Organize Your Life Using a Paper Planner
With the smart phones, tablets and laptops and available to us nowadays, you’d think the human race would have figured out a decent way to keep ourselves organized on a day-to-day basis. If your life is chaos and you feel like there’s no time to get everything done in a day, it might be time to organize your life with a planner. And I don’t mean those little calendar and to-do list apps that you use for like a week and then delete because the notifications got too annoying. No, I mean hitching a ride on the next DeLorean and hopping back in time (or just, you know, going to Staples or Amazon) and getting an actual Paper Planner.
Organize Your Life Using a Paper Planner
The first step is to decide what type of planner you’d like. Do you want your days vertical or horizontal? Would you like your week to start on Sunday or Monday? Do you need a lot of writing space or just a little? Would you like something to sit on your desk, carry with you on the go, or that fits in your pocket? Do you want something simple, or one of those leather-bound ones that you can, no joke, order custom inserts for? (I’m serious…the planner community isn’t messing around, guys.) And don’t forget the most important thing: What color are you going to choose??
Once you have determined which planner is right for you, it’s time to write down everything that you do each week on a separate piece of paper and get your days organized. Â Some things you will notice that you do every week or every day while others will be on your daily to do list.
It’s ultimately up to you to figure out a plan that works best for you, but here are some tips that might help you:
- Use a color-coded system. Have one color for all personal things, another for each of your children’s activities, one for appointments, etc.
- Keep Post-it notes on each day for the next week to jot things down before writing it permanently on the page to avoid confusion if things change.
- Always be sure to make each days to do list actually do-able so that you aren’t overwhelmed!
Fancy apps might work for some people, but if you just want to live in a world free from yet another thing to keep track of on your phone and push notifications trying to hard sell you the paid version, then getting a good old fashioned paper planner might be the solution for you!
I like this Planner system a lot: PlannerPads.com (https://plannerpads.com/why-it-works). I’ve used it for probably the last 3 years (since having a kid!). It does all the points you mentioned – area to get all the to-dos on the table, then prioritize them, then schedule into each day. No post it notes cause there’s room in the side column notes for that. They have an electronic version, but like you said, I like having “paper” and checking things off. Best planning system I’ve used. They regularly offer discount codes too.