Mid-Month Review Time Already???

Wow, I can't believe September is already more than half over!  I'm not ready for it, but it's time for a Mid-Month Review.  Maybe it will get me back on the rails!

How are you?  How is September treating you?

Time For New Goals!

Now that I have achieved my long-term goal of moving to Scotland (and all the work that entailed), it's now time for me to come up with some new goals!  Don't worry, I have plenty:

Goal #1: Save money to buy a house.

Goal #2: "Homeschool" (term used very loosely) Youngest who will start school next year.

Goal #3: When Youngest starts school, get myself back into the workforce.  Sitting home alone all day is not appealing.  And, I do want to get back into science.  So, that gives me nearly a year to explore my options and get myself out there.

Goal #4: Get on a household cleaning routine with a little cleaning each weekday so I can relax and have fun on weekends.  Also, do meal planning as a way to save money on groceries.

Goal #5: Get in shape and lose some weight.

Some of you already know where this is going.  (Sis?)  Another clue: Arielle's comments on my post a few days ago that she's trying the Uncalendar got me thinking.

Uncalendar is an excellent tool for setting goals and focusing your energy on working toward them, so of course that's who I turn to when I need a powerful way to set and achieve my goals.  Those of you who are unfamiliar with this excellent life-management system can read all about it in my Uncalendar review.

The Uncalendar Lifestyle Pro planner system in the 3 ring binder helped me enormously while I was preparing to move to Scotland, homeschooling both my kids and keeping track of various other aspects of my life.

Now, in order to keep track of my goals listed above, I have ordered the Uncalendar Lifestyle Half Size planner (so it can fit in my bag).  Actually I ordered two, because two of them fit into a flat-rate shipping envelope so it didn't cost any more to ship two than to ship one.  And, shipping to the UK for both planners totalled less than 13 bucks, which is an excellent price!

I will use my Half Size Uncalendar as my Goals Workbook to keep me on track with my goals listed above.  I'll sketch out my goals on the Goals pages of my book, and break them down into do-able tasks.

On the weekly pages I'll record what homeschooling lessons we did that day, what exercise I did (cardio and/ or strength), plan dinner menus, and I'll check off my weekly cleaning tasks as I complete them.

I'll use the monthly section to keep track of expenses, bills paid, income and (hopefully) savings to work toward home ownership.

I'll use the Data section for building my contacts list for future employment.

And I'll use the Notes section for writing my Mid-Month and Monthly Reviews inspired by Charlie Gilkey which are always very useful for keeping me on track and aware of the weeks progressing.

I am very excited about this plan!

While I'm waiting for my Uncalendars to arrive, I'm getting ideas from Uncalendar's goal setting tips and other sections of The Training Room (which I like to peruse periodically) for more advice on setting and implementing my goals.

As you might imagine, Uncalendar planners are extremely popular with students.  Interestingly, I've recently discovered that Uncalendar planners are very popular with nursing students in particular.  I can definitely see how the Un's structure and flexibility would be extremely useful for busy nursing students balancing classwork and clinicals (not to mention the rest of their life!).  On Allnurses.com there is a forum where a lot of nurses and students recommend the Uncalendar.  I'm fascinated!

Click on the following links to see my reviews of the Full-Size Uncalendar Lifestyle and Half-Size Uncalendar Lifestyle.

Click through to my post Secrets for Success to see why the Uncalendar system is so useful for setting and achieving goals.

What techniques do you like to use to help you figure out your goals and make a plan for achieving them?

Welcome to August!

For many of us, August is a very busy month.  Despite the blazing heat, it's time to start thinking about kids' Back-To-School needs.  It's not too early to start planning your autumn, which tends to be a very busy time with activities, sports events, holidays and even the run-up to Christmas.  Plan those weekend camping or fishing trips now before the weather prohibits them.

Just in time for this busy month, August's Free Planners are now available over at Productive Flourishing!  Jump over there and print yourself out some, to get your month under control. 

Also inspired by Charlie Gilkey, it's time for a Monthly Review.  (Here's an example from PF, for inspiration.)  Take a look back through July and see what worked well, be sure to celebrate what you accomplished, make note of what didn't get completed, and make a plan for August.

Spend some time thinking about, and then writing down, your Monthly Goals for August.  Be sure to take into consideration any major events you have going on this month, and work around those. 

As you know, this is a huge month for me: I'm moving to Scotland, and my oldest child starts school.

What do you have going on this month?  Any big plans?  Cranking along with the usual?  Thinking of making some changes?

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

I'm feeling very overwhelmed lately with everything I have going on. It must be the phase of the moon or something, because it's not just me: every time I've called my sister this week we wind up going on for an hour about all the things we're freaking out about.

I emailed Sandy a photo of the hot mess that is My Planner This Week (MPTW), something we do for each other often. It gives us ideas of how to use our planners, and also helps each other understand what's going on in our lives that week. I told her, rather than me going on and on about what's happening in my life I should just send her a photo of MPTW so she can see it and go, "Wow, no wonder you're freaking out."

I love my weekly planner, and I need it to help me prepare for what's coming up in the week. But there are times, like now, when seeing everything I need to do all week long gets pretty overwhelming.

