2016 Essential Daily Planner by Productive Flourishing

Disclaimer: This planner was provided to me as a gift to thank me for years of support of Charlie Gilkey, his planners, and his website Productive Flourishing.

I've been a big fan of Charlie Gilkey's Productive Flourishing website (which has super-mega advice for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and creative people) and his excellent planners for a long time now, so I was very excited to get this new planner! Charlie's downloadable free planners are famous for helping folks manage their multiple projects. This new planner, the Essential Daily Planner, is a fantastic addition to the Productive Flourishing planners lineup.

The Essential Daily Planner takes a lot of the concepts from the Productive Flourishing planning methods and bakes them directly into the planner. These concepts are then printed and assembled into a planner that will be your personal assistant, life coach, and project manager all in one.

Charlie does a run-through video of the planner and explains the concepts behind it on this page. Take a look at that, then come back for more details on the planner itself.

The planner measures about 8 by 5 inches, so it's portable and easy to keep with you all day. The easier it is to access your planner, the more you will use it. (And you need to use your planner often for it to be effective.) The spiral binding allows the planner to lay flat on a surface or fold back on itself for compact use.

I'll walk you through the planner to show you all the features. The front cover is laminated for a sturdy, wipe-clean surface that can keep up with your life. The plastic coil is sturdy and flexible.

The first page has space to write your contact information just in case you lose your planner:

The first two-page spread (which I won't show you) gives you tips on how to use the planner, how to plan from the big picture down to daily details, and several online resources for more help and information on planning and productivity.

Next are some very handy annual overview and quick-reference pages, right at the front of your planner where you can find them easily:

Next is a two-page spread for more contacts. This is a great place to capture those frequently used contacts as a backup for your phone.

Now we start getting into the real meat of the planner. The Annual Strategic Planner gets you to think about what you want to accomplish during your entire year. It gives you spaces to break down goals and steps by month, and lots of space for notes.

Next is the Quarterly Planner, where you take those monthly goals from your Annual Strategic Planner and work through the details of what you want to accomplish each month. These pages give you plenty of room to brainstorm your Objectives, Milestones and Benchmarks for each month plus more space for notes.

After the Quarterly Planner comes a monthly overview for January. Right at the top of the page is a space to write your Monthly Objectives, so you can keep them visible all month long:

After the month overview come the weekly pages for January. On every weekly spread there is a nice big space for your Weekly Objectives. These will flow from your Monthly Objectives, and will be those actionable tasks that will get you to your goals.

At the end of that month's weekly pages, there is a page for Individual Project Planners, and three pages for notes. The notes pages are a great place to write your Mid-Month and Monthly Reviews.

These pages will help keep you on track with your projects for the month, and make it easy to find the related notes for each month.

Next is the following month's spread, with a new motivational quote every month:

Then there are the weekly pages for that month, again followed by a page for Individual Project Planners and three pages for Notes each month.

At the end of the three-month quarter you get the Quarterly Planner for the next three months. This prompts you to re-evaluate your goals from your Annual Strategic Planner, figure out what needs to continue from your previous quarter, and which priorities have changed. Having the Quarterly Planners embedded chronologically in the planner ensures you won't forget when it's time to plan and evaluate each quarter.

The pattern continues all year: Quarterly Planner, month overviews with their associated weeks, Individual Project Planners and pages for Notes.

At the end of the planner there are eight more pages of Individual Project Planners, and a whole bunch more pages for Notes. The result is a planner that will keep you on time and on track with all your appointments, projects and goals all year.

This planner works well alongside the Free Planners and Productivity Worksheets. For example you can plan your days in detail with the Daily Action Planner, write all your tasks on the Action Item Catcher, and plan your blog posts for the month with the Blog Post Planner and Calendar (which are excellent for helping you create valuable content on your blog). You can download these planners for free each month, or if you don't want to wait for them to come out each month you can buy the entire year's package to download as the Premium Planners Set.

Back in February 2010, Charlie Gilkey himself very graciously did an interview with me here on Plannerisms. It's a great insight into the thought process behind making his planners, and he has some excellent advice there for using planners in a way that fits your needs.

Huge thanks to Charlie and his team for sending me this planner! Keep doing what you're doing you guys, you help and inspire a lot of people!!

How I use the Monthly Goals pages in my Plannerisms planner

On several of the reviews of the Plannerisms planners, people have commented on the two pages between each month asking, surely nobody expects me to have this many goals each month?

And no, you're right, the purpose of those pages is not to fill them with goals. It's to track your goals, and do your mid-month and monthly reviews (if you do them).

Tracking and evaluating your goals are the most important, and most frequently neglected, steps in reaching your goals. Without tracking the data and evaluating your progress, how will you know if you are reaching your goals or not? The monthly Goals pages give you space to do this, so you can track your progress all year. I give some specific usage tips and ideas in my post on how to use the Goals pages in the Plannerisms planner.

This doesn't have to be as hard-core or disciplined as it sounds. To give you some examples, here is how I use the monthly Goals pages in my Plannerisms planner:

One of my goals last year was to get on a cleaning schedule at home. So on the right page of my monthly Goals pages I made a kind of chart of what needed to be done each week, every two weeks, and every month.

Then I designated a week (shown by a circle) when I needed to do each task. Every-two-weeks and monthly tasks had a circle on the week when I needed to do them, to avoid piling up too many of these tasks on any particular week. Or if I had an especially busy week that month, I made sure not to schedule extra tasks during that week. This served three purposes: I saw when each task needed to be done; I had a record of when I actually did each task; and I could easily see when I procrastinated tasks (shown by arrowing-over to another week). You can see I procrastinated a fair amount, and failed to record often. Work in progress.

