A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine, Kathy Carmichael came into town for the Emerald Coast Writers, Inc. annual conference.
During her stay, we started talking about planners and inspiration for success, regardless of how you define it. I had looked and looked and couldn’t find the perfect planner. So had Kathy.
We chatted back and forth on our vision of what it looked like. It had:
A page per day with room for notes.
A separate High Priority List for things that had to be done, numbered so the most important could be done first. (Less time spent in crisis-mode that way.)
A To-Do list for things that need doing–and a checklist so you can check them off as they get done. And where you can suspense things you do that require follow up later.
A DONE list for all the things that crop up during the day that you do that are in addition to those you planned on doing.
A box for tracking whatever you want to track. Website hits, numbers on your books–or whatever else you want to track.
A monthly insights and observations list. Where did the time go? Where was it intended and how was it actually spent. Just how long was that gap between x and y and z?
An annual observations and insights list. So all the things you should be monitoring for greater success next year aren’t forgotten or missed.
Pages for more notes on whatever, whenever.
A specific aspect applicable to success and successful people to focus on each month, and why it matters.
That was the ideal planner–that makes for fantastic record-keeping and would give us what we needed to get further up the success ladder next year because we pinpointed specifics this year.
We knew exactly what we wanted–and we didn’t want a computer version because we’ve been there and tried that and because you have to stop and open a different document to get to them, or you want to jot things down when you’re on the phone, they just didn’t work.
Nope, we wanted a paper one that was mobile, opened and would lay flat (which is why spiral binding is essential) and one small enough to tuck in a briefcase or a large handbag and not would be easy to carry around with us.
We couldn’t find one that met all of our wants and needs on our dream sheet. So we created one. Had it printed and we’ve been using it for a week to make sure it was as perfect as we thought it’d be in meeting our needs.
It worked for Kathy.
It worked for me. I’m a happy camper.
We love it.
After inquiries from others, we hooked it up so anyone wanting one can buy one. The printer folks have it hooked up to Amazon.com.
If interested, here’s a link.
Blessings,
Vicki
