• Making your planner work FOR YOU

  • Aug 31 2022
  • Length: 52 mins
  • Podcast

Making your planner work FOR YOU

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  • Summary

    • pick it up every day (note this doesn't mean you need to do anything elaborate in it)
    • time management consists of two parts: what you do and when you do it. This results in 4 possible combinations

    1. Plan what you do AND when you do it
    2. Plan when you're working, but not exactly what - aka time blocking. Combining time blocking and to-dos can be a great system for ND people who need some structure but also need the flexibility in their system to work on their current interests
    3. Plan what you do, but not exactly when - aka to-do lists
    4. Plan neither what you do NOR when you do it. Wait what? Remember how I recommended intentions a few weeks ago? If you're not trying to rein in the chaos, but let it flow free, while still having a bit more ownership over the flavor of your days, setting intentions can actually work great without a schedule as such.

    • think about planning style (more strict or less)
    • don't start with a plan. Planning is exciting, but following the plan often isn't. Starting with an elaborate plan can kill any interest in picking up your planner every day. In the beginning, productivity comes second to actually using your planner.
    • track your time (but only temporarily)
    • Check out my post on the ABCs of time management to learn more about time blocking.
    • rolling weekly (can be used in a bullet journal or any planner with enough space to make it)
    • Intention-setting can be systematized to some degree in order to use it more effectively, without turning it into an overbearing task list. This is especially useful when you're just getting started by boosting your results early on, instead of just kind of flapping about, forgetting about your intentions almost as soon as you set them.
    • Future you is a pal. You need to always take care of future you.
    • Schedule time to plan
    • Think about the buckets of your life and the tasks you need to do for each. (home, personal, family, work, friends, school, etc...)
    • consider keeping a record of all the recurring things in each bucket (can work great for the rolling to-do list)
    • feel free to sketch a plan on a sheet of paper, or in a rocketbook before committing it to your planner
    • but also don't be afraid to make mistakes. Go to the last page and create a pen test page (little coffee fox has some great tips for getting started - skip to the end to see how she recommends to deal with fear of getting started) or a grid spacing page. If you start with something kind of ugly and purely functional, you'll feel less paralyzed when it comes to messing something up later on
    • erasable pens (Frixion)
    • If your current planner style isn't quite working, or if it's feeling too stale, try something new on the next page instead of trying to push through. Don't fix what isn't broken, but don't hold onto something just because it used to work.
    • If you're using a preprinted planner, think of your planner pages more as....suggestions...than actual rules you need to stick to. Ignore parts that don't work, or change them to something that does work.
    • if color coding really isn't your thing, use a different code - symbols/signifiers, columns/boxes, etc... There are ways to separate your tasks without use of the Multicolor pen.
    • brain dump daily or weekly (as needed or as your planner allows) and translate this into to-do lists. Not everything in your brain needs to go on the to-do list
    • Consider using more checklists to proactively help you remember what to do, and fewer trackers to retroactively judge what you did (or didn't do) Trackers are still great for...
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