I’ve written various reviews of Nolty planners and notebooks, but I don’t think I’ve gone into too much detail about how I use my Nolty planner. These lovely Japanese diaries have some features that make planning, habit tracking, and list-keeping very convenient for me.

The Nolty Efficiency Notebook has various page layouts. It starts with a full year spread, which I actually don’t use at all! I probably should come up with some way to use this to plot out the whole year or maybe track something that occurs year round… but I haven’t found a need yet.

The next section is the monthly Gantt chart. For each month, you get columns for each day, and several lines below. I use this as a habit tracker. I track things like exercise, how often I’ve called my mother, whether I’ve done something creative that day, and other various health and productivity and social habits. Usually, I just mark a dot to show that I’ve done that thing each day, or maybe a letter or number to show what/how much I did. This photo shows the page with space for the following year’s first few months, but the pages for the current year are two per spread, so each month has 11 lines rather than 7. The first two lines are pre-drawn, but below that, there are dots that help with alignment when I add my own lines in pencil.

Then there are the weekly spreads. In each daily section on the left, I’ll note appointments, birthdays, sometimes the weather, and track my exercise and diet in detail. On the blank right page, I keep a shopping list and a to-do list. At the bottom of the right page, I might jot other details, like a list of places I’m planning to visit if I’m going into NYC that week. On the tops of the weekly pages, I’ll note week-long plans like a vacation or trip.

I don’t use the weekly layout to plan or record any details of job-related meetings unless it’s a major meeting or a full-day business trip– something I know I need to plan my personal life around rather than routine meetings within my regular work schedule. I keep all the details of my work meetings and to-do’s in my work Outlook calendar.

At the end of the weekly pages, the Nolty planner has various plain, lined and squared pages. I use one to note my new year’s resolutions and goals, and another to jot notes about plans for the following year, so I can transfer those notes into my next planner. I use other pages for random notes such as results of an annual medical exam– I used to just keep a health diary in a note on my phone, but I decided it would be good to record things each year on paper too.

The Nolty planner comes with separate booklets that can be tucked in the back cover. One is an address book, and the other is just lined pages. I have been using the address book to keep long-term lists like books I want to read, music I want to check out, movies I want to see, restaurants I want to try, travel ideas, etc. I also keep a page with a few key phone numbers– I can’t remember phone numbers anymore, so I like having a backup in case I lose my phone! I tend to use the same address booklet for 2 years rather than re-copying everything at the beginning of the new year.

The lined booklets tend not to get much use at all. I’ve used a few pages of one for some random notes, and I keep transferring it to my new planner each year because it hasn’t filled up. I have quite a few spare booklets. I do like having these extra booklets, though, as the pages are perforated for easy removal and I have torn out a page to give someone a note once or twice.

On the sample spreads shown in this post (mocked up in simplified form for explanatory purposes and to hide the embarrassment of my actual diet and habits!) you will notice that I’m using a few different colored inks. I love using my various fountain pens in the Nolty diary, as the paper works so well with them. I don’t have any sort of color coding system, though– the ink colors are used totally randomly. Often I’m just using a black gel ink pen, but I do love when I end up with a colorful mix of inks on a page. Sometimes I doodle in the margins a bit, making things a little messier.

I will also note that the handwriting you see here is my typical handwriting for entries in this planner. There’s something about the Nolty layout that makes me want to use my tidy, tiny block capital writing style. I sometimes use it in other notebooks too, mostly when making lists, but when I’m just scribbling notes or writing journal entries, I fall into a much messier semi-cursive scrawl.

That’s basically it– how I use my Nolty planner is pretty straightforward. You may ask, do I really NEED this particular planner format to track what I’m eating and whether I’ve taken a vitamin? No, of course not. There have been times in my life when I’ve used plain notebooks, or just not logged my life in this way at all. It didn’t kill me. But I find it more pleasurable to use this particular planner, and tracking habits with a tool I enjoy actually helps me have good habits! These Nolty planners work really well for my needs, and the quality of their paper and construction makes them a pleasure to use. I’ve definitely gotten into a solid routine with these diaries– it’s hard to imagine using anything else!