Another ongoing goal I have is to save money. Part of that is tracking finances. I keep a list of regular monthly expenses in the booklet in the back pocket of my Plannerisms. But extra or unexpected expenses get written in the bottom left quadrant of my monthly Goals pages. This includes payments for my kids' dance and music lessons (which only occur every three months, and on different schedules), when we fill our heating oil tank, electrician or plumber bills, etc.

Another purpose of these monthly Goals pages can be to schedule household maintenance tasks like replacing furnace or air conditioner filters, checking/ replacing CO2 and smoke alarm batteries, and other regular household tasks that need to be done annually or on an otherwise irregular schedule. This will keep you on top of these without too much time passing (with potentially dangerous consequences). It will also give you a record of when you last changed the batteries or whatever so you know when they need done again.

Other potential goals tracking for these pages: blood pressure/ sugar levels, miles run, weight/ body measurements, credit card/ debts payments, and anything else you need to keep track of. It's a handy landing place and great way to reference your progress.

So in a way, the monthly goals pages are mislabeled. It should say Goals Tracking, but that would look cluttery on the page so I left it at Goals.

I hope that helps answer questions about the purpose of the monthly goals pages!

2014 Goals and Resolutions!

Happy New Year! Are you ready for your best year yet? Not sure how to make it happen?

Now's the time of year when we see and read a lot about goals and resolutions. There's a lot of information floating around out there, so I have distilled the main points down for you.

In my Goal Setting Tips page I have links to several posts that will help you, including:

What's the difference between Goals, Resolutions, Projects and Tasks? This post will help you focus on what you need to reach your goals.

This time last year I wrote a post on Fitting Your Goals Into Your (already-busy) Schedule. Whenever you add something new to your day, you have to take something else out. This post will help you prioritize your tasks, figure out your most-focused times of the day, and schedule your time accordingly.

Using The Plannerisms Planner As A Goals Workbook has lots of info on how to set and track your goals. Tracking your progress is the most important, and often-overlooked, step in goal setting. Monitoring your progress gives you feedback on how close you are to achieving your goals, and what work you still need to do.

To get started, look back through your 2013 planner and see what you accomplished, what became irrelevant and what still needs to be done. Then think about what you want to do in 2014. Read the posts linked above to get you started on the path to an awesome new year!

Wishing you all the best in 2014!

Should you bother to make Goals?

I've seen a lot of articles online lately basically stating that goals are pointless and you shouldn't bother making them, it's routines that are important.

The thinking goes: don't set yourself the goal of building a wall, just focus on laying each brick as perfectly as possible. Another one is: don't focus on running a marathon, instead set yourself a daily running routine.

This logic is faulty, and here's why:

I agree routines are very important, and you won't reach your goals without them. But you must have goals, because they give your routines purpose.

To use the two examples above: yes lay each brick as well as you can. But you have to know if you are building a wall, or a house, or a pyramid.

And yes you should set an exercise routine to incorporate those actions into your day. But you will train differently if you are running a marathon than if you are striving for a personal best in a 10k. And anyway you shouldn't run the same amount of time and the same path every day because your body will quickly adapt and the benefits will decrease.You have to create an exercise routine that mixes it up to continue to benefit your body.

However, there are times when setting goals is not appropriate. For example, I don't make a 5 year plan. Life is not linear, and unless your goal for example is to finish university or something similarly clear-cut, it's often not possible to predict what your life will be like 5 years down the road. In these cases, it's better to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

For example I had wanted for a long time to publish my ideal planner. I even had it all written up and knew exactly what it would be. But I moved so often I wasn't in one place long enough (or in locations where it was possible) to find a publisher. Then when my publisher approached me about making the Plannerisms planner, I was ready and prepared to jump on that opportunity.

So the answer is, you have to have both: routines to work the actions into your daily life, and goals to give the actions purpose.

This is how I designed my Plannerisms planners. There are goals pages that give you space to map out what you would like to happen and how, and the weekly pages give you the space and structure to incorporate these actions into your daily life and track your progress.

I wrote a similar article a year ago discussing the difference between Goals, Resolutions, Projects and Tasks which you can click here to read. That article is in my page of Goal Setting Tips where there are links to other articles, research I've read and more ideas for goal setting and tracking (which is the important part).

So as you can see, I'm a big fan of goals and flexibility, which doesn't have to be contradictory.

What about you? Do you set goals? Why or why not?

Welcome to Quarter 2! Are your Annual Goals 1/4 completed?

Quarterly Goals pages in the Plannerisms Planner

This morning I realized the year is already 1/4 over. But are my Annual Goals 1/4 finished?

Well, some of them are and some of them aren't.

It's time to review my Annual Goals, and to look at which Quarter 1 goals I've completed and which are ongoing.  I need to identify the roadblocks of the goals that haven't made much progress and figure out what I can do to be more effective with those. Then I will write my revised Quarter 2 goals and April goals, armed with my new plan of how to effectively achieve them!

For more information on goal setting, Annual, Quarterly and Monthly Goals, and how to turn your plans into action see my post about it here. This post talks about using the Plannerisms planner specifically for Goals planning, but it's excellent goal-setting advice for use with any system.

How are your Goals for 2013 coming along? Are they 1/4 finished? What can you do in this quarter to make more progress with your Annual Goals?

Fitting your Goals into your Schedule

This is the week that makes or breaks most people's New Year's Resolutions. All your good intentions on January 1st could go up in smoke as the rubber hits the road with work and school obligations back in your daily schedule.

The only way you're going to actually achieve those goals you've set is if you find time in your days to do your goal-related tasks. This of course is easier said than done because most of us are already busy to begin with. Finding time for more tasks is a trick.

