Create your own Productivity Planner

Do you find yourself waking up with the best intentions to smash through your to do list but before you know it you are in the night hours, and you have not accomplished half of what’s on that list? If this is you, take heart, because;

It’s not you and you are not alone!

Now I am a huge believer in technology-based solutions for getting things done and bringing efficiencies to my day. But I equally know the validity of working with pen and paper. Did you know that putting pen to paper increases creativity problem solving skills and critical thinking? When you are struggling to solve a particular problem there is nothing better than grabbing paper and coloured pens, brain dumping and mapping it out.

That is why I have created a super practical, printable productivity planner for you.

Regardless of whether you are just getting started in business or have a dream of commencing a blog or a project, you will find it will work for you.

This planner has come from tried and true methods that I have used over the years to keep all the balls rolling. When I was teaching I used to create my own planner form scratch each year. I often thought it would be much easier to buy something custom made, but every year I would go back to my own DIY. Fast forward to life in corporate land, and though I am given the loveliest options around diaries, I still find myself reverting back to one I have made myself.

Inside the download you’ll find some ways to use each of the different styles of pages.

Your planner files are divided into the following sections.

My Day
My Week
My Month
My Meeting
My Project
My Idea
My Notes
My Sketches

All you need to do is think about how you like to work. If you find you need to plan all parts of your day, you are going to want the day pages. If you think that just a week- by-week snapshot will work for you, then download and print those.

Choose your favourite style, do the maths on how many you need and print them to suit. Run two businesses that you need a monthly plan for? – print two copies.

Do you like loose leaf or bound planners? The choice is yours. I used to always bind mine, but currently I’m also using it loose leafed.

Regardless of how you would like your planner to look and how many pages you want, the trick to boosting productivity is to actually use it.

Here are my top five steps to getting things done.

1. Schedule your list.

There is no point having a to do list if you don’t actually schedule the time for it to be completed. It will simply stay on the to do list. So schedule in line with your priority list.

2. Five minute rule.

If it can be completed in 5 minutes then do it now. This is so important as you then feel like you are making headway – because you are!

3. Do it once.

This relates to emails, phone calls, messages – any sort of communication, paper or electronic. If you have taken the time to open it and look at it, then deal with it straight away. If that is not possible, then mark it as read, schedule it, file it or delete it, but touch it once. Handling of communication multiple times is one of the biggest barriers to efficiency.

4. Go hard first.

Tackle the task you want to do the least or that is going to take you the most time and apply yourself to that first. This policy has been a standard recommendation to students of all ages for many, many years – because it works!

5. Stop multi- tasking.

It’s not time efficient. All it does is stop multiple tasks from being finished, rather than just one!

Use your productivity planner to accomplish what is important to you. Prioritise!