Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to figure out a calendar solution for the upcoming year.

This year I'm going to try using Moleskine pocket cahiers. I've set each up with two days a page, which gives a total of 4 pages per week. This was really simple to do. I just wrote M 1/1 at the top of the first page, T 1/2 midway down the page, W 1/3 on the top of the next page, and so on. (I left extra space on Sunday for any review notes, which ensures the same pattern of days for every week).

With this system, a single cahier can hold 3 months of calendar, with a few blank tear-out pages in the back for random lists and notes. Three months seems just enough to plan ahead yet not so much as to be clunky or burdensome. The cahier's small enough to allow a paper clip to hold back old pages and mark the current date. And of course, it's easy to stuff the thing with index card lists.

At $7 for a pack of 3 cahiers, the total cost for a year is slightly less than $10. And the cahiers (I got the ones with black covers) can fit into a professional context in a way that cheaper pocket notepads cannot.

What I think I'll love about this system:

1) Not too fancy. No qualms about marking it up or making it messy.
2) Very slim and lightweight. Easily fits into a back pocket.
3) Works great with a hipster PDA. Can be clipped to a hipster or can serve as a hipster holder itself.
4) All of the advantages of a traditional bound calendar (i.e., automatic archiving) without the disadvantages (bulky, locked into format for an entire year, difficulty of access, a lot of dead weight towards the end of the year).
5) During transitional periods from one cahier to the next, it will be relatively easy to carry two calendars, since they're very slim. Then once the transitional period is over, I can throw that old calendar into storage! No more calendar dead weight!

Cons:
1) Takes 15-20 minutes to set up each three months (approximately an hour for the year). So depending on how valuable your time is, the cost of this option could be astronomical.
2) Calendar may be fairly beat up by the end of three months.