The good news is, thought and planning are all you need to fit in your goal tasks. Let's get started!

First of all, if you need some help setting your goals, click here for my helpful posts on setting your goals and what it takes to reach them. Especially look at my post on using the Plannerisms planner for goal setting, because it explains how to break your goals down from Annual goals to Monthly goals and down to weekly and daily tasks. You need to get your big-picture ideas down to actionable-today tasks.

Next, you need to figure out the best time to fit in exercise, reading, crafting, working on your e-book, revising your finances or whatever goals you've set. Check out Charlie Gilkey's Productivity Heatmap to find out what times of the day you function best for concentrated work, and what times you need to do less-concentrated work.

Now that you know when your highest functioning times are, decide which goal-related tasks you can do when. This requires an understanding of how long it takes you to do things. If you want make sure you have a clear idea of how long it takes you to do tasks, I recommend keeping a log of what you do each day and how long it took you. Most people are surprised that what they thought would take them about 15 minutes actually takes about an hour. Or they discover that the task they thought they were ready to do actually required other tasks first. You might want to read my post Goal, Resolution, Project,Task to help you break your goals down into ready-for-action tasks.

So now that you know what tasks need to be done, how long it will take you to do them, and what times of day you can best function to accomplish them, you're ready to start plugging tasks into your schedule!

Remember, any time you add new things to your schedule, you'll have to remove or reschedule whatever you normally do at that time. For example, if you want to exercise more, you'll have to remove the sleep/ computer/ tv or whatever you normally do at your chosen exercise time. If you want to be more social, you'll be spending less time at home so adjust your schedule accordingly.  If you want to write or read more, choose your time (early in the morning before everyone gets up, weekends, evenings) and clear some time for your chosen tasks.

Write your goal tasks into your daily schedule, and keep a record of whether you actually did those tasks each day. I designed the weekly pages of my Plannerisms Going Places planner to show you what your daily goals are and give you space to check off those tasks each day so you can easily see if you are accomplishing your goals:

If at the end of the week you don't have as many daily goals accomplished as you'd hoped, you may need to re-evaluate which times you've chosen to do them. If your morning or evening is already manic, you're not likely to fit in another task so don't beat yourself up about it. Go back to the planning stage and choose a different timeslot to fit in your goal tasks.

Don't give up on your goals! You can fit them in, even with an already-busy schedule. All it takes is planning. Schedule your goal tasks into your day, make sure you have adequate time to complete them, and do them at a time of day when you have the energy to focus on them. Follow this plan and you will reach your goals step by step!

Setting your Goals for 2013

Are you thinking about your goals for 2013? Do you have big ideas but aren't sure where to start? These posts will point you in the right direction!

First, click here to read about the difference between a Goal, Resolution, Project and Task. That will get you focused on what to do first.

Then, click here to read how to use the Plannerisms planner as a Goals Workbook. This post is packed with information on setting Goals, mapping out Milestones, and doing regular Reviews to ensure success.

I also did a video on using the Plannerisms Planner for goal setting with more ideas on setting and tracking your goals, click here to see.

For Filofax folks, read my post here on how to use your Filofax for goal setting. Non-Filofax users will also find this post valuable with lots of information on goal setting, tracking and reviews too.

In my sidebar I have a link to my page on Goal Setting Tips, with the above links and more. Click here to go to the Goal Setting Tips page.

So there's a bunch of info for you to think about! I hope it helps you focus on your goals.

What are your goals for 2013?

Goal, Resolution, Project, Task: Definitions and Examples

Several people have asked me the difference between a goal, resolution, project and task so I thought I'd go into some detail on what each of these means and how you can apply them to your life.

First I want to define a Resolution and how it's different from a Goal. Gretchen Rubin cleared this up for me in her book The Happiness Project (not affiliated, just giving credit). She points out that a Goal is quantifiable and has an ending. Running a marathon is a goal. You train for it, and complete the marathon. After that it's up to you whether you continue training or become a couch potato.

A Resolution, on the other hand, has no end. It's a lifestyle change. "Quit Smoking" or "Be More Cheerful" are things that you'll have to continue doing for as long as you want to reap the benefits.

Gretchen does point out that the more specific you are with your Resolutions, the more likely you'll be able to keep them. "Laugh at least once per day" is easier to keep track of than "Be more cheerful."  Incidentally, a Resolution can become a daily Goal: did you laugh today? Then you can check off that you did, in fact, laugh today and thus have reached that small goal for the day.

So let's talk about what, exactly, is a Goal.

Goals can be long-term (complete university degree), shorter term (finish report) or just today (read Chapter 3). A goal is something you can measure, and you can complete in a specified period of time.

As an example, let's talk about something many people set as a New Year's Resolution: Lose Weight. Unfortunately, Lose Weight is not a Goal. You can't measure it. How much weight? By when?

"Lose 10 pounds" is closer to being an actual goal, but it's still lacking the time element. Lose 10 pounds at some point in your life? How about, "Lose 10 pounds by June." Now THAT is a Goal. You can do that.

Here's how to break down the Goal of "Lose 10 pounds by June."  How many months/ weeks do you have until June 1? This will tell you how much weight you need to lose each week. Generally 1 pound per week is sustainable, some people can even pull off 2 pounds per week. There are about 3500 calories in a pound of body weight, so to lose a pound per week you'll cut 500 calories per day. Science aside, eating less fatty and carby food and more veg and lean protein plus exercise will help you lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way. Keep it up until June, and you'll reach your goal.

