Planner profile: Take a Note Medium Weeks

Name: Medium Weeks

Maker: Take a Note

Size: B6

Format: week on 2 pages

Paper: Tomoe River 68 gsm

Style: grid

Price: $40

Planner Nerd tested: 2024

Details:

This new B6 planner from Take a Note is different from Take a Note’s original week on 4 pages design. It’s a minimal vertical weekly planner that subtly divides each day into three sections on the top half of the page, with blank grid paper on the bottom half. The weekly layouts also have space on the left margin for extra notes. There are a substantial number of blank grid pages in the back.

The planner has a relatively slim profile than Take a Note’s A5 and A6 planners, making it pretty compact and easy to carry around. It features the same cardstock cover as the others, in a bronze color.

Review:

I’m experimenting with this planner for team management in 2024, not to be confused with project management. While I need to be able to track the time periods and deadlines for project planning, personnel management for me is more focused on the people.

I happen to work on a team that operates in weekly cycles (we meet weekly and discuss priorities and deadlines on a weekly basis). The vertical layout that visualizes one entire week on a page conveniently matches that pace. At the same time I do not micromanage the team by the hour, so this half page layout works much better than schedule-focused 24-hour weekly layouts such as in Hobonichi or Traveler’s Notebook.

The blank space at the bottom half of each weekly spread is open space where I can take notes at the start of each week for planning, and add in as things progress. The blank pages at the back provide space to take longer term notes for things that last more than a week, or things I have to remember when I’m looking back for post mortems, quarterly reviews, etc. but the planner doesn’t start until January 1, so I won’t get to put it to the test until then. In 2023, I tried to do this type of planning in a PAL planner but while I love the innovative layouts in that book, they were just a bit too cute and not functional for this purpose.