Getting your life organized is not always the simplest task on this busy planet. However, once you find your way of efficient planning, I can promise you that it will make your life so much easier. Planners can help you organizing your tasks, appointments and all other aspects of your life. Journaling and/or planning daily is the foundation to guide, support and review your personal growth. But before we dive deeper into the benefits it can offer you, what different types there are to explore, and how to actually start with it, we first have to answer the next question. What is a daily planner now exactly?
What Is a Daily Planner? Take it Personal.
A daily planner is a tool that captures your daily appointments, your tasks and all other aspects in life that you find important to schedule. It can include a To-Do list, habit trackers, budget planners, meal plans, reviews etc. This tool exists in many different forms and can be used in different ways. You can choose to write things down or use digital planner apps, to do this on a daily or a weekly basis. A daily planner can even be a tool to set goals, plan accordingly and track your progress.
The most important thing about planning is that it fits YOUR needs. Some people have to write every single thing down and attach a time slot to every single task, in order to keep their life and mind organized. Others only need a schedule for their appointments. However, once you find a planning tool that suits you and your way of using it, the many benefits of planning will make your life way easier.
What are the benefits of planning?
There are many benefits arising from planning daily or weekly that simplifies and streamlines your life, and keeps you from being overwhelmed.
A Place To Store.
Our minds are not the right spot for storing things. So don’t try to keep your ideas, To-Do’s and schedule in your head. It will think One, Two, Three… a lot (error). A planning tool can avoid the situation where your mind keeps remembering things that you still have to do, over and over again. It gives you the opportunity to write everything down that comes up, on a big To-Do List or Idea List, so you can schedule it later. This makes your mind clear to actually do the things that matter in that moment, the things that you have planned, instead of getting distracted all the time.
As David Allen quoted: “Your Mind is For Having Ideas, Not Holding Them”
Taking Breaks To Plan, Wins You Time
Take a daily break to sit down and schedule those To-Do’s you have stored somewhere in your planner. Despite it might feel like you would be loosing time doing this, it will definitely make you more efficient and effective in the long run. It also creates that tiny bit of daily time for yourself. You can decide to journal about your day or be creative during this break by decorating your journal the way you like.
Better Time Management Results in More Productivity.
There is only a limited amount of time each day. By scheduling your daily tasks and appointments, you have an overview on how you will spend your day. You can see for yourself what is possible and find the most efficient way to manage your time. Having this daily plan in front of you can help to avoid wasting time and give a boost to improve your productivity. The key is to assign the right time slots to your tasks, so that you can accomplish it timely but don’t have too much space to lounge around. We include buffers for that.
Lower Your Stress Levels.
Storing To-Do’s in your planner instead of your mind and having the habit of scheduling your day or week, will get your mind at ease. The To-Do list can seem endlessly. We keep on adding stuff and keep on running after it to get it done. Planning the next day properly each evening and do the things you’ve planned the day before, assures you that you are productive and do whatever you can to get things done. The message is to write things down, do as you said so and let go of the rest. Your levels of daily stress will decline considerably.
Endless Health Benefits. Grow into a better version of yourself.
Going to bed with a mind that doesn’t have to remember everything and knows that the next day is planned as it is, will make you sleep better, resulting in a fresher mind the day after.
Other than sleep benefits, you can decide to improve every single aspect of your life. If you want to eat healthier or lose weight, you can include a meal plan in your planning tool. If you want to save some more money, then add a budget planner. You can apply this for every single thing you want to change or enhance. That is why a daily planner is such a strong tool to boost your personal growth.
Plan, Track and Review. Get Yourself in a Positive Spiral.
Taking this a step further, your daily planner cannot only be a place to store and schedule what you are going to do. You can use it as a tool to keep track of what you have done and even review yourself. If you see for yourself that you have worked productively and done every single task that you have planned, you will feel fulfilled and happy with yourself. This gives you that push to stay on track.
Same story with completing your habit trackers. If you wanted to read a book for half an hour before you go to sleep and you did, you’ll feel congruent with yourself. If you wanted to exercise 3 times that week and you did, you’ll feel energized and proud about yourself.
Those benefits of accomplishing things and feeling satisfied about what you are achieving, can push you further into a positive spiral of personal development.
Reach Your Goals.
