Every year around Christmas, one of my father’s sisters sends me a German wall calendar; it’s a great way to keep up my language skills while also staying organized. This year’s calendar is called Was Grossmutter noch wusste, or “What Grandmother still knew,” and it’s packed with old tips, recipes, and sayings.

I couldn’t resist reading ahead on the tips. Many of them make use of common household objects (using vinegar to clean mirrors, say). A number of them involve potatoes — something every good Hausfrau has on hand — so, for instance, you’re instructed to soak old, matted sweaters in a mush of grated potatoes and cold water. I haven’t tried that one yet, but I may give it a whirl before winter’s over.

Do you have any favorite old household tips or tricks?

I first encountered Livescribe — the nifty digital pen-recorder that, via a special sort of paper, enables you to take notes and record things at the same time, then replay certain snippets by tapping on specific words — a few years ago. (If you used it during class and tapped your “test Friday” note, for example, you’d skip straight to the part where your professor announced there’d be a test on Friday covering such-and-such topics.)

A friend who’s a grad student and gadget geek had an early version; as a freelance writer, I was intrigued. There are few things more tedious than transcription, and you don’t always need to transcribe every part of an interview — just the parts that are relevant to your subject. However, I conduct a lot of my interviews on the phone, and the idea of having to do them on speakerphone just so I could use Livescribe didn’t seem terrifically practical. And though I don’t recall LiveScribe paper being of poor quality, the pen-and-paper experience is important to me, and I like being able to choose which tools I use for a particular project.

But there are plenty of others, I’m sure, who’ve come to use and love Livescribe. One of our survey respondents even suggested we release a planner format that’s compatible with Livescribe and Anoto (a similar technology I’ve not seen in person).

With the caveat that I have no idea how easy or difficult this would be, I’m curious to know if you agree. Do you use Livescribe? Would you like a Quo Vadis planner or notebook that’s compatible with it?

Oh, and speaking of our planner survey… if you haven’t already taken it, we’d love to get your opinion! It’ll be online here through the end of the month.

A few years ago, I discovered that my old Sapa X covers fit perfectly onto the smallest size of staplebound Clairefontaine notebooks. It was a particularly handy thing to know when I switched to the Space 17, and it got me wondering about other planner/notebook cover combinations.

Of course, it then took me a while to track down the covers and notebooks I needed to experiment with, and even longer to get off my duff and write up the results. Nonetheless! Here are the combinations that work:

• Sapa X + small (3.5 x 5.5) staplebound Clairefontaine, pictured here
• Visual + medium (6.5 x 8.25) staplebound Clairefontaine, pictured above and below
• Visual + medium (6 x 8.25) clothbound Clairefontaine, which fits quite similarly to the previous combo, so I didn’t photograph it
• Prenote + large (8.25 x 11.75) clothbound Clairefontaine, pictured below
• Notor or Textagenda + Exacompta Forum journal, pictured below

And here are some more pictures, plus the combos that didn’t work…

Visual + staplebound Clairefontaine:

The Prenote + clothbound Clairefontaine:

The Notor/Texagenda + Exacompta forum journal:

Now for the combos that didn’t work. The Minister is a bit bigger than the Visual, and while it does hold a medium clothbound Clairefontaine, there’s a fair amount of extra space, so it’s not ideal. And I couldn’t find any notebooks that fit the covers of long, slim planners like the Space 17 and the IB Traveler.

Note that we don’t sell covers independently of their planners, but I know a lot of you experiment with different formats, and this is a great way to put those old covers to productive use.

I rarely make specific resolutions, but this year, I’m determined to repeat one of the things I did during the week between Christmas and New Year: go through my hanging files and sort out the things I don’t need.

Too often during the year, I see something I don’t have time to deal with but don’t want to lose track of completely, so I file it away for future reference. Unsurprisingly, a lot of those things then proceed to languish for years. It wasn’t even as difficult or time-consuming as I thought to sift through them once and for all.

What are your resolutions this year?

One great idea to come out of our survey: a specialized treatment planner for people with cancer and/or other long-term illnesses.

A nice planner (NOT PINK) with large easy to read dates, days of the week like a Septanote but with Notes at the bottom and at the back. Something that feels great in the hand, inspires and doesn’t remind one of Cancer (or heart disease, etc).

A list of Doctor’s names, phone numbers, emails and addresses, as well as blank notes. Even blank notes at the end of each month would be handy… Needs a pocket in the front to hold business cards of doctors and insurance card.

What do you think? If you had (or have) to deal with a long-term illness, would you want to use a dedicated planner for it?

I’ve asked this question before, but the new year has me wondering: did you change planner formats in 2012?

I’m still quite happy with the switch I made in 2011 to the Space 17, so I stuck with that for 2012. On the one hand, there’s the old saying — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. On the other hand, when it comes to planning, it seems there’s always room for improvement.

What did you decide?

Now that 2011′s over, it won’t be long before we Americans, at least, need to start preparing our taxes. Unsurprisingly, it often makes things easier to track expenses and deductibles during the year rather than calculating them all at once, and everyone has a different method. I use an Excel spreadsheet marked with different categories, then stuff the receipts in a file.

Some of our planners, like the Trinote, offer dedicated “Receipts and payments” pages, which I imagine you might also be able adapt to that purpose. Or perhaps it’s more useful for small business owners, who have to track both incoming and outgoing funds. Either way, I — and a few of our readers, no doubt — would be curious to hear what people do with these pages… Do you use them? Alter them? Ignore them? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to Laurie for the photo!

I just made the switch to my 2012 Space 17, and as I was fitting the book into its cover, I started thinking about those little tear-off corners at the bottom of each page — the ones that help you flip straight to your page when you open the planner. I don’t particularly care for them (they’re too prone to excess tearing, in my clumsy hands), and I haven’t used them ever since I got an elastic bookmark.

However, they’re still admirable in their simplicity, and I suspect they must have their fans. What do you think? Do you use them?

As the new year approaches, people’s minds turn to their planners, and we have the pleasure of receiving some of our most interesting new ideas. Many of our daily and weekly planner users appreciate having a monthly calendar at the beginning of the book (not all of our formats have this, but many do).

Well, one reader recently suggested something else:

A monthly calendar at the bottom of each week on the left side, so you can see where that week is in relation to the month…

Intriguing, eh? What do you think?

Some office supplies I need — pens, notebooks, file folders. Others I merely covet. Into this category fall any number of ingenious organizing devices, from the freestanding elastic band organizer I use to store unfiled receipts to the hanging folders I’ve pinned against the wall.

Of course, it can be difficult to judge whether something will really make a difference in my life, or whether I’m merely using its utility to justify the desire. Nonetheless, it’s always fun to dream, so I thought I’d ask: what’s on your office supply wish list?

I’ll go first… On the low end, I’ve long admired these snazzy magnetic desk dots. On the high end, I’m thinking about a wall-mounted magazine storage rack, but I haven’t found one that’s quite right.