Reflection Pages and Tips
Or, Using the Fractal Planner's Reflect Month and Reflect Week pages and some tips
Reflect Month
At the end of each monthly section is a Reflect Month page. It stands opposite the Plan Month page in location and purpose and has two guiding questions:
Where am I with my Priority Targets right now?
What/how did I Accomplish Breakthrough Celebrate?
The first question calls to mind your Priority Targets' Fractals. Hopefully, you've referred to those fractals and continued to develop them throughout each month. But if you haven't, then this first question will take you back to review your fractals.
The second question asks you to look at the month in terms of accomplishments and breakthroughs. I hope you celebrated them in some way.
Reflect Week
Each week finishes with a review. Two questions help with that:
Where am I with my Priority Targets right now?
How did I do against my Anti-Fragile Targets?
I find it all too easy to lose track of what's important during the week. That's why the first question is so important. It keeps me attuned to my Priority Targets and each target's Fractal, which is, basically, a plan of action for hitting each target.
The second question helps me identify any potential weaknesses that are developing, so I can best them.
So, at this point, we've covered every feature in the Fractal Planner. Now it's time for some tips.
Tips & Tricks
Tabs: I've used Post-It tabs to mark important pages and also the start of new month pages. My favorite tabs were ordered from Etsy.
Contents: Hot topics, important projects, and anything I'm currently referencing a lot gets listed at the front of the planner on the Contents page. Listing the page number and a single topic make for finding things quickly. It definitely saves time.
Index: While moving through a three-month period of time, you're bound to make lots of notes or work through different ideas—all on different pages. Use the Index to string an easy-to-follow thread through related topics, projects, and idea. Then, later, when you're ready to follow-through on them, it won't be like searching for a needle in a haystack. It's one of my favorite time-saving features. The index is designed as a topic-first list followed by a string of page numbers.
Utility Pages: Besides the Utility pages in each monthly section, there are seven more at the back of the planner, just in front of the Index. Sometimes you need some extra note pages. That's where you'll find them.
DIY Book Ribbons: This one I haven't tried yet, but it's on my list. I plan to use two or three thin ribbons as place markers. It will be easy to string them through the spine.
DIY Pockets: I "upcycled" two envelopes as pockets—a small one in front and a larger one in back.
Project Boards: Because the Fractal Planner is a hard cover, I can use the inside front and back covers as project boards. It's helpful that the page inside each cover is heavy paper. All I do next is set up some Post-It tabs and viola!—two project boards.
Internal Page References: I think it'd be convenient to know the previous and next page numbers of the page type that I'm already on. For example, if I'm looking at the Sorting Sheet on page 30, I'd like to know that pages 24 and 36 are the previous and next Sorting Sheets, respectively. Currently, I make those notes as I go. But I also make internal page references to related topics. It's a bit of a duplication of what I do with the Index, but it's more convenient when I'm actively working in the pages of the planner. The Index and Contents pages come in handy the deeper I get into the quarter, and especially when the planner has been archived to a shelf.
The more I use the Fractal Planner, the more tips and tricks I find. If you discover some before I do, please send them my way. I'll credit the idea to you.
R. Maurice Ledesma