Using My Planner To It’s Full Capability
If you are a planner user like me, you might be congratulating yourself on using it to maximize your time and productivity. Congratulations are in order, especially if it helps to make you feel more organized and prepared.
But, have you ever stopped to wonder if there are more or even better ways to use your planner? This is the question I asked myself the other day while I was reading the book, “The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management” by Hyrum Smith, one of the original creators of the Franklin Day Planner system.
So, as a planner, I go about my day, completing the tasks I’ve set out for myself the night before. I usually reference my planner a few times a day as needed. I cross off my tasks as I complete them and I try to complete my tasks in the order of the importance I’ve assigned them.
However…as I’ve been reading Hyrum’s book, I’ve come to the realization that there’s a lot more I could be doing to use my planner even more effectively than I’ve already been doing.
These things are specific to the Franklin Covey planning system, but you can adapt them for use in your own planner as well.
Turning my daily tasks into a prioritized daily task list.
Currently, I write down my tasks in the order I want to complete them. I begin with my morning routine, and go from there. While this might work for the majority of my daily tasks, there are inevitably things that come up throughout the day that need to be written at the bottom, and they might need to be completed in a different sequence than that. So, going forward, I would like to use the prioritization system that Franklin Covey provides - the A,B,C, …1,2,3 system. All my tasks that must be completed that day would be A’s, the shoulds would be B’s and the nice tos are C’s. If there are more than one A, B, or C, you label them with consecutive numbers in order.
Honestly, this seems so simple and it’s already built into my system, so why am I not using it? Well, I’m a little lazy when it comes to labeling my tasks. Another reason is because sometimes I’m not sure exactly which tasks are more important than others. Generally, the money maker tasks are more important (but not always).
In my case, I have different day themes I complete on each day. Monday is journaling, Tuesday is writing my blog, Wednesday is sticker and charm design, Thursday is filming my Plan With Me. and Friday is filming my Planner Perfect weekly setup along with makeup videos. Those things would technically be the most important task for that day and would be an A. But, if a doctor appointment comes up, that would be the most important task. If I choose a Thursday to play with my kids, my video and my kids are both important, but I would do the video first (since I make it a habit to wake up at 5:00 am in order to have the quiet time to do the video in the first place).
2. Using the daily notes pages as they’re meant to be used.
Currently, I use my daily notes pages to remind me of an upcoming task for a day in the current month. (I only keep one month at a time in my planner). I don’t like writing anything on my task list until the day before.
I use the day on two page which is the most convenient for me. I don’t always use all the pages, but I miss them if they’re not there.
If, for example you have a phone call and you need to record important information, you can use that note page to record the info. Then you know what date it’s on. If for example you make an appointment for a future date, you can record it on the proper date and then write beside it the day you took the phone call. When it comes time for the appointment, you can go back to the original date and reference any important info you wrote there.
I can see a few problems with this. Whether you keep one month or three in your planner at any given time, if the appointment is outside of that range you would need to be home to access your older planner pages. In this case, I would make a note for myself in my inbox, or just write down all the relevant information on the date of the actual appointment.
3. Using the index pages and coordinating with the notes pages.
I keep trying to remind myself to note important dates or information on these index pages, and I never do it. I’m going to have to update my daily planning routine on my task card and start following it again so that I remember. I think it’s important when you’re in the middle of your planning session (whether that’s the night before like me, or the morning of), to read through your previous day and see whether any of the information belongs somewhere else in your planner. (You might have made an appointment yesterday and now you can add it to your monthly calendar).
These are things I want to incorporate more fully into my planning routine. If you use Franklin Planner, do you do these things consistently?
Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
Sandra
