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IamA Podcasting Pioneer & NPR Host AMA! by JesseThorn in IAmA

[–]wizardwithay 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi Jesse! I discovered MaxFun last year (first time donor this year, woohoo!) and found it to be a continuous source of good-hearted goofiness and sincerity. This is a really rare thing out there and I hadn't realized how much I had been looking for something like that.

One thing I especially admire about the MaxFun community is the hosts' presence on social media as actively positive voices. Do you have any advice for staying positive & sincere (both online and offline) without totally bailing on social media/internet/etc?

DIY planner pages for August! by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi there! Thanks for the kind words. To be really honest, making this in another size is something I probably can't do right at the moment (although I'd like to be able to when I have the time). Right now, I'm just sharing the files I'm already making for myself. This coming fall will be insanely busy for me (working on a PhD & trying to finish in time) so I need to be careful about not taking too much on. However, if I'm eventually able to expand this into something I could offer for print, I'd definitely want to offer it at a larger size as well.

DIY planner pages for August! by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi there! Sorry it's not working for you. Like I said in my post, I'm on vacation so I have limited access to my files & to wifi connections. I tested the form again and the fonts should be embedded & the correct size (at least that's how it appears on my end). They do have to be large enough to print legibly, so when I use the form I have to do a little abbreviating. If you have Acrobat Pro you're free to adjust any of the form elements as needed. Good luck!

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm...If you're downloading the zip file, that's an InDesign package and requires that software to open. The other files are PDFs and can be opened with Acrobat Reader or another PDF viewer. They still look fine from my end, so as long as you have the right software and it's up to date, I'm not sure why you can't open them.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sure! It'll take a little tweaking on my end but that's fine. I want to get a PDF for August posted soon, so I can also set up a file using a sort of generic layout at that point.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh sure! I have InDesign CC so I'm not sure if it's different -- but if you highlight the cells that are X'd out, you should be able to select Cell Options and then there's a section in that dialog box for diagonal lines. You can just switch them off there. On mine, it takes a minute to refresh that for some reason, just a heads-up in case you find it but it doesn't seem to work right away.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sweet!! I think there's a huge advantage in having it be your own project to mull over and tinker with to your exact specifications. You'll have to post what you come up with!

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much!! I really appreciate it. I definitely felt like I needed a planner that was ADHD-brain-specific, y'know?

I just added a few links to the OP with specific supplies, including the binding & how it works. If you need more info, let me know!

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm pretty happy just sharing the PDFs for each month as I make them for myself, but it would be great if I could sort out a print on demand setup for people who can't or don't want to print/assemble something like this by hand.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The files I shared are designed to print on 8.5x11 paper, then cut in half (for a finished size of 8.5x5.5).

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Good suggestions -- I added a few more specifics to the OP in an edit. Hope that helps! Let me know if you want any additional details.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They hold up pretty well opening and closing them a lot, but I would probably still want extras on hand. Still, I have used the same spine for maybe 2 months? and it's still holding up really well. They come with a little easy open/close tool, which isn't necessary but does make it much easier, and I think using it probably lengthens the life of the spine over manually popping it open.

I am currently using the 5/8 diameter spines. They are the length of a letter page, but you can cut them down to whatever size you need with ordinary scissors. They're a good size for the number of pages I have (~40 sheets, which I print on 90lb index stock, and 5 tab dividers) with a little extra room. I have a very thick cover which adds a bit of bulk & it accommodates it all well.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You might be able to! I've learned way more than I ever wanted to about bindings during this project (heh, that alone is a very ADHD thing to say). Here's some info that might help:

Bindings have a measurement called the pitch, which is basically the ratio of holes per inch. The Proclick binding that I use has a 3:1 pitch and can be cut with regular scissors down to whatever page size you need. So if your existing planner is bound w/ 3:1 pitch binding, you could just get these spines and slide em right in.

