Swim Workouts - taking to the pool

Laminate $1.00 a page, Fedex???

Crayola marker to "check off" as you go???

This - something like a kickboard

^^^ This.  Or you can stick it to the side wall of the pool above the water line.

I don't write them down anymore because I've decided to take a break from swimming kick sets, drills, back, breast, and fly. I am currently only swimming free-style during workouts and have made great improvements. I keep it simple so I dont have to write it down.

example

- 400 wu (almost always) or sometimes I practice a no-swim warm-up

- 10 x 100 w/ :20      

- 4 x 400 or 8 x 200   w/ :30 or 1600 TT

- 200 easy

For me, this has been the better style swim workout opposed to multi-strokes swim where I was doing IM sets, swimming with fins, paddles, one arm drills, close fist drills, etc.....too many components as you mentioned. Also, I wasn't making the improvements I hoped for, specifically, I wasn't able to maintain 100m freestyle repeats. The difference b/t set #1 and #3 would be 20+ seconds. Now I only see 1-4 seconds difference throughout my workouts.

^^This, basically - though I've had better luck dipping a kickboard in the water, then slapping the paper onto it.

To state the obvious - you can't use that kickboard in your workout. But most pools have more than enough kickboards to go around.

In my mind.  I have never taken anything to remind me of my workout.  But, I keep it very simple and do one of maybe 4 or 5 workouts: warmup, a main set of 100s, 200s, 500s, or a ladder type workout or combo 100/200 intervals plus a cooldown.  Once in a great while I swim for time only.  Thats it! 

Nice, hard and simple.

Simplify your workout so you can remember it.

Try this: wu/1 x 1000, main/10 x 100, cd/1 x 500

Easy peasy.

A while ago I bought a boogie board (http://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Board-8-5-Inch-Writing-PT01085BLKA0002/dp/B00AFPR684/ref=dp_ob_title_ce) Basically an monochrome LCD tablet that just lets you write/draw.

When I started swimming, I stuck it in a vacuum seal bag and sealed it. The text is readable through the bag, and writing/erasing is no problem. So far no issues. Plus it's cool to not waste paper.

The Sharpie also comes right off with spray on sun tan lotion.  that's why we spray the swimmers first and then let them write down the races (swim team stuff).

Simple works - watch the Gerry Rodriguez video on Youtube.  Your workouts should have a lot of quality, longer sets - 10x100, 20x100, 5x200, 2x500, etc.   They also happen to be easy to remember.

If you can't remember it, then you may be over-complicating things.  Personally, I'll do 3 1000 yard sets of something and then add a few extra yards on the end.  Most of the time,  I don't pre-plan anything and just make it up as I go.

Yep, my "file" is actually a just bagggie with keepers from the workouts I've done, very roughly sorted by distance--my weekday workouts are shorter due to limited pool time--and endurance vs. speed focus. I usually download them from Sara McLarty's master's swim site; occasionally from some other source like our master's group in Oregon, "One Hour Workouts",  or "Six Weeks to a Faster (Whatever)" from a magazine. Or I just make it up--I have a bunch of "go-to" workouts in my head like sets of 100's--no index cards needed.

I do try to do a speed focus and an endurance focus every week, but I'll admit sometimes I just go through the cards and pick out something I want to do! It's kind of random--sometimes I just get sick of swimming freestyle and I do an IM focus swim, or I want to go super long so I pick something with lots of variety. Simple is good, but when it's close to 4000m, I want to mix it up a bit!