Planning for crop rotation and succession starting

Perhaps it was the drizzle (and hail) or the start of the Olympics or the fact that we were together as a family for the first time in a week -- but we didn't get anything done in the yard this weekend.  The most I could muster was a planning session in a bowling alley parking lot while my daughter attended a birthday party.

Yes, I settled in with Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades and The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide and tried to wrap my head around two concepts: crop rotation and succession planting.  Crop rotation is the practice of moving types of plants (leaf, root, fruit, cover, flower) around in one's garden so their common pests are undermined and the soil is replenished by the growing process itself.  Succession planting is a means to make good use of small spaces by removing one plant from the garden after it bears veggies and replacing it with another whose season is just starting. 

I can think in three dimensions.  I understand that each plant will require a certain amount of space (length, depth, and height) to mature.  But add time, and I am sunk -- particularly since crop rotation requires that you think in years and succession planting requires that you think in the life cycle of particular plants. 

I am hoping that thinking in four dimensions will come easier with experience but for now I am going to have to do more research.  Maybe I will be able to make sense of this if I start by listing seeds by crop type in order to make a basic layout -- then layer on the successions afterwards.  It seems like it would be much easier if I had more than two beds to work with but that fix isn't in the cards.

Any advice on being able to plan in four dimensions out there?