The other thing a Goal needs to be is trackable, and this is where most people succeed or fail. People who track their progress are MUCH more likely to reach their goal. Weigh yourself every week. Measure your waist. Count calories if you can stand to, or food points, or the number of fruit and veg portions you eat each day. Record your exercise. When you track your progress you know what you've accomplished and how far you have yet to go. You also notice setbacks and can get yourself back on track.

What's the difference between a Goal and a Project? Or a Goal and a Task? Timeframe, mainly.

For example, you may have the goal of painting your living room. Remember, to be a true Goal you need to set a time limit, so let's say you want to paint your living room before your in-laws visit 3 months from now. This is an example of a Goal that is also a Project.

A Project has multiple steps. Think of all the things you have to do BEFORE you actually apply paint to your living room walls. Research paint types and choose colors. Buy brushes, tape, and plastic to cover your floor. Prepare the walls by removing old wallpaper, filling any cracks or holes, and smoothing the surface. Move furniture, cover the floor, tape edges. THEN you can actually paint. Then let the paint dry, apply another coat if needed, dry again. Remove the tape and floor coverings, move furniture back into place. Done!

Each of those steps can be considered a Milestone toward reaching your goal of painting your living room. Milestones need to have a time element of their own. Back-count from the Done date to figure out the deadlines for each Milestone. How long will it take you to research your paint options? When will you actually have time to go buy the paint and supplies? When will you do the actual painting? Look at your planner and schedule time to complete each of the Milestones.

Now you'll know if you're on track to reach your Goal in time or not. Your in-laws are coming next weekend and you haven't chosen your paint yet? Unless you've got the week off work, you might not reach your goal. Think realistically about how long it will take you to complete each step to make sure you have adequate time.

Each Milestone can be broken down into individual Tasks. A Task is sometimes called an Action or a Next Action. For example, the Milestone of Choosing Your Paint can be broken down into several tasks: Look online at paint brands and types. Look up customer reviews of different paints. Go to the store to look at paint colors and types. Ask someone who knows about paint what they recommend. Get paint samples and bring them home to get an idea of what the colors would look like in that room. You get the idea: a Task is something you can do without having to do something else first.

Unfortunately, in real life most goals aren't as clear-cut as "Lose 10 pounds before June" or "Paint the living room before 3 months from now." Maybe you want to get a promotion at work, publish your e-book, make more friends, or improve your credit rating. Whatever your goal is, be sure to set a time frame,  break it down into actions, and measure your progress.

I designed the Plannerisms planners to give you space to write out your big Annual Goals, break them down into Quarterly Milestones, Monthly Goals and Daily Tasks. Importantly, there's space to record your progress every step of the way so you can see what's working and what's not, and exactly how far you have to go to meet your goals. Click here to see my post on Using the Plannerisms Planner as a Goals Workbook.

Was this post helpful? Any questions about setting goals?

Discuss! :)

Using the Plannerisms planner as a Goals workbook

The Plannerisms planner has Goals pages throughout the book to help you incorporate your goals into your daily schedule. Or it can be used as a Goals workbook/journal separate from your planner, if you like. It has lots of pages for goals: Annual, Quarterly, and Monthly with designated space on every weekly page for your goals every day. There are also pages near the end of the book for your Annual Review. The planner is designed to guide you through the goal-setting process in a flexible and adaptable way.

I did a video on using these pages for setting and reviewing your goals, which you can click here to see. In this post I want to expand on that video a little bit, and also give suggestions for using the Plannerisms planner as a Goals Workbook/ Journal.

The process for reaching your goals is:

1. Determining your goals. What do you want to accomplish?

2. Set milestones. What are the steps you need to take to reach your goals? How can you break down each goal into actionable steps?

3. Record your progress. Write down miles run, weight lost, seeds planted, projects completed, books read, etc.

4. Evaluate your progress. By figuring out what worked, you know how to replicate your success. By figuring out what didn't work, you can find ways to adjust your effort.

Unlike most other planners, the Plannerisms planners give you plenty of space to plan and record your goals, and to evaluate your progress. Many people are good at setting their goals, but often don't follow up with the key steps of recording and especially evaluating.

Recording your progress is one of the most important things you can do to help reach your goals. And evaluating your progress is probably the most neglected step in reaching your goals.

By recording your progress, you know exactly where you stand. Is your weight/ blood pressure decreasing month by month, or not? How many pages of your dissertation have you written this week? Have you completed your daily tasks relating to your goals? When you record your progress, you know what you've done and what you are yet to do. And, you get a sense of accomplishment when you see your completed tasks and goals.

Evaluating your progress takes the process one step further. What worked? What didn't? What did you accomplish, and how did you do it (so you can reproduce your success)?  What got in your way? Was there an unexpected increase in workload, an illness, or something else that prevented you from completing your goal tasks? How can you work around it?

So let's talk about how to use the Plannerisms planner for determining your goals, setting your milestones, recording your progress and evaluating your progress.

Below is a photo (click on any photos to enlarge) of the Goals This Year pages at the beginning of the Plannerisms planner. This is where you will begin to determine your goals. Think about the year ahead. Consult the Year Planner pages to map out your year. What do you want to accomplish? Dream big, and most importantly, write it down.

You can categorize your goals into Personal, Health, Work, Family, House, Finances, Gardening, Crafts, Books, Study, Volunteer, or anything you can think of that you want to accomplish or improve upon this year. These pages are not structured so you can use them any way you want.

Next are the Quarterly Goals pages. This is where you start to break down your Annual Goals into milestones. Look at your goals topics and decide what progress you want to make in each quarter (or season). Think about how to break down your big goals into manageable chunks. If you are using this book to help plan your gardening, this would be a good place to record seasonal activities.

Alternatively, you may want to concentrate on certain goals during a particular season or time of year. These pages help you focus on what needs to be done at which time of year. This gets you ready to break down your goals by month.

