Starting To Plan Functionally

Have you ever been in that place where you need to keep your life organized, I mean all of it; work, school, chores etc because 

you know that is one sure way of getting ahead if things need to turn out better for you, yet you wonder how to even begin? You are not alone. A lot of people have this same problem, unless of course those who are natural planners.

There is this feeling of intimidation that one could experience just to begin to put pen to paper. There is the tendency to think that since you are not a natural planner, there is no point even trying because you see yourself failing and failing again every time you decide to start at it. The trick is in seeing everyday as the first day of January. You know, the day most people make new resolutions that they do not keep? Yes that day. This means that no matter how many times you may fail at starting to keep your life organized, always start afresh tomorrow or next week maximum. Never decide to give up totally. This is because with every effort you make, you are actually gradually getting better at it.

A lot of people used to think that planning was to be left to the professionals, until of course recently when the world has seen an interesting progression of different planner addicts showing off their stuff in as little as notebook jottings that still serve the purpose of keeping in line with tasks geared towards productivity.

These days, planning has been revolutionized to become a real fun activity. Something to look forward to. This is good too because it takes the edge out of plain old boring planning.

Anything you set your mind to attain, that you take note of and set different actions that you need to take to see that that goal is achieved, is planning on its own already! The name might sound intimidating but should not be at all. So long as you note down your intention or desire or aspiration (whatever name you choose to give to it), and then also note or jot down all the different small actions involved in making that intention a reality, you have already mapped out a plan. As simple as that! Yes, well even I used to see planning as complicated at some point in my life too. Don't judge me.

The idea of planning is basically borne out of the desire to meet goals or targets in an organized and timely manner. Whatever you need to or want to do requires certain steps to it for instance, if you would like to visit a zoo in another town or city maybe as a working class person, you do not just up and leave your job to visit the zoo. You would want to take a look at the series of activities that you are aware that are lined up and probably require your attention at work before choosing a free day or days to make that trip. That is one step or action. Another would be to see if you have sufficient funds to make that trip. If you do, you would want to decide how you would lodge or where you would stay if it would be a visit of more than a day.You would want to check to confirm that there are still available accommodations. If all checks, you would then move on to choose and book for your means of travelling, either by air or land etc and see if there are still seats left. You want to research some more to see if there are other sights you could enjoy while on this visit and how to go about those too. You then need to make a leave request to your office if it will be during the work week. After you get your office's approval, you can then go on to make payments for your reserved accommodation and transportation. Anyway, this is just a rough idea of how a goal is set and how to arrange sets of activities to meet that goal. The steps listed above may not be in the order in which you would list yours and there are possibly other steps you would add to these to make a complete plan but, I expect that by now you get the gist.

Anything you want to do whether it be going grocery shopping, going to work, reading a book and so on requires some form of planning. You do not just get up from your bed to go to work or go shopping etc. There are little things to do before you get to that point each day such as brushing your teeth, taking a bathe, probably eating and a few other actions before leaving the house. It is left to you to put together the actions you would need to take to achieve that goal or intent.

Now you do not necessarily need to note down steps like brush your teeth, take a bath and so on because, unless you come from another planet, those are unwritten rules that we would normally observe each day. But, hey it is still your choice to make right?

Now what all these point to is the fact that as you act on these little steps as you progress to your actual or main goal, that is, as you carry out these little tasks, you are already following a plan. So, all it takes to be a deliberate planner is simply going further to write down the tasks you would need to do that will lead you to your goal. Then follow your plan.

The bottom line is in making notes of these activities. You are more likely not to follow through with a plan if it is not documented. Yes you might have a powerful retentive memory, but is still not a very good idea to make and keep plans in your head. There is the possibility of forgetting some if not all steps of the plan. Write your plan somewhere and after that, constantly revisit your plan so that you are sure that every part of the plan is catered to. Besides, even in the course of following a plan, there might arise the need to review the plan due to one reason or the other.

When you start writing down these plans, it is okay to first pour them all out on paper as they come to mind. This is still very okay, it is what is known as or called brain dumping. That is putting your scattered thoughts on paper and of which paper or book would be your brain dump. It is a good idea to have your brain dump separate from your actual planning pages. This is so that you can later have a critical look at the thoughts you have poured out on paper, and then begin to make some sense out of it all by prioritizing tasks. This brain dump could be an extra jotter that you carry around with you either separately or included in your planner binder (or what ever you use for your planning), or as insert pages in your actual planner.

There are different ways you could choose to prioritize or group your potential tasks such as Urgent, Important and Not very Important or you could use A, B, C where A is the most urgent tasks and C is the least urgent or even 1, 2, 3 with the same idea behind it as well. Now you can choose your style different than these examples so long as you understand your style perfectly and won't be confused by it.

Now, after all said and done, the next question would be what is a planner anyway?

