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Each of us wishes to be more productive in our day-to-day life. There are only 24 hours in a day, and during those hours you must schedule sleep time as well. It’s not easy trying to be more organized to boost productivity in your day to day life. With these 5 quick tips for using planners, you will be able to refresh your motivations and maintain your planning habits.
5 Tips for Using Planners
Combine Digital and Paper Planners
It is much easier to work on planners in modern days. You might be a pen-and-paper person who has little time to access a more complicated application on your laptop or handphone. I still urge you to use your timer or alarm on your mobile phone to manage your written to-do list in your paper planner.
If you can use more than an alarm clock on your mobile phone, there are a lot of applications you can use as a digital planner with support functions and features from your paper planners. Some digital planners I used:
Trello
I used Trello in the past because it is free and simple. After using it for several years, I feel it doesn’t accommodate my need anymore. It has more limits in its features.
Plutio
Plutio is another project management software I have used for my virtual assistant business. It fit well for me in many ways. However, when my focus in career changed, I changed to more suitable tools.
MeisterTask and MindMeister
When I need more works to use brainstorming activity. I love using this pair of tools to work on resetting my business and personal life. I brainstorm a lot with Mindmeister and put all the action plan from brainstorm in Meistertask
Airtable
Now that I need more database functions, I use Airtable to work mostly as my whole business and personal tools
Coschedule
This year I also use Coschedule to work on my blog content planner as I reviewed here.
I use the digital planners for main goal setting and any strategy to reach them. I use the paper planners for recording and taking practical actions of several planners and goals.
Set Goals
Setting your goals will usually take the longest time for me because it demands a great commitment to achieve them. Goals are my responsibilities to take for others and for myself psychologically. Goal setting doesn’t have to be in the beginning of the year or a certain period of time. It can start anytime as long as you are committed to work on it. Here are some simple steps to follow:
- Set up categories for your goals. They can be career, finance, marriage, parenting, personal, and health. They depend on what you are concerned about.
- On each of the categories, list some achievements you want to reach and give scores or stars on each based on the urgency, importance, and pleasance each might bring when you achieve.
- Choose the most important goals for you overall. It is the ones that you really want to work on. The scores or stars can help you as well. Remember! The goals are your responsibilities. The principle of SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based) goals will work well.
- Classify your goals into either habits or achievements. Track each of them. You can track habits goals with the habit-trackers with a list of strategies to maintain.
- Break your achievement goals into smaller steps to make them easier to achieve. In other words, you need to have action plans to achieve the goals. Set them for the week, month, and year. Give due dates for you to track the steps.
- Write your goals in the front of your planner, so that you can be sure to focus on your goals regularly.
Setting goals is a huge productivity boost as it gives you something to work towards and achieve throughout the week and month all year round. You will really need to follow this quick tip for using planners to achieve the best you desire in the end.
Use your Planner for Everything
Most of us focus on using a planner to organize our homeschool or workday, but you can use a planner in so many other ways. Start the habit of using your planner to organize your entire day. Start with the household chores, homeschooling tasks, work tasks and anything else that you do in the day. Keep these notes based on a time block each day so that you have your entire week planned out in your organizer to properly boost productivity.
I have several planners to combine in my daily planner. Check out some types of planners I have to use selectively based on my need and necessities. Check out my Ultimate Life Planner Lifetime Membership
Use Different Colors and Fonts
Are you a visual learner? Most people are visual learners. Here is another quick tip for using planners to boost your productivity. Create your own color code legend for your yearly, weekly and daily planners so that you have household, homeschool, and personal tasks written in a specific font or color. This will ensure you’re able to boost productivity as you can focus on specific tasks based on whatever color or font that they are in. Having a different font and color for each task category will ensure you focus on specific tasks at the right time that you laid out in your planner to boost productivity. The visual display will work well and better for you.
Decorate your Planner
There’s nothing worse than having a drab planner or organizer. If you find that colorful designs boost your mind to be more productive then decorate your planner. Make your planner organizer look appealing to you so that it doesn’t feel like a mundane task looking at your planner throughout the day and week when you’re getting stuff done. Certain colors can help you feel more motivated which in turn will naturally boost your productivity level.
We have several designs in the Ultimate Life Planner Lifetime Membership. Some designs have colors, but the others are just plain for users to decorate with visual tools, such as:
These 5 tips for using a planner to boost productivity will set you off on the right path to ensure you’re using your planner or organizer to the best of your abilities. Having a planner to organize your entire week, month and year is a fabulous and easy way to stay organized while boosting productivity.
If you like these quick tips for using planners, you will need to check out:
- How to Work From Home and Homeschool Your Children
- 10 Powerful Time Management Tips for the Overwhelmed Mom
- How do I start Reading More?
- 5 Productivity Tips when You’re Not Motivated
- 10 Businesses Homeschool Moms Can Start to Make Extra Money
- Simple Ways to Stop Procrastination
- Keep A Well Balanced Juggle of Homeschooling and Blogging