I recommend writing your monthly goals at the beginning of each month rather than writing every month's goals for the entire year. This allows you to be flexible, change your goals if you need to, and base your month's goals on your previous month's evaluation.

Here is a monthly spread, which gives you an overview of the entire month. Think about any major events happening this month, holidays, birthdays, deadlines and anything else coming up, and fill them in.

The column before Mondays is great for highlighting things that need to happen in a particular week, or anytime that month.

Here's one example of how to use the monthly calendars: On the day spaces on the monthly pages I like to use symbols to indicate when I exercised. I use green ink, just to distinguish it from other things on the page, and I use a C for Cardio and S for Strength. That way I get a quick and easy visual if I'm exercising most days or if I have gaps of more than a few days.

You can use this technique for anything you want to do each day. I read somewhere that Jerry Seinfeld marks an X on his calendar every day that he writes. He doesn't want to "break the chain," so the marks on the calendar are incentive for him to write so he can fill in his daily X.

If you have several things you want to accomplish daily, or need to fill in details, you can record them all on the weekly pages (more on that in a minute).

Between every month there's a two-page spread for your goals and tracking that month. The monthly Goals pages are not for filling up with so many goals every month (unless you are VERY ambitious!). These pages are for listing your monthly goals then tracking them, and evaluating your progress.

This is the place to break your Quarterly (Seasonal) goals down into what you can focus on this month.  

Use these pages to record and evaluate your goals each month, including your Monthly Review. Your Monthly Review lets you evaluate your month and find out how many of that month's goals you were able to complete and what you still need to work on next month. Did something come up that set you back? Come up with ways to get around obstacles and move forward.

The monthly Goals pages are a great place to record data relating to your goals like: financial totals (I like to record monthly totals for checking, savings, and credit cards to keep an eye on my savings and what I owe); miles run or other exercise info; weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels or other health tracking; and anything else you are keeping track of.

I use my monthly Goals pages to track household cleaning schedules, irregular or unexpected expenses (regular monthly expenses are in a list in the booklet in the back pocket), household maintenance like changing smoke alarm batteries, and anything else I need to keep track of. In this post I showed examples of how I use my monthly Goals pages and gave more ideas on how to use them.

You can also use the pages between the monthly calendars as an index for each month like how Patty uses her Franklin Covey index pages, which you can see in her post about it here.

But as with all the Plannerisms pages, there's no prescribed way to use the monthly Goals pages and you can suit them to your individual needs, even using them differently each month if you want.

There are so many ways to use the weekly pages. In my post on how to use the weekly pages, I focused on using it as your planner and incorporating your goals into your daily schedule. But you could easily use these pages to track daily goals and keep your schedule someplace else (electronically, in your Filofax, etc.).

Below is the photo I showed in my weekly pages post for filling in exercise, meds, vitamins and stretching. You could definitely use the Plannerisms planner as a fitness log for recording your exercise, how it felt, tracking your progress etc.

There are endless uses for the daily columns and the Goals column before Monday. You could write in your daily routines (like FlyLady's Morning, Afternoon and Evening routines) and check them off each day as you go. If you need to make sure you are drinking at least 8 glasses of water or eating your 5 fruit and veg per day, you can write that in the column and put a check for each glass of water or fruit/ veg to see your actual intake.

You could also use the column before Monday to list your daily Resolutions for those of you who are working on a Happiness Project like Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project (which I have read and am not affiliated with).  Whether your Resolutions are to make your bed every day, journal daily, have more positive interactions or appreciate your surroundings, you can track how well you're sticking to your resolutions by marking them off each day. Gretchen strongly recommends tracking your resolutions, and this would be an easy way to do it.

You can divide the daily columns so you can easily track goals in different categories for a quick-glance indicator of if you are sticking to your plan.

In the space below the daily columns you can write your Weekly Review. This is a good place to evaluate your week, what went well, what you accomplished and what you still need to work on. Evaluating each week can be intense, and some people feel that a mid-month or even just monthly review is enough. What ever works best for you is great, but make sure you do evaluate on a regular basis so you know if things are working or if you need to adjust your strategy.

At the end of the book is a two-page spread for your Annual Review. 

At the end of the year, look back through your Goals from the beginning of the year, your Monthly and Weekly reviews. Evaluate your accomplishments and celebrate your successes!

Look at goals that you didn't manage to accomplish and figure out why not. Did something come up that prevented you from reaching that goal? Did it require more time or effort than you expected? Think of ways to adjust your efforts so you can accomplish these goals.

You may find that some goals became irrelevant over the course of the year, or that your attention was spent elsewhere. Some goals may be eliminated, or put on a lower priority than others.

After tracking your goals all year you'll have a complete record of your accomplishments, so you can replicate them!

As you can see, there's tons of ways to use the Plannerisms planner to track and evaluate your goals on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis. And yet, there's no pressure. If you want to use the monthly pages for something and the weekly pages for something else, go for it!

Woman's Success Choice Planner 2013: new format and features!

You might remember my review of the 2012 Woman's Success Choice Planner from The Success Choice (click here to see my review) where I detailed all the features of this excellent planner. I'm very excited to show you the new format and features of the 2013 Woman's Success Choice Planner!

The 2012 format had all 7 days as equal-size columns across the two-page spread. But, many customers requested more writing space per day, so the daily columns were expanded so that weekdays have twice as much space as they had before. That puts Mon-Thurs on a two-page spread (click photos to enlarge):

And Friday, Saturday and Sunday are on the next page. Saturday and Sunday are smaller columns, but each of these is the size of the original day spaces so there's still lots of space to write each day.  At the end of the week there is a lined page for notes, lists, and anything else you want to write for that week.

