Our Planner kit contains three items.
- Weekly Planner
- Daily Planner
- Week In Review
Filling them out in this order works well. The first time you use them, I recommend you start a day or two before your workweek starts. Sunday night works for many of my clients.
Weekly Planner
How it works.
The basic concept of the weekly planner is to gather ideas and divide them into two areas. Goal Related and Maintenance (Status Quo).
Ask yourself two questions…
What do I absolutely have to do next week?
What do I need to do to advance my goals next week?
Both of these can be worded differently and sometimes you’ll want get more specific. Overall, you want to know what has to be done, or suffer the consequences (ie pay bills or get late fees) and what needs to be done to further your short and long term goals (ie plan for an upcoming marathon) . Using the word “absolutely,” may help you weed out urgent but unimportant tasks. Prioritizing your short and long term goals will help you break them down into action steps.
On the planner sheet, these questions are answered at the top.
Once you have your tasks and maintenance items filled in, you can add them to your daily boxes. Next to the subject area is a small box for allotted time and a small square box to check off the item when completed.
This is what a day may look like with maintenance and goal planning items. Notice the time to complete and the filled in check-box.
The overall sheet looks like this.
Open the PDF version here. Weekly Goal Planner PDF
How to Use: I recommend that you set aside at least a half hour on the weekend to plan out the upcoming week. Saturday mornings work well if you just finished a busy week, and have ideas fresh in your mind. If you close out your week, and want to set aside planning activities, Sunday evenings are usually best. List out your must do items in the top box along with your goal related items in the goal planning box. Once you have your items thought out, insert them into the appropriate day of the week for completion. You add suggested times for completion and check them off when completed. If plans change, it’s easy to move things around. This weekly planner ties with our Top 6 Daily Planner. Just print up a fresh sheet each day and copy your items over from your weekly planner at the beginning of the day. Sort them by priority. Create a next action to-do list.
Top 6 Daily Planner instructions and free download here.
Daily Planner
Taking some of the best strategies from popular time management systems, we combined them together into a one sheet Daily Planner.
This printable daily planner sheet is quick to use and has places for all of your daily activities.
The Printable Daily Planner Includes..
1. The Top Six Daily Priority Boxes
2. Sidebar Boxes for Email, Phone Calls, Meetings, and Planning
3. A Step by Step To-Do list
4. A Place for Daily Goal Planning
5. A Place to Capture After Hour Activities
Here is how it works…
A good way to use the sheet is to print a new one each morning. Then take a pen and write down your top priorities for the day. Sometimes, you may only have a few and sometimes you’ll fill in all six. Under each priority, you may want to jot down a next-action.
As you open email and throughout the day, write down people that you need to email back in the email section. Do the same thing with voicemail and phone calls. Write down any meetings or appointments in the meeting box.
Once you have the basic information filled out, create a simple to do list. It’s real easy to do when you have your top priorities right in front of you. With the next actions listed, it’s easy to get started.
Strategies For Setting Priorities.
1. Ask yourself six things that you want/must to get done by the end of the day. Make sure they are truly important, not just urgent.
2. If you are a motivated type person, list your hardest task first. The rest of the day will just get easier.
3. If you find it hard to get going, list an easy task first. Do it first thing. This will get you moving and make it easy to check off your first box.
4. Check off your priorities as you complete them. This will motivate you to go on.
4. List your after work activities like exercise in the after hours box.
At the end of each day, store your printable daily planner sheet in a three ring notebook. As the days go by, this will create a daily journal of your activities that you can easily refer back to.
UPDATE!
Our popular daily planner has a great new feature.
This change is subtle but powerful.
Our top six priority boxes now have a check box in each.
When you have accomplished a task you now have a place TO CHECK IT OFF!
This simple box will empower you through the day. Each time you see a task, the checkbox will call you to action. Task after task will be accomplished. These little boxes will prompt you to fill them in on a timely basis.
Your productivity will soar!
But that isn’t the best thing. When you get all six checkboxes filled in, you can go to the top of the document, where all the world can see, and click the WIN Checkbox!
You have WON the day!
You can fire up We are the Champions and dance around your desk.
You have done something so remarkable that it is worth celebrating.
You have completed all of your top six tasks for the day!
Finally an answer to the question: How To Get Things Done!
Everyone loves to win!
You can do this!
Bonus:We’ve also added a daily diet tracker to the bottom. If you are counting calories, carbs, or weight-watcher points, you can track them here and WIN again!
Power Users: To get the most out of this planner be sure