do list items.

In the past I was very successful organizing these tasks either with the weekly view on the uncalendar (which I previously reviewed) or even just a little notebook with a daily task list which I would transfer to a new page everyday. I could leave this on my desk and work directly from this list.  However, those items do not work well now that I am taking all of these notes, as that is what I am primarily using.  When I try and use two separate books, I either end up taking notes in the planner and there is not nearly enough room for that or I scribble the task in my notes where they easily get missed.

So I decided to use my Arc hole punch and rings to make a custom solution for this problem.  Here is what I needed with this planner:

• Quality paper, with narrow lines (so no Arc branded paper)
• Color
• Small enough to fit between my keyboard when pushed forward and the edge of my desk, since I am also often using the computer on these calls to look things up and what not
• Task list on each page, but without having to re-write it due to the number of tasks/projects
• Space on the task list to keep things that need to be on my radar in front of my face everyday, as some items can take days or weeks to resolve
• A spot to outline the daily priorities from the task list
• Flexibility, because one day I may take three notes on a half a page and other days I may take five pages of notes. 

This story will read a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears....I couldn't get the planner to work out "just right".  I started with a simple, initial prototype as displayed in the first picture.  For the cover, I re-purposed some of the junky manilla folders that I had around since they were well past their prime. I really wanted this notebook to have a binding at the top of the page rather than the side, so that I didn't have to write across the rings.  It was challenging to line the punch up correctly with the paper due to the fact there was no marked line on the Arc punch for this size of paper or for a top of sheet punch.

The first prototype was just a regular letter sized sheet that was punched and bound using the standard Arc discs.  But it was too big to fit in front of the keyboard.  In an effort to go smaller, I bought a pack of notepads, tore out the pages and bound those. This ended up being a bit too small as you can see from the picture.

I didn't really like either of these initial prototypes due to page size and because the discs were too big.  I bought a heavier weight ream of paper and hat it custom cut at Staples and I bought discs from Levenger that were only 1/4" instead of the 1" discs from Staples.

I ended up cutting the paper down one inch from the side and top and with the smaller disc (which hold about 50 pages) it was the perfect size.  I also took the time to print the paper with various colors, line widths, borders, dot grid, margins/no margins etc.  This solved my color, quality and size problems.

To solve my task problems, I printed half sheets with plenty of room for tasks as well as keeping a separate area for daily priorities.  For items I need to keep on my radar, I just write on the back of the list or use a post it on the back.  This half sheet can be moved as I go from page to page and it keeps the list in front of me so I don't scribble tasks on the note pages.  The cover is another folder that I picked up from the Target One Spot section several months ago.

Here is a shot of the planner in action.  Notice the half sheet, moveable task list and the yellow dot grid paper.

 

I started using this planner at the beginning of September and so far it has worked out OK. There are still some design flaws, like some of the ruling is a bit too narrow and the line color and weight on some sheets is too dark.  The best pages are really the dot grid, I think I could just do an entire one of these with dot grid paper.

I would love to hear your ideas to make improve upon this design or any tips for better organization. also let me know if you have any questions!