A client asked me a question the other day, and truly, it's one of my favorite questions to answer with a client.
This client and I have worked together on organizing things for a long time, and that day, she shared that she is ready to step up her game. In addition to organizing things, she would like to boost her productivity and better manage her time. I said, “Oh, my productivity coach's heart just went pitter pat! Yes!! I would LOVE to work on that with you!”
In my time management and productivity programs, I remind my participants that we all need a planner. Just one and not many, but we NEED a planner.
She recognizes that she has a number of projects, mostly long term projects, that she needs to work on, in bits and pieces over time, and often many at once. And, she is ready to “get it together”, and I applaud her for that!
As we organized papers and items in her office, she asked me about a certain planner that she found on the internet, as one does these days. She showed it to me on her phone. She thinks this particular planner would help her move forward on her different project areas, and asked me for my insight.
As we chatted, I asked her to get specific. What are her current struggles with her current systems?
She uses a calendar, but needs more structure and space for planning and doing!
She wants just one place for her notes. She has too many places for the notes about the projects, or notes she takes during phone calls with her doctor, or notes from her conversation with the roofing companies. Sound familiar? We all do that sometimes, don’t we? Jot down a phone number or name on whatever piece of paper is handy and then we can’t find it again when we need it!
She wants to be able to sit down and get to work more quickly on these various projects instead of spending - well, wasting! - time trying to remember what the last steps were that she took, what the next steps are to take, etc.
She wants to be able to track her task completion to show progress to herself and others.
And obviously, wth these struggles, she feels stressed and overwhelmed. So, she wants to lessen her stress while making more consistent progress on getting things done.
As I said in last week’s productivity article, our brains are not meant to be our administrative assistants. (I think there is a future article on this topic!)
She talked me through why she thought this planner would work for her.
The planner shows a week at a glance.
The planner is undated, and completely personalize-able. My client would determine what’s on each page, what projects she wants to work on, etc.
There is space for more than one project per day and per page.
The planner is paper. She doesn’t want digital.
My client asked, as other clients have asked: “Do [I{ have a planner or brand that I recommend?” And, No. I do not.
However, I then stated, and here’s the secret: Any planner is better than no planner. Meaning, more importantly than which planner to use, just using a planner is better than not using a planner. This client uses a calendar and has done pretty well so far, but has come to realize she needs more. More tools, more structure, more space on the page! Any planner is better than no planner.
And here’s good news: we don’t have to get it right the first time. Our planner may be a plain ordinary blank notebook from OfficeMax to start. We don’t need to be complicated, friends.
We need a trusted vessel, right? (Thank you, David Allen in Getting Things Done!). We need a place - just ONE!! - to keep our to-do lists, our project notes, the contact information for our doctors and the roofer and our kids or siblings, and the ideas we have for Christmas presents this year. Like my client, we also likely have projects we want to make progress on. We want a vessel to hold the list of tasks needed to complete our project AND the actual to-do list and calendar to make those tasks happen.
As my client, and also you and I, are looking at planners, consider what features matter most to you:
Do you need a digital planner, a paper planner or a combination of the two?
Are you a person who needs prompts? As in, do you need a formatted planner page with reminders to plan your tasks, and dedicate time to each goal or focus area, or do you prefer blank space and empty lines?
Do you like a dated planner or an undated planner?
Some people thrive with a predated calendar, and there are many options out there! Personally, I do not like a pre-dated planner (As in, “Friday, January 1; Saturday, January 2”, etc.) Some days, I need 2 or 3 pages for ideas and meeting notes, etc., and some days I don’t use the planner pages at all.
Do you need a portable planner? Or does it live on your desk or on the kitchen wall for all to see? If it’s portable, how big does it need to be to fit in your bag?
Does your planner need to be aesthetically pleasing?
Do you like or need color coding, or seasonal photos?
Do you like daily motivational sayings?
Do you prefer special pens, stickers, stencils? Have fun!! I want that for you, and you should want it for yourself!
Yes, all of these questions matter, eventually. Maybe not with your first planner, but you may want to level up. You do you. And as you use your planner, you’ll discover more of what you do and don’t want in a planner. And that is a good thing.
Because here is another important point: Starting a new planner is a leap of faith.
Yes, we may know what we like or not, but we still have more to learn. Buying or starting to use a new planner is a leap of faith, and we can and are meant to learn from the experience. We can consider every new planner a tiny experiment.
I recently heard the term “Tiny Experiment” on a podcast I was listening to. The term was coined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of “Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World.” I have yet to read the book, but I love the idea. The point of tiny experiments is that learning from our experiences is the point, and we don’t have to get stuck on trying to be perfect, or in this case, finding the perfect planner the first time.
As a tiny experiment, we are gathering data about ourselves and how we use a planner. And I find that such a relief! Learning is the point! Hooray! And at this point in recording the draft content for this article, I realized that I like and recently sampled the planner from Intelligent Change that a client recommended because it was “life changing” (thank you DS!), but I did not like the dated pages. And, it turns out, they offer an undated form. And, yes, I have already ordered one!
The final question, which I think is the strongest indicator of success, is “What habits we need to incorporate to make this planner a useful tool?” Beautifully bound planner. Notebook. A really big calendar on the wall? Digital Planner. What you use is not nearly as important as if you use it and how you use it.
What are the habits that you're going to implement to actually make the planner a useful tool?
Where does it live?
How do you access it?
How often do you access it?
Who else needs access to it? (That is one reason I love digital planners, is the shareability)
For my client, as we discussed planners, she needs it to be portable because she plans to carry it around with her to make notes during phone calls and appointments since she gets frustrated with all those notes on small pieces of paper that get lost.
And, she will need to create the habit of keeping it with her at all times, or at least knowing where it is at all times, so she will need to establish a home for it when she isn’t using it, like in her purse, at her bedside, etc.
Using a planner also requires cultivating the habit of updating the planner. If and when my client doesn’t have her new planner with her, she will still need to take the time and move notes to the planner that may have been written on what was handy. Writing it twice is better than not writing it all or than losing it, even though that sounds like a hassle until the habit is strong.
Getting in the habit of inputting her information into the planner strengthens the tool, helps her track her progress, helps her remember where she stopped the work yesterday so she knows where to start today.
And, by the way - this is all of us.
Getting into the habit of using the planner, independent of paper or digital or anything else. Habit is habit. Paper or digital isn’t as important. A habit is a habit.
What did we learn?
In my time management and productivity programs, I remind my participants that we all need a planner. Just one, and not many, but we NEED a planner.
The first step is awareness. In this case, the awareness that things are NOT going as well as we would like, and also that there IS a better way to do things.
Identify what isn’t working and what we would like to achieve.
Next level, from your productivity coach: Why undertake this change now? What does success look like, and / or How will we know when we have succeeded?
Identity preferences.
Don’t get stuck on perfectionism. Trying a new planner, working on a new skill - these can be tiny experiments to collect data on what works for you! That relieves the pressure of getting things RIGHT right away!
Finally, and perhaps I should have started with this one, identify and then create the habits around using and maintaining the planner. These are more important than the choice of what type or what it looks like!
