Monthly Planner

An undated month

Six rows of seven boxes under a weekday header, a month field at the top and a notes area at the foot that you can turn off if you want the grid to fill the page.

The dates are not printed. You write them in, which is the point — the sheet works for any month of any year, including the one you need right now, and there is no waiting for next January.

Why six rows

Because some months need them. A 31-day month starting on a Saturday spills into a sixth week, and a grid with only five rows cannot hold it.

Most months use five and leave the last row spare. Use it for the following month's first days, or for anything that belongs to the month without belonging to a date.

Filling it in

Find which weekday the first falls on, write a 1 in that box, and carry on across and down. Thirty seconds, and it is the step that makes the sheet yours.

Monday start is the international standard and the usual choice in Britain and Europe. Sunday start is the American and Japanese convention. Pick whichever matches the calendars around you, because a planner that disagrees with the wall calendar causes exactly the sort of error it exists to prevent.

What a month view is good at

Commitments and shape, not tasks. Appointments, deadlines, birthdays, holidays, bills, the rhythm of a term.

The boxes are small — about 26 mm across and 32 mm tall on A4 — and that constraint is doing useful work. A month box holds a few words, which is about right for "dentist 3pm" and quite wrong for a to-do list, and the to-do list belongs on the weekly or daily sheet anyway.

Uses beyond the obvious

Habit tracking, one mark per day, where the point is seeing the run of marks unbroken. Mood and symptom logs, using a colour code with the key in the notes footer. Content and posting calendars. Teachers mapping a term's topics. Chore rotas. Reading logs, where a page count in each box turns into a visible line by the end of the month.

The notes footer is where the key or the running total goes. Turn it off when you want the maximum box size and nothing else.

Print twelve and you have made yourself a year.