CULT OF ORGANIZATION; PLANNERS VITAL FOR MANAGING BUSY LIVES, SOME SAY.

Byline: Amy Gage Knight Ridder Newspapers

Six months after losing her Franklin daily planner, Kay Baker still sounds frantic when she describes it. Her voice rises as the story picks up pace.

Along with the leather-bound book itself, she lost phone numbers, business cards, notes from meetings and appointments, even free movie passes she had stuffed inside the inner pockets. She dutifully had recorded account numbers from her checking account, savings account and credit cards in the planner, just as she'd been taught in the daylong time-management course that Franklin Covey Co. encourages its customers to take.

``It was terrible,'' says Baker, a community organizer for HealthEast in St. Paul, Minn. ``The whole purpose is to have everything you own and everything you do in this book. My whole life was in there.''

Only another devotee of planners, someone who has been ``Franklinized,'' she says, could understand her agony.

Fifteen years ago, a desk calendar and a competent secretary were enough to carry most professionals through their day. Now a leather-bound planner, preferably large and conspicuous, with special spaces to log appointments and a list of daily tasks, is considered essential for success.

Busy people say they couldn't live without one. ``How do you prioritize your life without a planner?'' says Connie Carrino, a free-lance marketing consultant in Minneapolis.

Like a cell phone, a planner is a tool - but one that adds an extra spark of status.

``I see them everywhere I go, in elevators, conference rooms,'' says HealthPartners spokeswoman Sara McFee, who has named the Franklin planner she's carried for a decade. ``Every working day, Frank is with me.''

Franklin Covey, the company that resulted from the merger of retail marketer Franklin Quest and ``Seven Habits'' guru Stephen Covey's empire, claims to have 15 million users of its planners worldwide. Numerous competitors dot the market, including Day-Timers, At-a-Glance and Day Runner.

Popular as they are, however, planners have their detractors. People who want a simpler, less scheduled life say the big books induce guilt, inhibit spontaneity and require more time than they save. And an unmaintained planner is a handsome paper weight. Moreover, techno-heads have abandoned the heavy tomes for hand-sized computerized versions.

Even McFee confesses she has a love-hate relationship with Frank, the 5-pound pet who rarely leaves her side. ``You have to discipline yourself to keep up the to-do list,'' she says. ``At the end of every day or early the next day, you list the projects, calls, things you need to do.

``The love side is, this is very beneficial. It's the best way to keep organized. The hate side is, `I don't want to take time to do this right now.' ''

There are planners and then there are planners, of course, just as there are Chevrolets and Cadillacs.

The Covey system, by far the most complicated and deluxe, is billed as a way to manage life, not log appointments. Covey users are urged to think about daily activities in the context of their various roles: partner, parent, friend, employee, individual, community volunteer.

Stephanie Frost, a product manager at HealthPartners, reviews her Covey planner every week to see whether she has touched on all her roles. She nixed some volunteer work several years ago after noticing how seldom she scheduled play dates with her kids.

Frost and her husband bought season tickets to the Guthrie Theater when she saw the ``wife'' role slipping behind her other responsibilities.

``Do I use my calendar religiously? No,'' Frost says. ``But it is useful when I realize after four weeks that I haven't written down anything with my husband.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) Franklin Covey dominates the market with its Franklin planner, which has features such as daily tasks lists, advance calendars, reference sections and sections which owners can use to develop and fulfill personal goals.