Below is a more detailed view of the weekdays. Each day has spaces to list tasks, phone calls or errands, and to track your water intake (check boxes for 8 glasses per day), fruit and veg intake, exercise, and an area to personalize for your needs (medications, vitamins, reading, etc.).  Also for each day are numbered tallies to mark off daily chores like sorting mail and picking up clutter.

 Here's a closeup of Friday-Saturday-Sunday:

My friend Rori did a series of excellent reviews on this planner (see Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).  In her reviews she predicted that I would hate the split weeks, and to her credit normally she would be right. But, I think the value of having twice as much space to write each weekday is worth turning the page to see the rest of the week.

Pamela Henrie, the creator of the Woman's Success Planner, told me this about the new format:

"We keep all of the comments and suggestions from customers, and if we repeatedly get the same request, we consider a change.

The biggest request we get is more room to write, more room for appointments and tasks.

The reason we did the double column day with just a broken line is so that those who want to write straight across the two columns can. Those people who want to schedule appointments on the hour and half hour can use the second column for more appointments.

The two column tasks, etc. women can customize as desired. One column could be personal tasks, the other could be work tasks, kids, whatever.

The Contacts/Errands columns could be used for phone calls, emails, or however they want to customize it: kids, gratitude, etc.

The absolute biggest challenge was giving more room to write, more appointment and tasks, etc. and still keep it on a two page spread and small enough to easily fit in a purse. We couldn't see how to make it work and still give a full column for Saturday and Sunday which people love.

In order to keep the planner portable, we took out one notes page per week, but we added the creativity pages that can also be notes pages if desired. We had several requests for blank pages to mind map, put goal reminders, pictures, quotes, post-it reminders, etc.

We also added the monthly logs, numbered the pages, and put an index page in the back.

It is always scary to make changes because people get used to things a certain way, but at the same time there is always room for improvement.

As always, I would love any comments or suggestions."

Very interesting insight into the planner creation process!

At the end of each week is an End of Week Review, which is one of my favorite features of this planner:

And new for 2013, at the end of each month there is an end of month review, which is a wonderful addition:

This planner has a lot of goal-setting guidance, and gets you to follow-up in evaluating what you did, how it went, and how you can improve. This is enormously powerful in keeping you on track to your goals, and it's a step people often miss in their goal-setting.

Before each new month there is a blank page for notes, creativity, mind-mapping or anything else you'd like to put here:

Another fantastic new feature for the 2013 WSP is that each page is numbered!

 AND the very back page is an index, so you can easily reference numbers, quotes, ideas etc.

The other excellent features of the WSP still apply. The months are embedded in the weeks, and the months are printed on heavier card stock to make them easy to find between the weekly pages. Each month has a theme, a list of seasonal things to do that month inside your home and in the garden (like plant bulbs, change air filters etc.), and space to write your ongoing tasks each month:

At the bottom of each monthly planning page lists fruits and vegetables in season, to help you plan healthy meals.

The months are across the two-page spread, with space for notes under:

Each month has a page for goal setting, traditions and more details on the monthly theme (left page). Before each week there is a page for that week's tasks, menu planning and shopping list (right page). 

Each book holds one quarter (3 months) of monthly, weekly and notes pages, so you can start in any quarter you want.  The Jan-Feb-March quarter has goal planning pages for the year at the beginning of the year, to get you to think about and write down your annual goals. The July-Aug-Sept quarter has Midyear Planning pages at the beginning of the book to help you evaluate your goals progress so far, identify roadblocks, and brainstorm solutions for overcoming these roadblocks. The Oct-Nov-Dec quarter has Year End Review pages to be written in December to evaluate your successes and learning experiences of the year.

At the back of each quarterly book there are monthly calendars to plan a full 12 months:

And a Future Planning page for the following 12 months, so that each quarterly book has 2 full years of planning:

At the back of the book there are several more lined pages for notes, lists, quarterly reviews, expenses, or anything else.

The page size measures 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches, and each quarterly book is less than half an inch thick so it's very portable. It's designed to go everywhere with you in your bag to capture notes, lists, ideas and appointments wherever you are.

As I said in my previous review, this planner is the most comprehensive system I've ever seen for goal setting and evaluation, motivational quotes and advice, household maintenance and cleaning schedules, health trackers, notes and creativity, and more.

Don't forget you can get 15% off your total Success Choice order, including planners (spiral bound or looseleaf), leather binders and covers (see my review here), and the address book (see my review here).  Just enter code plannerisms12 at checkout!

Many thanks to The Success Choice for sending me this planner as a sample to review!

Using your planner to set and achieve your goals

Now's the time of year when many of us are thinking about our goals for the upcoming year.

I love goal-setting tips, and I especially love to think of ways to use a planner to set and reach goals. Here are some posts I've written about using your planner to set and achieve your goals:


I wrote this post on Philofaxy a couple of months ago on using a Filofax for goal-setting, but it can be used with just about any planner/ notebook setup.  It has a lot of general tips on how to set goals, track progress, document your efforts and what to do when you've reached your goal:

Setting goals with your Filofax


Below is a post that links to an article I read that explains how to set achievable goals, and the importance of tracking your goals and recognizing your benchmarks along the way. It also finally explains the flaws of many self-help books!

Secrets for Success


Here's a post I wrote awhile back about incorporating daily goals into my planner, with a link to Travis the Trout's excellent series on Goals journals:

Daily Goals


Goal-setting usually makes me think of Uncalendar planners (www.uncalendar.com), because they are designed to help you set your goals and then incorporate them into your daily schedule.  See more about that in these posts:

Do you Uncalendar?  (an explanation of the Uncalendar system featuring the Full Size Uncalendar.)

