Keeping track one’s schedule is one of the hardest things to do. Most people have no idea where to start. My best advice is to just start.
Most people can’t count how many times they’ve started and stopped trying to organize their time.
A major mistake people make is getting frustrated when they fail to keep up. They get discouraged and they just quit. The key is restart whenever you find you have lapsed in keeping up with your scheduling. You don’t fail when you lapse, you fail when you quit.
So this is the plan. This year, you will not wait until some arbitrary date like the start of the next month to start creating and sticking to organizing your schedule. If you find that you have been lax, you won’t give yourself until a new arbitrary date to restart.
You will start organizing your schedule immediately. Then, if you realize you have forgotten to keep up with your schedule, you will immediately resume scheduling. You will not count how many times you forgot, you will track how successful you are. With my planners, I include goal trackers. Use the goal trackers to mark every time you keep track of your planner. If you get progressively better each month, congratulate yourself.
“So I’m excited to start using a planner. Do you start with a paper planner? A digital planner? Both?”
Great question. Use both. I use several.
I have a digital planner on my tablet that I use to plan out my days and to scribble ideas. I also keep all of my passwords in it.
I have a paper planner where I also keep passwords as well as my longterm plan for my businesses, sketches, etc.
I use phone calendars because they sync over all of my devices and that calendar automatically sends me notifications and alerts.
I keep a dry erase family calendar on the wall of the kitchen. It includes appointments that the whole family needs to know. I have another calendar for our AirBnB bookings. They are right next to each other. I don’t combine them because the calendar would become too cluttered.
All of this may seem a lot and overwhelming but it all boils down to: Write everything down and keep track of what you have written down. For a more detailed explanation with pictures of how to use different calendars, buy my librito.
To purchase one of my calendars or planners, visit my store.