A planner is simply something to document your plans with. It could be as simple as a calendar, your smart phone, a notebook, a travelers notebook or a folder with pages or what we would normally refer to as a binder with pages or binder pages. Now a regular planner would contain several sheets that are compartmentalized with what is referred to as planner or page dividers and/or dashboards. Each compartment or section usually is geared to serve a purpose such as daily, weekly, monthly to-dos, contacts information and notes. The idea is to aid you properly organize your activities so that there is some form of order. This is why some planner producers call their planner an organizer. Planner, organizer, same idea ya'll.

Some planners have these days been designed to includ sections like financial records, calendar, tracker, projects and so on. The idea is basically to aid you to efficiently cover every area of your expected activities. Good thing is that with the kind of planners available, customizing a planner is so easy, simply by taking out sections you don't need and putting in useful sections. Another beautiful thing is that planner inserts for refills are also sold separate from the actual planner.

There are standard measurements for different size planners (such as pocket size, personal size, A6, A5, A4 and so on) and any variations will be quite minimal, so it is not a problem to use the inserts from a particular planner brand in another brand. You just need to purchase what you think should work for you.

There is today a vast variety of planners that could actually confuse you in making a choice because of their beautiful designs and accompanying contents. Planner designers are still on the increase and could get really pricey. Fortunately, there are still a lot of cheap ones that still carry out the same or very similar functions. I personally like to think that the price difference is usually due to brand names which have successfully found their way into the hearts of planner addicts for mostly aesthetic reasons although some do boast quality materials.

I must now pause here briefly and call your attention to this very important notice. No planner will help you if you do not use it and life is about making things happen intentionally!

If you go online all over the internet, you would notice that somehow many brands have gathered quite a few faithfuls who would swear by these brands. Brands that would easily catch your attention due to their long lists of faithfuls are brands like Filofax, Kate Spade, Erin Condren, Dave Ramsey's, Happy Planner,The Personal Finance Planner, Franklin Covey, Midori (popularly referred to in short as MTN), Fauxdori, Pinkdori etc Travelers Notebook, Hobonichi and so on. The list goes on and on!

The good thing is that for every budget, there is a planner. If you do not want to spend anything at all, there is still a planner for you too! Oh sure! You could either spend a few Naira to purchase cheap unbranded planners or go DIY. DIY would include turning an ordinary notebook into a functional planner. However the aesthetics is what pushes most to want to splurge on a planner. Notwithstanding, if you want to go DIY, there are a lot of planner accessories littered all over stationary stores that could transform a simple diy to a state of the art.

I tell you, if you try to research for what planner to get, you might well be tempted to purchase even more than one planner. I have been a victim but at a point I realized that most times, if you are smart, those may be just a one time purchase for a very very long time because since you have the covers which most come with, you could decide to design or print free printables online subsequently and use in the same old planner covers except of course you purchase spiral notebooks. Yet if you have the right tools for the planner type that you are using, you could still make inserts for the spiral notebooks.

There are so many portable tools to use these days to create your own style of planner. From 6 hole adjustable punch machines, single hole punches, 7 hole punches, the traditional 2 holes and 4 holes punch machines and the machines designed for punching holes in spiral notebooks.

Interestingly, these portable devices are within reach for those who do not mind spending the few extra Nairas. Now a lot of these planner merchants go the extra mile to add a few yet functional accessories to make their planners even more appealing such as ID card and business card holders, clear zipped pouches for either coins or other items that could easily fall out of an elastic held planner or a snap lock planner for instance. 

A DIY lover can still make these accessory inserts without trouble. When I began my planner journey (a process I still am in, mind you), I was not really sure that I wanted to spend much to start a planner life. I had to have good reason to spend the Naira. I still feel so. Anyway, I resorted to learning a lot of DIY techniques because don't forget that this chic is on a frugal journey too. So for clear pouches for ID cards and business cards, I went to the bookstore and purchased a pair of clear PVC name holders which come really cheap and are quite durable. The type issued for like when you attend conferences and so on. Some offices issue staff ID cards enclosed in them sometimes. They come pre-punched  but since their holes did not all match my 6 hole planner, I did a measurement and punched in more holes so that it could fit into my planner rings and voila! I had my clear pockets for ID cards and such. These pouches come in varied sizes so you need to be sure you are purchasing the size that will function well for you.

During that period, I had purchased a new searchlight and the type I purchased came packed in a PVC zipper pouch (which is the right fit for an A5 planner and of which size I use for my work related planning) and it struck me when I went home that the pouch could be converted to my planner pencil case! So I punched holes into the PVC with my 6 holes adjustable punch and that is how I had a planner pouch for my pens, sticky notes and stickers. I will have a post out on more DIY planner ideas that I came up with or adopted to save some cost.

We would like to know your thoughts on this in the comment section.