Uncalendar Half-Size review

Time for new goals!  (How I used my Half-Size Uncalendar as my goals workbook.)

And don't miss the Uncalendar Training Room which is free to all and full of goal-setting and life management advice.

Do you use your planner to set and track your goals? Do you have any new goals for 2012? Please post a comment! :)

Calling all Uncalendar users!

Please read this!

I'm very interested in how you use your Uncalendar.  There are endless ways to use the weekly Worksheet and all the Data and Graph boxes throughout the book. If you could share how you use these spaces, it would give us all ideas of how to use Uncalendar planners in new ways.

So if you use an Uncalendar, please either:

Upload your image to the Uncalendar Group on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/uncalendar/

Or, email your photos to me at: Plannerisms (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll load the photos for you.

I'd love to see how you use your Un, and want to give other Uncalendar users ideas on how to best use their Un!  I'm especially interested in photos of how you use pages other than the weekly and monthly pages such as the Data pages, Goals, graphs, etc.

For example, here's something I thought of: using each week's graph as a daily Goals tracker:

This is a great way to remind yourself of daily goals, a way to reward yourself for doing those things that need to get done each day, and a quick visual to see if you are achieving your goals each day or letting things slide.

If you haven't seen an Uncalendar before, check out their website www.uncalendar.com!

Also you can read my posts about Uncalendar planners:

Do You Uncalendar?  (Uncalendar Full Size review)

Uncalendar Half Size review

Time For New Goals! (How I used my Half-Size Uncalendar last year)

Secrets For Success (Ideas on using your Uncalendar for goal setting and progress tracking.)

PS: I am not at all affiliated with Uncalendar, I just really like their products!

Setting Goals with your Filofax

Today on Philofaxy I posted a big long article with steps for setting and achieving goals, and how to use your Filofax to help you.

Click here to go to the post.

How do you use your planner to help you set and reach your goals?

Daily Goals

Here is a new trick I've incorporated this week that's really working well for me.

I'm always trying to figure out ways to incorporate my goals into my daily and weekly schedule.  Those big-picture items tend to get lost in the shuffle of all the millions of things I do each day. I decided to incorporate a trick I've seen in photos of other people's planners online (like cecille joan's daily Moleskine, where she writes her daily reminders near the bottom of the page and crosses them off after completion).  Many thanks also to Travis the Trout for goal-setting inspiration. If you haven't seen Travis's Goals Journal series, check it out here:

http://notesinabook.wordpress.com/category/how-to/goals-journal/

I don't use a separate Goals Journal, instead I incorporate my goals into my planner in order to 1) have them in front of me all the time and 2) see how I'm going to work them into my day.

In my planner on each day's space, I put each Goal category with space to fill it in when I complete it. For example, some of my daily goals are to take my Vitamin D supplement (I'm so surprised the milk here is not fortified like it is in the US), exercise, and read something science-related.

So in each day's space I have "Vit. D" with a box to check after I've taken it, "EXC" with space to write in what I did (walk, weights, ball or whatever), "READ" with space to note what I read.

I have found that having a space to fill in staring me in the face reminds me to do the action and encourages me to do something so I can write it in.

Goals Win!

Time For New Goals!

Now that I have achieved my long-term goal of moving to Scotland (and all the work that entailed), it's now time for me to come up with some new goals!  Don't worry, I have plenty:

Goal #1: Save money to buy a house.

Goal #2: "Homeschool" (term used very loosely) Youngest who will start school next year.

Goal #3: When Youngest starts school, get myself back into the workforce.  Sitting home alone all day is not appealing.  And, I do want to get back into science.  So, that gives me nearly a year to explore my options and get myself out there.

Goal #4: Get on a household cleaning routine with a little cleaning each weekday so I can relax and have fun on weekends.  Also, do meal planning as a way to save money on groceries.

Goal #5: Get in shape and lose some weight.

Some of you already know where this is going.  (Sis?)  Another clue: Arielle's comments on my post a few days ago that she's trying the Uncalendar got me thinking.

Uncalendar is an excellent tool for setting goals and focusing your energy on working toward them, so of course that's who I turn to when I need a powerful way to set and achieve my goals.  Those of you who are unfamiliar with this excellent life-management system can read all about it in my Uncalendar review.

The Uncalendar Lifestyle Pro planner system in the 3 ring binder helped me enormously while I was preparing to move to Scotland, homeschooling both my kids and keeping track of various other aspects of my life.

Now, in order to keep track of my goals listed above, I have ordered the Uncalendar Lifestyle Half Size planner (so it can fit in my bag).  Actually I ordered two, because two of them fit into a flat-rate shipping envelope so it didn't cost any more to ship two than to ship one.  And, shipping to the UK for both planners totalled less than 13 bucks, which is an excellent price!

I will use my Half Size Uncalendar as my Goals Workbook to keep me on track with my goals listed above.  I'll sketch out my goals on the Goals pages of my book, and break them down into do-able tasks.

On the weekly pages I'll record what homeschooling lessons we did that day, what exercise I did (cardio and/ or strength), plan dinner menus, and I'll check off my weekly cleaning tasks as I complete them.

I'll use the monthly section to keep track of expenses, bills paid, income and (hopefully) savings to work toward home ownership.

I'll use the Data section for building my contacts list for future employment.

And I'll use the Notes section for writing my Mid-Month and Monthly Reviews inspired by Charlie Gilkey which are always very useful for keeping me on track and aware of the weeks progressing.

I am very excited about this plan!

While I'm waiting for my Uncalendars to arrive, I'm getting ideas from Uncalendar's goal setting tips and other sections of The Training Room (which I like to peruse periodically) for more advice on setting and implementing my goals.

