How to Use a Planner
Do you buy planners every year but don’t use them? Do you wonder how you can be more organized?
Use your planner and write everything down!
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How to make the most of your planner?
Don’t let your planner sit around gathering dust. Put those pages to work for you and make the most of it.
By using a planner, your life will be come more organized and efficient. It will will not only help you schedule the appointments you have to attend; you’ll also be able to carve out time for the things you WANT to do.
According to LifeHacker, “it seems that writing anything down makes us remember it better. On the other hand, not writing things down is just asking to forget. It’s a kind of mental Catch-22: the only way not to have to write things down is to write them down so you remember them well enough not to have written them down.”
Why using a planner is important
Do you ever feel stressed that you’ll miss an appointment, forget to do something important, remember the kids’ schedules, not have time to do the things you want to do?
Do you feel like you have anxiety over plans and goals?
Incorporate a planner into your life! The point of a planner is to help you organize your life and your day.
According to Benjamin Franklin, “Setting an intention and creating a plan of action each morning, ensures that you stay focused on your most important task and avoid getting easily distracted by the minutia, and other people during the day.” read more on Ladders.
What is the best way to use your planner?
This may sound ridiculous, but the biggest problem with planners is that we buy them, but we don’t use them!
They get written in for few days and then they sit around doing nothing to improve our lives. Let’s change that!
Make your planner a vital part of your everyday life so you’ll be able to keep track of everything you need AND WANT to do.
You will no longer need to keep appointments, birthdays, to do lists, goals, or ideas in your head!
Writing these things down in your planner will allow to you free up you mind for creativity while the planner does the job of remembering everything else.
What do you put in a planner?
As I mentioned above, the more you put in your planner, the less you will have to remember in your head. So put everything in it.
Birthdays
Anniversaries
Important Events
Appointments
Meetings
Goals
To Do Lists
Grocery List
Clothing Sizes and Body Measurements
Ideas
Projects
Wishlists
In addition, here’s some lists to put in your planner to be more organized.
How do you stick to your planner?
Do you want to know the secret of sticking with a planner? Use it! Make it part of your everyday life. Rather than buying a large desktop planner, purchase a planner that you can take EVERYWHERE you go.
If you’re running errands, at your desk, out to lunch, in a meeting, shopping - your planner is with you. That way you can write down notes, ideas, appointments, to dos, goals, lists…anything and everything.
The key is to make your planner a CATCHALL for all information you don’t need to keep in your brain.
How do you organize your life with a planner?
Make the most of each section of your planner.
Monthly Planner Section - Write down things such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, vacations, trips, holidays, and other important events. This will allow you to briefly glance at the month and know important things to remember. It is also the place to record upcoming events and appointments.
Most planners have a monthly goals section or a blank page to record your goals, projects, and areas of focus.
Weekly Planner Section - Just as you used your monthly planner to view month at a glance, you’ll transpose those same events into the weekly calendar for easy glance. You’ll also record more detailed information such as meal plans, kids’ plans and schedules, meetings, appointments, and goals for the week.
Daily Planner Section - This may just be the most important section of a planner because you can get down to the knitty-gritty of your daily life. So you set your goals for the week or month on those pages but here in the daily pages, you’ll add the tasks needed to complete those goals.
Use the daily planner pages to actually accomplish everything and anything. Make to do lists and check things off. Use the daily calendar to block off and schedule your day. For example, rather than checking email every time you think of it, schedule a block of time for checking and responding to email.
Schedule time for everything - this will allow you to do not just the things you need to do, but the things you want to do as well. If you want to read more, schedule 30 minutes every day for reading. Want to learn how to play the harmonica? Give yourself a 15 minute block, three times a week to learn!
Notes Section - This is the area where you will write everything else important to your life. Use it for brainstorming, brain dump, projects, wishlists, and ideas.
By following these simple steps, you will get the most out of your planner.
What is the best planner?
There are so many planners available today, it’s hard to know which is best. Here are some of my favorite planners. Don’t just take my word for it, check out the reviews for each on Amazon.
