5 Lessons I'm Learning Using a Planner

It's a week. Calm down, Walsh.. But... It's a week. In a row. Of using the planner. I don't want to say that I've hit a new personal best on streaks on writing a plan for the next day, staying in as best I can, and following up on the planner at the end of the day - but... Well, I have...

My Planner

I use the Full Focus Planner from Full Focus . It works for me. You have a page for the day, tasks to do, a "big 3" task list each day a calendar, and a facing page for notes or summary. Plus, goals at the start (like tracking using your planner each day!), a weekly planner page, and a few other features. It works for me. Is it perfect? Nope. But I don't know if a perfect one exists.

What I'm Learning

1. I need this. It's clarity. Focus and is really helping me stay intentional with goals and tasks. That's the most important lesson. I'm even sending someone a picture of my page each day for accountability (actually two people - it's that important - I can't have someone miss accountability opportunities ;-) ) The act of writing things down is super helpful to the scattered brain I have.
2. There are more tasks than time in the day. Using a master task list to sweep things to and then forwarding tasks for a day or two before asking, "Is this important? should I be doing this? Should I do it later?" Even still - as I fill the calendar in and the tasks in - I am probably doing more time than I ought to do with some things and I need to start working on my delegation and "no" skills - but I am learning what I can do in a day, what I can't - and that is helping me prioritize.
3. Grace is huge! I am keeping myself accountable - but giving grace to say "not today" is freeing up head space and taking away some pressure on me (from me) which (ironically) frees me up to get more stuff done. Some days the Big 3 is all I focused on and some days I just half do one of them. It's okay. I can write in tomorrow's day too.
4. Delegation is best when I schedule a follow-up - This one is huge! I am weird about delegation - way better than ever (see my video post today about Extreme Ownership and the chapter that changed me.). But I still stink at it - because then I have an "open loop" in my brain. That loop apparently was easy to solve - I figure out when I think it should be done or I should do a follow up - and I write that in the planner on that day as a task or schedule it.

I am sure there will be more as time drags on (and I hope time drags on and this is a new lifestyle not a flash pan habit - I have started doing this so many times before but never with as much "addictive deliberation and intentionality" as I am today. It's changing things.I'm doing what matters more. I'm making time for follow-up. I'm ghosting folks less. And I'm getting things accomplished. (And delegating more.)

Is a planner right for you? Who knows - but maybe it's worth a shot.