Intelligence technology (or simply put~ computer and softwares) are good tools to replace human labor, to organize knowledge, and to make visual presentations. Therefore, you will find them mimicking human experiences but only reflect some aspects of them. For example, Microsoft Word is a tool that mimics human writing. But it does not reflect the characteristics of handwriting, not to mention the thoughts and feelings accompanied with them.
Different softwares have their main goals of functionality and their trade-offs of the goals. Microsoft Word creates an standardized writing environment and therefore sacrificed detailed individual characteristics, like what OneNote or Painter can achieve. It emphasize 'what you see is what you get' and therefore has its limitation of exact formatting, like Latex can do.
When it comes to personal planner, its the same situation of choosing the goal that the softwares are trying to achieve. And this very decision is not just about how one wants his or her document looks, but reflects a more important issue~ what is important in our lives? what are the things we want to keep tract of?
You may find it interesting that most of the personal planners are in the form of calenders~ daily, weekly, monthly or at best yearly calenders. However, what can be planned and recorded in the calenders are only events without substance. You probably can add some comments or journals to an event, but they are not rich enough nor continuous as what appears in our memory. Another form of personal planners is even worse~ to-do list. It makes one's life like chased by a list of things and nothing more than a list of unfinished business. There's no goal, passion or enjoyment. A third form of personal planner is in the form of project management. It does a good job showing the link between several tasks but has too much details on allocation of resources.
The personal planner you choose to run your life and run it well would probably shows how your life is like. Is your life like full of events that you don't want to miss? Is it like a list of trivial things you need to do one by one? Is it like big projects coming one by one? Is it more about financial management, anniversaries, trip itineraries, keeping roaster, finding a common time with someone, or making end-of-life decisions? There are all sorts of personal planners available for different needs.
Here is a list.
My ideal personal planner would be one that is more graphic in presentation and has a versatile scale of time that I can glance 10 years in a view or dive into details of a special day. I can sort them according to the richness of contents or my own rating scales. They are tagged in different ways as well as hierarchically organized. I can easily find an event using keywords and related photos, musics and movies. Ideally, the whole computer files and activities are linked with it. Most of all, it should allow me to set multiple goals, derive milestones from the goals and track them every month, every week and even every day. It would be best if it could also provide some tips on time management, goal setting at different life stages and balancing priorities in life. It has to be easy to navigate the past as an reference of planning the future. I'll call the software "Life coach". It should also be online, multiple user and free!
Time management tipsKeywords: personal management, life planner, time management, software
