I am definitely a technology lover, but the smartest thing I did this year was get an actual pen and paper day planner, I don’t think I’ve had one since college.
Writing things down and opening the planner first thing in the morning has been amazing.
The particular planner I have is also designed to help you focus on long term goals. I haven’t quite succeeded yet, but the constant reminders are helpful. It’s one thing to focus on what I need to do today, but I think it’s also important to make sure you’re moving forward in life as well.
Yes. When I was promoted back in 2004, my boss recommended that I get one. I use a 8.5 x 5 one that has a page for each day. I carry it everywhere, and use it both for work and personal items. I just ordered my new one for 2020 last week.
Unfortunately, over the years they have reduced the options more and more as people switch to keeping everything on their phones. I worry about what will happen when the one I use isn’t available anymore, but for now I’m very happy being able to write everything down.
Mine isn’t specifically geared toward long-term goals, but the way I use it I am able to track everything I need to do on a short and long-term basis. It’s particularly good for helping with my poor short-term memory. Came up with a great idea? Heard a quote that I want to share? Suddenly realized that I need to buy dental floss? Write it down and it will be there when I need it.
I don’t but I envy you guys that do. I think I’d probably like it, but I can’t stand the idea of carrying something around like that (I don’t have a purse or a work bag/briefcase).
The best I can do is have my browser homepage set to my Google Calendar and check it out every day.
**SpoilerVirgin **I wonder if the trend of Bullet Journaling will help keep the paper journal industry alive?
Recently i got a lot more responsibility at work, so I began to use a basic one that was given to me as a promotional item. As time goes on, I may upgrade as I figure out what my real needs are.
Now the lady who sits next to me at work, her planner is her religion. She has sung its praises many times and described to me her journey in coming to complete planner nirvana. I seriously have to be careful when I’m talking to her to keep the topic from coming up.
I think there’s planner people and non-planner people. And if a planner makes you happy and feel more organized then by all means go for it. But I hate it when the planner folk try to make everyone a planner person.
In the mid nineties when the Steven Covey planners were popular our regional manager wanted every one of his managers to use the things. Some liked them and some, like myself, loathed the things. In the end the success of his employees depended little on who used one and who didn’t. There were still planner using managers who were completely unorganized crap performers and non-planner using manager who were big successes. And vice-versa.
Now days the extent of any planning activities I do are via my i-phone calendar for personal appointments or my Outlook calendar for work appointments.
I’ll never be seen carrying a physical day planner.
I’m the opposite of dalej42. This is the first year I’m *not *using a paper planner in decades. I finally got comfortable enough putting everything into Google Calendar that I don’t even bother backing it up on paper anymore. I did buy one back in December, like I always did, but I haven’t been using it.
Actually, the thing that finally got me to be comfortable relying on Google Calendar is that I discovered that I can put a calendar widget on my phone, filling one of the home screens, that shows me my month at a glance.
I don’t use a physical planner, and I don’t understand why anyone would. The OP says that using a planner is “amazing” but doesn’t explain what’s amazing about it. I see the advantages of using a software calendar as:
I always have my phone with me. I couldn’t always carry a physical planner in my pocket unless it were so tiny as to be practically useless.
I could lose or misplace my planner, but even if I lost my phone, my calendar would still be available on any computer.
A software calendar lets me easily search for past and future events based on keywords.
On a software calendar I can look at events that occurred years ago, while a physical planner is typically limited to one year. Thus in January your ability to look at even recent events is limited unless you carry both last year’s planner and this year’s planner.
If the time or date of an event changes, it’s trivial to move it in a software calendar. In a physical calendar I have to scribble out the old one and completely recopy it in the new time slot. And then it’s hard to put a new event in the old time slot because it’s already got writing on it.
A software calendar can produce alerts to remind me of upcoming events.
I have a friend who uses a physical planner and this conversation has happened more times than I can count:
Me: Hey guys, want to get together and do X next Tuesday?
Normal friends: (checking phones) Ok!
Planner friend: Maybe, I’ll have to check my planner when I get home. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Plus:[ul]
[li]Often someone will say, “Do you want to be at the ______ meeting next Tuesday morning?” and I say “yes,” so they can just include me on the invite, and it automatically sends the appointment, the exact time, the place etc, to my calendar.[/li][li]Same thing with Zoom meetings. I’m not going to say, “Hey can you tell me the URL for that meeting so I can write it in my planner.”[/li][li]As markn+ points out, meetings are easily rescheduled; moreover, if it’s a meeting belonging to another person, they can change the day or time, and the calendar will send me an email telling about that, as well as automatically change it for me. [/li][li]With electronic planners you can have separate calendars for different types of activities (i.e., one for classes, one for one job, one for another job, one for personal, etc.). If any of those have recurring events, you can have a template and copy them from week-to-week, without copying all the other types of events.[/li][li]A software calendar (if you have the right software), will integrate schedule events with tasks (“to-do” lists), which “roll-over” to the next day if you don’t do them. [/li][li]And I’ll repeat the point about the alerts. They can be emails, sound notifications, or even texts.[/li][li]With an electronic calendar, you can use day view, week view, month view, or a customized view of the next two, three, four or whatever days.[/li][/ul]I was never able to use a physical planner successfully because it was never handy when on-the-spot information needed to be added. With electronic calendars–synchronized to all your devices–you can use your phone for that, and then use a computer for the more global, systematic changes.
I always carry a big bag and have my planner with me at all times - also a Kindle Paperwhite and a headscarf, among other things.
I do worry about this. However, as mentioned, I started using a physical planner in 2004, and haven’t lost one yet.
It takes me only a few minutes to flip through the year and find something I’m looking for. It helps that I use my own symbols for different things, so they’re easy to identify.
For years, I saved all of my past planners for this reason. But I never found the need to look back, and I recently got rid of all but the past two years.
It’s trivial to scribble something out and replace it, and I rarely run out of room (if I do, I just put it on a blank space with a note telling me where to look for it)
I have alerts in the form of “Note: You have a dentist appointment on Friday” on Monday’s page.
As with many things, some people (especially younger people) are more comfortable with the technology, and some with paper. I also use a paper checkbook, and tons of paper lists, inventory logs, etc. Screens just seem far to ephemeral for me. There’s a comforting permanence and ease to paper that works for me.
And one more thing: For the long-term goals mentioned in the OP, you can use Google Keep, which now will appear with Google Calendar (on computers). You can keep various goal lists for each long-term goal and its various steps on the right side of the screen in Google Keep (or just open Google Keep separately), and plug in the next steps for the up-coming day, week, month etc. These can be easily added to, taken away, re-ordered, checked off. They can include URL links, sound files (voice notes taken while on the move, for example), etc. Considering that long-term goals are much more likely to have adjustments in scheduling and details, this is much more feasible for me to use than paper and pen in a physical planner.
It takes time to make a workable practice of these electronic systems, and they clearly aren’t for everyone, but until my life gets much simpler, I’m going to take electronic over pen-and-paper.
