LIFESTYLE|CULTURE

Use A Planner If You Want Help Getting (and Keeping) Your Shit Together

It’s only been 5 days since my last planner ended and I already feel a bit adrift without it

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping my eye out for a new planner, but I’ve yet to come across one that I like.

Now it’s to the point where I don’t even care what it looks like- I NEED a planner as soon as possible and will get whatever I find as soon as I find one.

Something similar happened last year when I bought the one shown in the photo below.

I was living in England when I came across this little guy in a store for a little more than a dollar.

It was lightweight and small, which I loved, but it didn’t have a monthly overview, which I really like to have.

I bought it in late October and it didn’t start until January, so I created my own grid for November and December.

Here’s December:

I wrote the days of the week in German to help me learn them.

Some people are methodical about using colored pens, but I like to use different colors because they look prettier and it helps me to differentiate multiple items on the same page or square.

I circle things to help place importance on them if I didn’t do them on the planned day. Squares help certain information stand out to me when I want to go back and look at them. I’m not strict about this either.

For example, I circled “Period 10pm” so that it stands out when I want to count ahead to see when my next one is due.

The arrow in the above photo means that I got the date of my friend’s birthday wrong and drew an arrow to point to the correct date.

One of the reasons I save some of my planners, like this one, is so that I can reference it for future information, such as birthdays and story ideas.

When I started writing daily on Medium on September 23rd, 2021, I started writing down ideas for stories on blank parts of earlier pages in my planner.

I didn’t want to think too hard on any given day as to what I would write.

Its funny and awesome to look back at this page and see some of the stories that I wrote that I had written down as well as ones that I forgot about that I’d still like to write.

Here’s another example of something similar that I wrote in the last few pages of this planner:

It shows multiple lists.

• Things I wanted to do in general
• Things I needed to do as soon as possible
• Mentors (rated from 1–8)
• Short-term goals
• Long-term goals

And that’s just the top half of 2 short pages?!

The bottom half of those pages are filled with more personal feelings about doubts and insecurities I had.

Even though I keep a journal and write in it regularly (the story linked above is about the benefits of that), having a paper planner to jot down goals, ideas, numbers, sentences or words is a necessity for me.

If you look in the first photo from this story, you’ll see some words in German that I jotted down during a phone call with one of the people with whom I do a language exchange. She helps me with German and I help her with her English.

It took me a minute to remember why I wrote the 2 sentences, “I don’t know about all that space,” and “There’s just so much space.”

Then I saw the date and realized that it was around the time that the Medium Writers Challenge contest submissions were due. One of the prompts was “Space”. Those were a couple of ideas I had for titles.

Apparently, near the close of July, I was curious to know how many, and which, books I read over the past year.

It’s nice to see this list now. It motivates me to read more books again.

I’ve really slacked with reading books, and intentionally working to improve in German, after I started writing daily on Medium.

Going through my planner also shows me how much I’ve done and have grown over the past year.

This little planner helped me get through a sudden 3 month lock down in the U.K., 16 days in Ireland (9 spent in quarantine), 3 months in Italy, 3 months in Croatia and 3 months in Germany.

I don’t know how many Covid PCR and rapid antigen tests I’ve taken throughout 2021. I lost track.

I’ve yet to contract COVID-19 though.

I use it to help me remember what I’ve done on certain days, especially when exploring new places where my partner or I might want to return.

It’s also quite handy when it comes to keeping track of or breaking down expenses.

Of course I know that I can do all of these with my cell phone or laptop as well- and I do, to some degree.

I use “voice memos” to record and help me remember song melodies or quickly get out ideas that I don’t want to forget while I’m on a walk.

I also use the “Notes” app to keep lists for groceries and household items, as well as things that I simply want to jot down without looking for or taking out my planner.

It’s this combination of things that I have found work for ME.

It’s extremely valuable for you to find what works for YOU.

The point is, having SOME kind of planning method tends to WORK in terms of getting and KEEPING people’s shit together.

There Are a Multitude of Health Benefits

As you might imagine, planners help you stay healthy in a wide range of ways. It helps your physical health by helping you track things like diet and exercise, you can schedule regular doctor and dentist appointments, and make sure you are getting enough fresh air and vitamin D by scheduling days spent outdoors. You get mental health benefits by reducing stress and anxiety, and even having journaling pages for when you just need a good brain dump.

However, one thing that I started in October, but will discontinue doing from now on is keeping track of my views and earnings on Medium in my planner.

It was interesting to see the fluctuations in performance of stories, especially my Top 6, but it doesn’t serve much of a purpose any longer.

I already wrote my last article for a while that has to do with my earnings and it’s taking up more head and page space than I’d like it to occupy any longer.

My partner and I wanted to know how much we were spending on food and alcohol for 2 straight months, so I recorded that in my planner as well.

It helped us see where our splurges were and how we were doing in terms of our spending since it always changes when we move from country to country.

So now you have plenty of wonderful reasons, with proof, to get and USE a planner.

I’m not the type who likes to plan every hour of my day or week, but it really helps to have an overview and good strategy as to how I can and will accomplish all the tasks that I tend to set before me.

Here are more stories of mine that might be of interest to you:

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