chronoNotebook.com

The idea for chronoNotebook.com came about after I read about the Chronotebook designed by Wong Kok Kiong of Orcadesign in Singapore on Jack Cheng's Passion Projects blog. The Chronotebook is a brilliantly innovative new approach to the ubiquitous day timer. It won the judges' prize at the Muji Award International Design Competition, and is available from Muji stores.

I've always found conventional day timer interfaces frustrating. The concept holds so much promise - get your chaotic life in order with a simple little note book - but, in practice, it never worked for me.

When I first saw the Chronotebook I was blown away by its simplicity. It seemed like it actually might work for people like me who have a hard time with a conventional day timer.

The genius of the Chronotebook is the way it solves several very basic problems with the layout of a traditional day timer. First, day planners tend to have narrow little lines to contain your notes and appointments. This is great if you have really tiny, very neat writing. But for the rest of us, it just ends up being a mess. Notes inevitably get scrawled all over the page and become indecipherable.

Day timers also limit your choice of writing implement. With their narrow pre-ruled lines, they favor fine nibbed pens and pencils and tiny little letters. And, if you're like me and have a hoard of different pens and pencils lying around, you're basically out of luck.

Another problem with a traditional day planner is the strict regimen it imposes on your day. With pre-ruled lines in 15 minute, 30 minute, or hourly intervals, each day is broken out into equal amounts of time. But nobody's day works out to be that regimented. You will always have situations where, for example, a 10 am meeting requires a lot of note-taking space with no further memos until mid-afternoon.

The Chronotebook takes a radial approach to time management. Rather than have lots of equally spaced little lines marching down the page, a clock-like dial is placed in the center of the page. This allows you to write anywhere on the page and link it back to the time on the central clock face. You can even spill over onto different pages when one page isn't enough.

After I read about the Chronotebook on Jack Cheng's blog, I immediately went to the Muji web site to see if I could buy one. Unfortunately, Muji don't sell products online (Hello guys, wake up, it's the 21st century!). And, comments on various blogs made it seem like getting a Chronotebook would be a major pain - other than visiting the store in NY one suggestion seemed to be to make special arrangements with UPS to go into the store and pick up a Chronotebook for you. It all sounded like an enormous pain in the rear.

A couple of days after reading Jack's blog, I walked into my local independent art and office supply store to see if they had anything that might approximate the Chronotebook interface. After talking with the owner, and explaining the idea behind the Chronotebook, she turned me on to Creative Label Concepts, a company that sells all sorts of sticky labels through their web site. Best of all, they sell labels by the sheet, so you don't have to buy more than you need. The 2 1/4" round white sticky labels provide a perfect size for a clock-face and they can be fed into a laser or inkjet printer.

After experimenting with the label template provided by Creative Label Concepts, I came up with my own version that provides a similar interface to Wong Kok Kiong's Chronotebook. I've been using these stickers and templates for a few weeks now and they've completely changed the way I track time on a daily basis. I love them.

The Chronotebook interface is ideal for creative experimentation. I've added a couple of alternative templates for download here, but anybody with access to Photoshop, Illustrator, or another drawing program - I use Intaglio on my Mac - can easily create their own custom label template.

The best thing about custom templates is that you can use them in any kind of notebook. So far, I've experimented with a hardback sketch book, a Moleskin notebook, and several Rhodia notebooks - my current favorite. You can also use any pen, pencil, brush, or spray can you currently favor.