drewish / planner

Script to generate my version of Cal Newport's time-block planner pages.

Generate Time-Block Planner Pages

I'm a big fan of Cal Newport's Time-Block Planner but I didn't like having unused weekend pages and got tired of writing in the dates so I wrote this script to generate my own version of it. It generates a PDF with a week's worth of 8.5 x 11 inch pages.

I'm also a fan of Manager Tools' 1-on-1s, so I incorporated a version of their meeting form. You specify which people you meet every week, and you'll get a page for each.

Take a look at a sample and see what you think. If it's not to your liking, feel free to customize it, or try out some of the other variations people have put together:

• jlorenzetti's fork generates A4 pages in Helvetica, and omits the 1-on-1 forms.
  • pzula's fork is based off of jlorenzetti's but scales it down to A5.
• Hyunggilwoo's fork uses UbuntuMono and omits 1-on-1 forms. It looks like a good choice for Ubuntu users.
• dianalow's fork is scaled to fit in the TRAVELER’S notebook, and as usual omits, the 1:1 forms.

Installation

Assuming you've got Ruby and Bundler installed you can just run:

git clone [email protected]:drewish/planner.git
cd planner
bundle install

Usage

Planner Pages

You can generate planner pages for the current week:

./planner.rb

Or, you can generate a different week's pages by passing in the date:

./planner.rb 2022-05-27

If you'd like to generate multiple weeks at once:

./planner.rb --weeks 4

On a Mac you can send the PDF directly to your printer:

lpr time_block_pages.pdf

One-on-one Pages

The script that generates the 1-on-1 forms supports the same options:

./one-on-one.rb -weeks 2 2022-05-27

Notes Pages

You can also generate a PDF of some simple lined pages:

./notes.rb

Limitations

Probably only works on a Mac since it hardcodes the font path.

Thanks

• @Sumidu for contributing the internationalization code

planner's Issues

Add fixed appointments

Dear drewish,

I love your templates and have forked a forked of your fork and even added some internationalization. Now I've realized yours has many more options. So I will go back to yours.

I really know only ChatGPTs/Copilots ruby support and am struggling to add fixed appointments in the time boxes.

Is it possible to add something like the TASKS_BY_WDAY but for appointments?

So for example:

# Repeating Appointments by day of week, 0 is Sunday. Nested index is the hour.
APPOINTMENTS_BY_WDAY = [
  { nil },
  { 8 => 'Workout', 17 => 'Pick-Up Kids'},
  { 9 => 'Two hour workshop', 10 => 'Two hour workshop'},
  { 8 => 'Workout', 17 => 'Pick-Up Kids'},
  { 8 => 'Workout', 15 => 'Pick-Up Kids'},
  { 8 => 'Workout', 15 => 'Pick-Up Kids'},
  { 20 => 'Plan next week' },
]

I have no idea how to approach filling this in. So if you point me in the right direction, I am happy to take it from there.

Does this support the new format?

Awesome, does this support the new format? https://www.amazon.com/Time-Block-Planner-Second-Method-Distracted/dp/0593545397/

Generate a pdf for an entire year

How could one generate a pdf with this template for an entire year?

A note to say thank you, not an issue :)

Hey Drew!

Love your page generator! I created another fork for my A5 planner here: https://github.com/pzula/planner

Thank you for this brilliant script! This will make my timeblocked a LOT easier! I already use a small scale planner and hate to change to a different format. You really enabled me to get moving on timeblocking in the format I needed quickly. Thank you for sharing your work on Github!