Unlocking the Power of the Tool We All Possess

Achieve Your Goals Faster With Its Help

The environment surrounding us exerts a great influence on our habits and behaviors, whether for the negative or the positive.

Seeking to change or improve while ignoring this fact may lead us to need more time, so making changes in our environment can be much more effective than simply relying on our willpower to improve in some aspect or to let go of some bad habit or behavior.

The Ally

Something external to our cerebral cortex (our center of decision-making and emotions in the brain) that can function very well as a behavior modulator is something that for some will be the combination of their things - a pen and a planner - and for others just one - an electronic planner. It will depend on where we feel most comfortable and secure to write and keep our commitments and thoughts.

The Relationship between the Planner and the Cerebral Cortex

The function of a planner is to organize and record appointments, tasks, and events to facilitate planning and time management. There is a relationship between the use of a planner and the cerebral cortex because the act of planning, remembering, and organizing information requires cognitive functions such as memory, attention, reasoning, and decision-making, all influenced by the cerebral cortex. Using a planner can help alleviate the cognitive load on the brain, allowing it to focus on other important tasks.

How to Use the Planner to Our Advantage

The planner is a facilitator, a reminder, and a means to an end. So, we need to first define the end, that is, what are our goals and their deadlines.

Long-term Planner (Annual, Semi-annual, or Quarterly)

A great idea is to think about the biggest goals we have, the bigger they are, the more time we will give them to be completed or achieved. Some work with goals for a year or six months. I prefer to work with goals for 3 months, as they are more flexible for me and I control each step better and how much I still need to walk towards the goal.

These goals will be our guides, that is, what we do daily, weekly, and monthly will be aligned with them. For this, we need to break them down into smaller goals.

Medium-term Planner (Monthly)

Here we define what we need to achieve each month to get closer to the bigger goals. For example, imagine we decided to lose 1kg in 6 months, in the first month, we can put in our monthly agenda things like looking for a gym near home, buying healthy food, and buying workout clothes.

Short to Very Short-term Planner (Weekly and Daily)

In the weekly planner, we divide the monthly goals into even smaller goals. Considering the example from the previous paragraph, in the four weeks that a month has, the goal for the first week can be just to find the gym near home, and in the second week it can be just to do the grocery shopping for healthy foods, in the third week the goal can be just to buy sneakers and some shorts and t-shirts for exercising.

In the daily planner, we further divide the goals. In the week when we need to do the shopping, if they don't sell everything in the same place, we can schedule to buy fruits and vegetables on Monday, buy supplements on Tuesday, plan menus on Wednesday, and so on.

However, there's a trap. What? Thinking that just having a planner will solve everything.

Some steps we can take to ensure that the planner actually has the expected effect:

Keep it close: hang it in your office or bedroom in a place where you can see it all the time. This will help us remember that we have commitments and things to do.

Do it: what we schedule daily may be the most important thing, the one we should not forget and the one we should do every day, after all, a long journey is made with several steps taken one at a time. And today is the only day that really exists and we have, so why waste it?

Cross-reference the physical planner with the electronic or digital planner or calendar: putting our deadlines or deadlines for a task, or event dates in our electronic agenda is very helpful, as, besides being more practical and convenient to carry a phone, it still has other benefits such as setting alarms which can be very useful to remind us of commitments. We can also save it in the cloud and retrieve it in case we lose the phone or our physical planner gets damaged.

With a planner, we give our brain the necessary rest to focus on more important things and not overload it. We also have a better view of our goals, objectives, and progress, and we feel in control. For satisfactory use, we don't need to be perfectionists and recognize that it's normal to fail at something or some day that was scheduled, the important thing is not to give up and continue acting and enjoying the benefits that something as simple as the planner can provide us.

Good journey, my friends!

Published and enjoyed by Annelise Lords.