I’m totally confused by the book. I don’t understand what order to take, where what goes and so forth. (And I am a lawyer. I specialize in writing and reading confusing things.) So I have been putting off things. I start praying the office, get confused and lost and quit.
First, consider reading through the
General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (hosted at
EWTN.com).
Second, your book has ribbons. You will need all of them!
We’re in the week of the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time right now. I use my yellow ribbon to keep track of what week of the year we’re in. This week also happens to be Week III (of a 4-week cycle of the psalms). My red ribbon keeps track of the day of the week in the 4-week cycle; tomorrow will be Monday of Week III, so my red ribbon is on page 867.
My blue ribbon is at pages 686 through 698 (depending on the time of day), because those pages contain the Ordinary: the basic structure of the Invitatory, Morning Prayer, and Evening Prayer, the shell, the outline you follow. Into this outline you “plug in” various psalms, antiphons, and prayers.
Let me give you some help for Monday, January 28th, which is the Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor. Most days of the year (when they aren’t Sundays) take precedence over just doing the “normal” stuff. In other words, on Jan 28th, I’m not going to be praying the prayers for Monday in Week III, I’ll be praying the prayers for the Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas. The propers for Jan 28th are on page 1075. I use the green ribbon to keep track of the day of the year. Page 1075 tells me to use the “common of doctors” on page 1434; I keep my orange ribbon in the Commons section (pages 1355-1473). What this means is that for Jan 28th, I’ll use whatever the “common of doctors” says to use…
except for what Jan 28th explicitly tells me to use. In this case, it provides an antiphon for the Canticle of Zechariah (morning prayer), an antiphon for the Canticle of Mary (evening prayer), and a prayer to be said at the end of the office (for morning and evening).
Jan 28th is a memorial, which doesn’t have a vigil celebration. A solemnity
does have a vigil; if Jan 28th was a vigil, I would see
two antiphons for Evening Prayer: “Evening Prayer I” (which is the vigil’s evening prayer) and “Evening Prayer II” (which is the actual day’s evening prayer).
So for morning prayer, I turn to the common of doctors, page 1434. I notice
it says to use the “common of pastors” (page 1422) except for what it explicitly provides for here; I ran out of ribbons (I’ll tell you why later), so I just use my finger to keep track of that. I look at the common of pastors and skip ahead to “Invitatory” (page 1426).
THIS tells me to use the ordinary invitatory psalm (page 688). It provides an antiphon to use for this psalm. BUT WAIT! The common of doctors, on the bottom of page 1434, provides its own antiphon to use!
So I do the invitatory with the antiphon from the common of doctors. I sing the hymn suggested by… the common of doctors (hymn 176 or 179). Then I move in the psalmody of Morning Prayer. The common of doctors doesn’t have its own psalms to use, so I use the ones for the common of pastors (which is the “shell” that the common of doctors is based on).
That tells me to use the psalms and canticle from Sunday, Week I (page 707). [Note: you will end up using Sunday, Week I a **lot. Learn to love it. I have a bookmark there (because I still don’t have enough ribbons!).]
The common of pastors provides its own antiphons to use for the psalms and canticle, so I use them (instead of the ones provided for by Sunday Week I). See how the Liturgy of the Hours is a lot of “plugging in”? (It makes a lot of sense to me, because I’m a programmer, and “modular programming” is a concept I’m very familiar with.) After the psalmody comes the reading: the common of doctors provides its own reading (on page 1435), as well as the responsory after the reading (also 1435), and the antiphon for the Canticle of Zechariah. But the propers for the memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas provides
its own antiphon for this canticle, so I use the antiphon for Jan 28th, from page 1075. The Canticle of Zechariah is found in the Ordinary (my blue ribbon, page 691).
After the Canticle of Zechariah come the Intercessions; the common of doctors does not provide any, so I’ll use the ones provided by the common of pastors (pages 1427-1428). Then comes the Our Father. Then comes the closing prayer; the common of pastors provides several generic ones (that you plug the name of the saint into), as does the common of doctors… but St. Thomas has his own prayer, so I use it (page 1075). Then Morning Prayer ends with the dismissal from the Ordinary of Morning Prayer (page 694, for dismissal by a non-priest… priests use the formula on page 693).
Evening Prayer uses the same system of plug-ins, except that the common of pastors provides its own psalms to use (not the ones from Sunday, Week I).
The trickiest thing to keep track of, once you get the hang of this, is to remember not to use “Evening Prayer I” instead of “Evening Prayer II”. “Evening Prayer I” is
only for vigil celebrations.
Night Prayer is just on a one-week rotating basis – my black ribbon gets used for this – which is found on pages 1034-1057. Those pages contain the Ordinary for Night Prayer as well as the propers for the days of the week; Monday’s propers are on pages 1041-1043. Saturday’s Night Prayer is called “Night Prayer after Evening Prayer I on Sundays”, because Saturday’s Evening Prayer is really Sunday, Evening Prayer I (the vigil).
And that’s my guide.
VERY helpful! 
I’ve been using Sunday, Week I a bit too much then. 
