Have you ever bought a daily planner and thought to yourself, “That’s it! It’s time for me to get organized! This is just what I need to manage my time better!”
…and then a month later you find it buried under the pile of papers on your desk?
Don’t feel bad. It really does happen to the best of us! And the worst for that matter.
| Moleskine Daily Planner 12 Months Hard Black Cover Large |
 |
Overall Rating: |
| Retail Price: $20.95 |
| Amazon Price: $99.99 |
The thing is that using a daily planner isn’t as simple as it sounds. The trick is that you need to plan to do your planning in advance. Writing it in as it happens doesn’t help. You need to set aside some time in your day to plan out the upcoming day so that you have something to work with.
Managing you time isn’t something that you can do sporadically. You need to work at it on a regular basis and you should set aside a time every day to do it. It can be in the morning before your day gets started (preferably before you even leave the house) or the evening before. If you make time every day to plan you’ll find that your daily planner will be much more efficient!
At the very least your planner should have a space for a to-do list and a space to schedule events by the hour. A notes section will give you space to write down things you need to remember in the future or extra details about events.
First write out your to-do list and then prioritize it. If you just have a big list of 20 things it can be pretty intimidating when you see that you have not gotten them all done at the end of the day. Set the most important things – the things that absolutely must get done that day – as your A priorities. The things that you should get done but can wait until tomorrow if they have to are B priorities. Finally, the C priorities are the things that you have some time on but can get moving on if you finish your A and B priorities for the day.
After your to-do list is done, schedule any appointments that aren’t already scheduled. You can use your hourly schedule weeks or even months in advance, as well.
{ 1 comment }
