If you’re a paper person that can’t seem to embrace electronic planners and task managers, embrace it. Test it out a paper note-taking system for a set period of time instead of fighting to adopt your electronic routine. There couldn’t be a better time than year-end to do a personal challenge and work out the kinks during this holiday season and perhaps even get caught up on those stale tasks. Last week I asked an online Facebook Group that I’m a part of, if they kept digital or paper calendars. A few folks that said both but the majority said paper. It may have been a small sample size but it encouraged me to embrace what I had been fighting all this year. For the majority of the year, I’ve been building my online calendar and task manager. I like the reminder settings and ability for recurring events that I can set up and forget about until an event or task gets close. They also force me follow the GTD methodology. I’ll be creating an article later on SolCalendar and Nozbe tools. I’m committing to a 30-day challenge with my Action Notebook so that I have enough of a sample size to say wether or not it’s a useful tool for me. If you keep changing systems, it will take longer to find out what works. In the name of going “paperless,” for the last two years I’ve personally gone through: * 3 different online calendars * 3 different task managers * 3 separate paper planners * 5+ habit trackers. [shareable cite=”Tracy Altheide”]If you keep changing systems, it will take longer to find out what works.[/shareable] Not matter how much I push myself to become almost paperless, there’s something about the act of writing in a note-taking system your own proposed actions, dreams, desires, and observations that I have a hard time doing by… typing. Last Wednesday, I took the plunge and set up a quick and dirty version of my new note-taking/planner system. I wrote a full article on how I created my “Action Notebook.” For the next 30 days I’m going to use this system and embrace handwriting. I’ll report back my findings. I will still keep a few electronic items but more so to trigger automated reminders. If you’re a paperless or digital fan, I know you’ll like them. Questions for you: What do you normally use to schedule your personal life and tasks? Have you been thinking about changing what you currently use or are you satisfied? If nothing, what do you use as a general note-taking?