When summing up all the benefits above, it is clear that planning daily can help you to reach your goals. Writing down those goals is the first step in order to know where you are heading. Plan your days in a way that you are working towards your goals. Last, but definitely not least, reviewing your plans and how you scored on it, informs you if you are actually working towards them and whether or not you have to change directions in order to reach your goals.
Different types of planners for different needs.
As all people are different, having different schedules, plans, goals, pace of living, of course there is a big difference in how people plan their days. An important aspect to actually benefit from planning and journaling is that it fits your needs. So the message here is to try some things out and change directions if you feel like it does not make your life easier.
Daily or Weekly
You can plan on a daily or weekly basis. Planning on a daily basis is writing down every single day what you are going to do the next day. You can take up a full page and add as many topics as you like for each day. For example, your top 3 To-Do’s, an hour-by-hour schedule, a quote etc. Planning on a weekly basis on the other hand, is putting up your schedule for the week so you create an overview of your goals and plan for the next 7 days.
Online or Offline
By now, there are many apps available that you can use to make your daily or weekly schedule. The benefit of this is that you can save time because typing is faster than writing and a lot of those tools help you be as efficient as possible. On the other hand, it is more difficult to adapt an app to your specific needs.
Approaching it more old school, you can also have a tangible planning tool. These give you more space to adapt your planning tool more specifically to your needs. The cost is that writing things down can request a bit more of your time. There are many different versions and formats available. For example, templates that you can print and sort as you like, there are journals in a form of a book that offer a blueprint for you to make your schedule. There is even a journal with just dots that offers you the space to create your very own planner. The latter is called a bullet journal and is my personal favorite because you can create the lay-out exactly as you want and add any aspect you need. You can change the structure of your journal whenever you wish.
Professional or Personal
You can decide to make a difference between your professional and personal time. Professionally, there are tools available where you can both schedule your own work and appointments/tasks within teams. This can be used from the time you start working until you put your work aside.
Personally, you can be as creative as you want. For example, some people just schedule To-Do’s and appointments each day. However, there is also the possibility to include habit trackers, meal plans, budget planners and so on. It can even be a place for you to journal or take time for self care. There are very specific planners available, such as gratitude and self care journals or travel planners. If you like to be creative in your journal, take the time to decorate it with whatever you like, such as drawings, washi tape, stickers…
Where To Start? With You.
I give you a few important aspects to take into account when you start with daily or weekly planning.
What Do You Find Important?
Before you choose or try out a planning tool, in whatever form, think about what you find important to keep track of. Is it just a daily To-Do List and appointment schedule you are looking for? Or do you want to include tracking your mood, diet, gratitude, budget or any other aspect? Do you want to write things down and be creative in your journal or spend the least time as possible and keep it quick, easy and clean? Do I want a daily or weekly overview? In short, what is your goal with using a planner?
Once you know what you want to include in your journal, you can start finding the right one for you.
Correct Time Management
One of the mistakes I made in the beginning was pushing too many To-Do’s on one day and not taking into account how much time it takes to finish each task. This made me feel like I didn’t work enough and gave me even more stress. When scheduling and attaching time slots to different tasks, you will be surprised about how much time some of these tasks actually take up. So keep in mind to be realistic about what you can do in one day. Assigning time slots is a trial and error process. As you automatically keep track of this, you’ll get better at estimating what you can do in a day everyday.
Include Buffers
When making a schedule, keep in mind that you need to include some flexibility. Expect chaos. Buffers can be used to finish a task that you weren’t able to finish in your estimated time slot or to take some time off if you’ve finished everything. It makes you able to stick to the initial schedule. The further forward you plan, the more buffers you need to include for other jobs that will come into between. In case you want to plan on a weekly basis, put in your appointments but don’t stuff those 7 days full straight away with other tasks because it will make you unable to handle the daily chaos that will come up.
Conclusion
Daily planning is something we all need these days to keep up with the pace the world is moving around us. The bare minimum is not to forget anything. However, taking your daily planning skills a step further, it is a powerful tool that provides health benefits and space for personal growth. Start off with finding a tool that fits, be realistic about what to achieve in what amount of time and plan your way to success. Stick to the plan but be flexible and adapt when you need or want to. Including reviewing yourself on a regularly basis can help you support and keep you focused to stay on track.
If you have any questions about weekly or daily planning, let me know in the comments below. As I have done quite some trial and error on this topic, I am more than happy to help you out.