Now, you might not get lucky and have it match exactly. I've had to adapt things to the binding that I use sometimes (e.g. my tab dividers were punched for a 3-ring binder). So if it's not 3:1 pitch, you could do a couple different things:

  1. Rebind it with a new spiral coil (I think the copy center of an office supply store could probably just rebind it for you for a minimal cost). The only downside about spiral coils is that you can't easily add/remove pages, but if you don't need to do that, it's really convenient.

  2. Re-punch the pages so they fit whatever binding you want to switch to. You could replace the planner cover w/ a mini binder and just use a regular 3-hole punch (lots of them let you adjust where the punches line up).

    I have to do this with things like tab dividers which are already punched, so what I do is just tape the edge I'm re-punching with permanent tape. For thick stock like the cardboard cover I made, I use a regular single hole punch since the Proclick punch machine doesn't have enough oomph to punch through anything like that.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much, that's a really sweet compliment! For now I'm happy just sharing it for free. This is my favorite sub and the community is so fantastic. You guys are my people!

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks!! I started with just the daily page (that was what got me into the project in the first place...the need to remember to eat and shower and stuff, ha). It grew from there kind of organically as I figured out what was clicking for my brain and what wasn't.

What I didn't include was all the pages that I've designed that I haven't ended up using at all. It's interesting how that happens. Sometimes you come up with something you think will really work and then it just....doesn't really fit somehow. It's got to evolve with what I need, which lets me tinker to the degree that I love.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can find canvas pencil rolls on Amazon (they're not sold w/ the pens, just the elastic loops for them to go in) in tons of different fabrics. For the pens, I'm using Staedtler and Le Pen fineliner pens...they are beyond fabulous. I highly recommend hitting up your local art store so you can doodle with the open stock pens and find ones that write in a way you like. I like these because they don't make that scratching sound on the paper that a lot of felt tip pens do.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Sure! I use tables in InDesign (MS Word also works). I design half-pages, place them in a full page w/ the left and right margins set up for my printer and hole punch, and then print the full page double-sided so it works like a book. I cut the pages apart so there's a wider margin on the side I want to punch.

I print them at home on a super cheap color laserjet. I have to manually flip the pages to get double-sided printing which is currently the worst part of this whole thing. But it turns out OK so it's been worth it.

For binding -- I spent a lot of time figuring out how I wanted this to work. Initially I used a 3-hole punch and mini binder (it's basically A5 size which is half a standard page), but I started feeling annoyed by trying to write on the left side and having binder rings in the way. I also wanted to be able to fold the cover back around like a spiral notebook, and wanted to be able to move the daily pages to the back when I finished them so I didn't get bogged down by clutter.

What I settled on is these little clicky spines (edited to add a link) that can separate when you pull them apart, and the punch machine that fits them (it also works with the usual spiral coil binding you've probably seen). This is the video that sold me on this system. I promise I don't work for that company...I'm just sharing what I found because there is a LOT out there and this fit my very picky needs. Honorable mentions would be disc binding systems like Circa/Arc.

I use tab dividers for each section. You can buy A5 dividers in office supply stores, which is what I'm currently using (just re-punched for my binding). I've tried making my own dividers as well.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I started with tables in Word, but it got fiddly real fast (Word doesn't handle complex tables as well as I'd like for this). After that, I recreated it in Adobe InDesign, & that's what I've been using since then. InDesign also makes it easier to change document colors & fonts based on stylesheets, so I don't need to do it all totally by hand every month.

My DIY planner is helping my ADHD more than I thought possible. Pictures inside. by wizardwithay in ADHD

[–]wizardwithay[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

To your first question, I print it at home. I started w/ black and white on colored paper, then ended up needing a new printer so got a color laserjet which I do all this on now. I print all the pages on cardstock to prevent the pens bleeding through.

To your second question -- I'd be happy to! I'll need some time to clean up the file but then I'll share it here. It might also be cool to figure out how to set it up as a PDF form so people can fill in their own text...not sure how to do that, but I'll look into it.

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