octobook cover

Octobook

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The new version of the Octobook is slimmer, lighter, and incredibly versatile. The usability and portability improved substantially without any tradeoffs in readability.

The upgraded Octobook contributed to an improvement in my focus, productivity, and planning. The smaller size also made using the Octobook less burdensome.
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Lastly, the new layout made overall organization stress-free, particularly during the days I wasn’t really feeling like writing anything down, like Saturday or Sunday.
HCD
Layout Design
Research
TYPE
DATE
Case Study
Dec 2021 - Feb 2022
TOOLS
Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer, Notion, pen&paper
octobook2 inner cover

+ FREEDOM
+ FOCUS

- STRESS

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Updated layout

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Thinner & lighter

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Extra space

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Creativity boost

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Layout

Before

layout structure old

Now

layout structure new
The updated layout reduced the rigid structure of the original Octobook and provided the ability to plan more fluidly. Instead of having clusters of weekly planners followed by 7 daily pages, all the weekly pages were grouped together, followed by the daily ones.

This enabled greater flexibility and minimized the stress on having to fill every page of the week - the user could now skip days without having to literally waste pages!

I kept the colorful tags used in the first Octobook as bookmarks to easily find the latest week and day.

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Size

The size of the Octobook decreased from an Executive to an A5 format, and its planning horizon was reduced from 6 to 3 months. This made the second edition much easier to carry and use in everyday life.

Weekly tasks/schedule

The weekly tasks/schedule pages were merged; the user could now decide to include hours in the weekly tasks and turn it into a schedule (which was my preferred way) or simply divide the week into sections by projects.

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Space

Extra space was added for brain dumps and other odds and ends. Dots replaced lines to add freedom for all creative folks to sketch ideas. Unnecessary stuff was removed: no more numbered lists, and weekend days were reduced to half size.

Weekly planner

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Daily planner

Creativity

Fun weekly exercises were added to the weekly planner to inspire creativity.

In the daily planner two questions were included: "How am I feeling today?" and "What am I excited for?" These little prompts changed the way I started my work and almost guaranteed I had a great mood throughout the day.

Outcomes

Before ordering the new Octobook I was concerned about its smaller size and how that might impact my planning. I was pleasantly surprised to find no difference in my ability to write everything I needed to - that was a fantastic win!

The improved usability was incredible - I was able to dump all my thoughts before organizing them in a neat manner by weekly and daily tasks - another big win!

My week became incredibly organized and productive: I transformed into a truly effective essentialist. While this new method produced the most amazing results, sometimes it was hard not to fill my weekly tasks up to the brim. I needed to remind myself constantly that I could do ANYTHING, but not EVERYTHING. At least the smaller size meant that I couldn’t possibly write too much in each of my weekly tasks - a fairly good win, but one that could certainly be improved.

This means i need to improve prioritization and accept tradeoffs. Possibly the next Octobook update :)

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