As you might imagine, Uncalendar planners are extremely popular with students.  Interestingly, I've recently discovered that Uncalendar planners are very popular with nursing students in particular.  I can definitely see how the Un's structure and flexibility would be extremely useful for busy nursing students balancing classwork and clinicals (not to mention the rest of their life!).  On Allnurses.com there is a forum where a lot of nurses and students recommend the Uncalendar.  I'm fascinated!

Click on the following links to see my reviews of the Full-Size Uncalendar Lifestyle and Half-Size Uncalendar Lifestyle.

Click through to my post Secrets for Success to see why the Uncalendar system is so useful for setting and achieving goals.

What techniques do you like to use to help you figure out your goals and make a plan for achieving them?

Monthly Goals

Welcome to March!

This month I'm doing something new (to me): I'm writing out my goals for the month. I'm hoping that having a specific list of what I want to accomplish in March will help keep me on track.

While preparing my list of monthly goals I've been reviewing my goals that I set out for myself at the beginning of the year and deciding what I can focus on this month. It's also a great time to jettison any annual goals that are no longer relevant due to changes in circumstances.

I was inspired to do this by Charlie Gilkey's Monthly Action Planner. It has a great format for helping you think through your month, any events that will happen, and your actions for making it a great and productive month. (I also highly recommend signing up for Charlie's Newsletter on his website Productive Flourishing. He sends periodic emails that are motivational and positive. They are like a helping hand to get back on track. Thank you Charlie!)

Of course any kind of list of your monthly goals is more useful than nothing at all. Most importantly, your monthly goals list needs to be someplace where you can refer to it often enough to be useful, at a minimum of once per week when you are making your weekly plans. It's one thing to write your goals, but it's a whole other thing to put them into action.

Last week I busted out my personal Deco Filofax (and am Calling the Dog with it and my Minister weekly planner), because I have so much going on right now and even more coming up in the next several months. I updated my tabs (which you can read about in What I'm Currently Using, scroll down) and freshened-up my Goals section.

Now I put my current month's goals page right behind my Goals tab so I see it first every time I open that section. The next page is my Annual Goals/ New Year's Resolutions, to refer to easily when I'm making each month's goals list.

When the month is over, I'll write the month review on the back side of that month's Goals page. This will let me evaluate which goals I achieved, and which ones I still need to work on. From there I can write the following month's Goals page. I'll archive the old month's page behind my Annual Goals page and put the new month's Goals page in front. That way I'll keep a record of monthly goals throughout the year to see how I'm progressing toward those annual goals. And with my current month's goals in front, I have easy access to it all the time.

Do you make Monthly Goals? Where do you write them? (On a page in your planner? On a sticky note on your bathroom mirror? In reverse-writing on your forehead with a Sharpie so you can read it every time you look in the mirror?)

Secrets for Success

How are those New Year's resolutions going? You haven't given up on them already have you?? Just in case you need some direction, read on.

While I was in Scotland I read this excellent article by John von Radowitz in The Scotsman newspaper. In the article, Radowitz details what techniques do and don't work to help us reach our goals.

Psychologist Richard Wiseman (fitting name!) of the University of Hertfordshire studied 700 volunteers and compared techniques used by those who were successful or unsuccessful in achieving their goals. People who were unsuccessful used techniques that are commonly touted as being useful for helping people achieve their goals such as relying on willpower, fantasizing about being successful, and adopting role models. They also "tended to dwell on the bad things that would happen if they did not achieve their goal."

Professor Wiseman said, "Many of these ideas are frequently recommended by self-help experts but our results suggest that they simply don't work. Because of the widespread nature of this advice, millions of people will fail to achieve their aims."

Wow. So much for self-help books. No wonder people have to keep buying them!

So what does work? Here are some techniques Professor Wiseman has found in his study that are effective at helping people reach their goals:

1) Breaking goals down into small steps, then rewarding themselves when each stage has passed.

2) Telling friends about what they were trying to achieve.

3) Reminding themselves of the benefits of obtaining their goal.

4) Charting their progress.

Being a planner geek, the first thing I thought of was ways to use planners in this way to achieve goals.

There are a variety of planner styles and brands that would be very helpful in the above steps. Filofax and Uncalendar especially come to mind, because both of them have (or can be customized to have) the capacity for listing goals, breaking them down into weekly and daily tasks, and charting progress.

Filofax has accessories like tabbed dividers for giving your book designated sections for your goals. You can have an Exercise section. Or a section for a specific project you are working on. Or you can have an entire Filofax devoted to a specific purpose. There are also paper inserts that are perfect for charting progress such as quad-ruled pages, blank pages, lined, various colors etc. There are many ways to customize your book to fit your needs.

Uncalendar is engineered to help you set and achieve goals. This is where Uncalendar excels and stands out from the rest of the planner crowd. In the Goals section, you can set your goals and break them down into tasks. There are spaces on the weekly pages to write reminders of the benefits of achieving your goals. The book has motivational suggestions like rewarding yourself for reaching your benchmarks.

But #4, Charting Your Progress, is where Uncalendar really shines. There are many places throughout the book to chart and record your progress toward your goals. The weekly worksheet has a grid on which to record or chart data for the week (such as financial totals, daily weight or blood pressure measurements, miles run, inches lost, sales, whatever). In the Notes section there are plenty of graphs for more charting. In the Data section in the back of the book there are more graphs and tables for recording monthly totals or to chart progress. One grid that I especially like has 52 rows (for weekly records) and 12 columns (to record monthly totals).

Your planner can be a very useful tool for managing not only your appointments, but your entire life. How do you use your planner to help you reach your goals?