5 things you should do to make your daily planner effective

We have all been through that planner making phase where we go out to buy one, decorate the first couple of pages, and then forget about it. Sure, the idea of a daily planner is exciting. We hear it mentioned all the time, in movies, books, TV shows and of course, by motivational speakers. Most of us start it to get our life in tract and manage time better, but the planner ends up sitting in a corner and gathering dust.

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You spend a lot of time creating the ‘perfect planner’, organising your thoughts and plans in its clean, crisp pages, wondering whether to use bullets or just stick with numbering. We start and then we stop, but there is more to these handy little planners. It might come as a surprise for some, but these planners can actually prove to be effective if done the right way.

Here are a few tips and tricks to make your daily planner effective:

Use a single planner

Many people have the habit of keeping separate planners for business and personal use. But if you want to save yourself from creating a big mess, make one planner and use it for all different purposes. Writing everything down twice and in two different planners can be confusing and you might be tempted to give up.

Be consistent

Maintaining a planner is much like trying to lose weight – you have to be consistent and keep at it. It’s not called ‘daily planner’ for nothing. Make it a habit to carry your planner around to find out about the next upcoming task. Keep at a spot that is easily accessible so that you can glance at it from time to time. It might seem like a tough job in the beginning, but it’ll all fall into place once you’ve intimated yourself with it.

Write EVERYTHING down

Do not skip an event and write down the others just because it looks more important. By everything, I really do mean everything, be it parties, appointments, dinners, events, trips, meeting or anything else. Do not skip a single detail when it comes to filling up the pages of your planner. Doing this helps you keep the focus in one place and allows you to make something happen.

Check it off

A shout out to all the planner addicts out there, there is nothing more satisfactory than marking things off of the list. As you take on each day, checking off the tasks that have already been done will inculcate a sense of accomplishment and make you feel worthy. It comes as a big motivator when you see yourself finishing the tasks that you had planned at the start of the day. Doing this has another perk, since it’ll always keep you on track and you can go back to those unfinished deeds whenever you have the littlest time.

Being realistic

With a planner in hand, you will be tempted to set unrealistic goals for yourself, setting unreasonable feats that you possibly cannot accomplish in a day which will leave you with an ill feeling about planner altogether. Do not over-schedule the daily tasks, instead, start with realistic time frames that you think is achievable and build on that.

These tips can and will help you to go about on your journey of using a daily planner effectively. Daily planners are a fun way of getting your tasks prioritised, and it really prove to be time effective.