The process of deciding to move from an urban/suburban area to an off-the-grid homestead involved asking and answering many questions. Among them what to take along (as little as possible) and what to leave behind (as much as we can bear). Most of these questions we posed as a family, but some personal questions had to be answered by the individual.

One of the biggest questions for me was whether or not to continue using a Franklin Planner.

The Franklin Planner, as I prefer to call it, is a life organization system now known as Franklin Covey. The Franklin Planner is a portable (more or less so depending on the size you choose) binder full of tools for organizing your life. The system is designed with the idea that each day of your life you will carry this planner with you, reading from and writing in it any task needing to be done.

I first started using the Franklin Planner in 1996, and quickly saw its value. Friends attempting to tease me call it my brain, but I tell them it's not my brain, but my memory. Tasks need not be remembered, as long as they're entered in the planner. I found it to be an extremely effective tool in a variety of jobs requiring fast access to information, exact scheduling, and careful planning.

Therefore, when embarking on a paradigm shift that would end, even reject the lifestyle that required the advantages the Franklin Planner provided, the question of whether or not the planner—like the lifestyle—had outlived its usefulness was a hard one to answer.

After all, we were choosing a life in which wearing a watch is mostly useful for keeping track of the tides rather than making it to an important meeting. Scheduling, appointed tasks, to-do lists—all of that seemed unlikely features of this new life, at least in our idealized vision of it. Perhaps clinging to that trusted black binder would expose me as less than committed to true change. What if it held me back from eliminating most of the stress in my life? What if I couldn't function without it?

I confess, I chose the coward's route: I decided to keep the planner for the time being. After all, one purchases the pages in one-year blocks, so unless we moved to the homestead after January first of the following year, I would be throwing away part of a purchased year. That rationalization was enough to earn the planner a place in the car on the day we left for our new life.

I immediately learned that what seemed a cowardly choice was, in fact, the correct choice. I had forgotten that the whole point of the Franklin Planner was to relieve stress. It's basic function, as indicated above but forgotten at the time, is to hold all those things that need to be remembered so your mind won't have to.

Far from being less necessary on the homestead, it actually became more necessary. In the everyday, workaday world, I tended to keep track of the days automatically. I didn't need to consult my planner to tell me what day it was, I just needed it to remind me what I intended to do on that day. Cut free from the workplace, I soon lost track of the day and date. We quickly adapted to living in the moment, and time became elastic. One day might rush by before we knew it, the minutes of the next might stretch endlessly. It was wonderful, but we were in danger of missing events that we inevitably wanted or needed to attend.

This is where the Franklin Planner continued to be valuable to me. I quickly found that listing, prioritizing, evaluating and checking off daily tasks kept me moving forward in the proper and necessary directions. It also helped us get to neighborhood potlucks, plays, concerts, rallies and civic meetings in town, as well as prepare cards and letters for family milestones. Maintaining my planner habit allowed us to cut free and drift in the time flow we found so refreshing after years of "wage slave" living, without worrying about missing an upcoming event.

In addition, the planner continued to be the place to jot down notes. Our near neighbors are interesting, educated people. Rarely does a visit not include at least one recommendation of a good book to read, or movie to watch. Our learning curve after two years continues to be steep, so note-taking on canning, or wind generator repair, or a myriad other tricks and techniques for living off-the-grid is very valuable. Enough so that, somewhat to my surprise, no one has ever laughed at me for carrying a planner through this new life.

Flipping through the archived planner pages, I see that in general, the pages are less densely written than before, but really, not by much. There are days when there are few entries, even days when there are none at all. Most days, however, have at least three items in the to-do list, and the daily notes side is often filled completely, sometimes with extra pages added to take that day's notes. I've been wary of "list stuffing," writing down to-do items just to have done so. I don't find any entries such as "eat breakfast." Only those tasks that are important enough to write down and check off appear, which is as it should be.

It's the quality of the notes that has changed. Looking back through the notes pages as we moved from one life to the next, the items changed from work matters, pay and leave bank calculations and the like, to hopes, dreams, aspirations and plans. More often a note will be the name of a song heard on the radio that I particularly liked, a quote that caught my attention, or a quick description of observed wildlife. These things seem far more important to my life than what came before. To me, this indicates that I'm on the right track.

For some, this system will not work. We all have to make our own way in the world in whatever way works best for us. For me, the Franklin Planner has, and continues to keep my life on track and uncluttered, as it should be.