Well my friends, desperate times call for desperate measures. It's time to get shit done.

So I turned to one of my favorite websites ever, Getting Sh-t Done by Bill Westerman. For those of you who haven't read about GSD yet, get yourself over there and read it. It is a distilled version of all those productivity systems everybody's reading about these days.

I talked about GSD a little bit in my Lists, Lists Everywhere post earlier this week. It's a great way to whittle down your To-Do lists, and manage lots of tasks. As Bill says, GSD keeps you "focused on the tasks at hand rather than on the task of organizing." For those of us who tend to get bogged down in organizing instead of doing, this is the jump-start we need.

I busted out my Journal 21 day per page planner (that I reviewed here on Plannerisms) to use for my daily lists. The large pages have plenty of room to write in any scheduled items and my huge list of tasks that day. There's also enough room to fill in what I actually did, which is often different from what I intended to do. Plus I love the monthly calendars in the front of the Journal 21 so I can see upcoming events at a glance.I don't tear out the corners of my daily planners because I don't like how it looks. So I'm using tape flags to mark the pages of the current month (blue) and today (bright pink).

Then I put GSD into action: I wrote out my Master List of everything I need to do (in a separate notebook). Then I went through and decided on what I could do today.

On today's page in my Journal 21 I first wrote into the left side of the page (next to the printed times) any scheduled events. Then in the right side of the page I listed my tasks. This helps me see when I'll have time to do the tasks, but doesn't force me to artificially schedule them.

Now I have a whole page on which to capture everything, even those tiny tasks that I wouldn't normally write into today's space on my weekly planner (such as replace the battery in the carbon monoxide detector, which woke me up with its low-battery beep very early this morning). This of course makes a great record of what I did and when.

Having all my tasks on one master list, then filtering them into what I can do Today helps me 1) be realistic about what I can accomplish in a day and 2) plow through and get it done.

Once I've gotten through all those tasks hanging over me, then I'll be free to Do Epic Shit (by Charlie Gilkey, who writes one of my other favorite websites, Productive Flourishing). I love his message: people aren't born epic and then go on to do epic shit. "Everyday people do epic shit and then become epic." Rock on, Charlie. My favorite part of his article is in the last two lines. Go read it, and then go do some epic shit.

What do you do when you're feeling overwhelmed? Can your planner handle everything you throw at it, or do you have to break out of it sometimes?

And, what are you doing that's epic? Tell us about it!

Lists, lists, everywhere!

I make lists. Lots of lists.

The main reason for this is, I have a terrible memory so if something doesn't get written down on paper, it's gone. Poof.

I'm always fascinated by how other people deal with their to-do lists, and I love to learn new ways of managing tasks.

TravisTheTrout recently had an excellent blog post about managing to-dos by writing them into a notebook and reviewing them each day during the train commute. I certainly agree that to-do lists are only useful if you look at them often and regularly. And, I also agree that categorized lists help to streamline your time.

Charlie Gilkey has a great article on To Do lists, and things that might be holding you back from completing your listed items. His example is technology that's an impediment.

Here's my own personal example: I have an old desktop computer that I no longer use, that has lots of photos on the hard drive. I need to transfer those over to my external hard drive. For months (!) I've had on my weekly to-do list, "old computer photos to ext hd." But what's wrong with this? Why is it that I haven't done it yet after looking at this for months? Because I can't just do it in one step. This really should say:

1) Set up old desktop computer

2) Plug in and turn on

3) Find external hard drive

4) Find photo files on desktop

5) Transfer photos to external hard drive


Suddenly I realize that instead of taking 15 minutes, this will take half an afternoon. No wonder I've been procrastinating!


All of my lists are paper-based, so I love to read about how other people use paper lists. Charlie has a great article about how he uses his multiple notebooks which keep track of his lists and ideas by topic.

Recently I read Lifehack's article on Task Lists which has some good ideas. This article also has lots of great comments from readers. I'm always surprised at how many people use their computer for to-dos. I guess if you spend most of your time there that would make sense, but for me I need my lists on paper that can walk around with me.

Quote from Lifehack:

"It’s crucial to have your list available under any circumstance. For one thing, you never know when you might have a few minutes to work on a couple of tasks; if you don’t have your list, you might waste those opportunities. Second, you never know when you might have to add something to the list."

Absolutely and completely yes.

In this article Lifehack also talks about contexts, which he doesn't use. I don't do GTD but I do make to-do lists by context such as @computer, @phone because I'm not always near them, so whenever I sit down at my computer I like to have a consolidated list of things I need to do there, and work through it.

Recently I was talking to my sister about how she manages lists. She uses a Quo Vadis Trinote, and uses the contextual list boxes on the weekly spread for things to do or bills to pay that week. But for bigger or longer-range lists she uses a plain sketchbook. She uses it as a brain dump to get down on paper all those swirling ideas before they escape her. She captures her ideas chronologically on the pages. As much as I like this idea, I don't know if it would work for me to have everything in one notebook. Unless I paged through it daily, I think things would get lost.

Getting Sh-t Done has the best-ever title. The idea is a very simplified version of Getting Things Done, but without so much structure. The four basic steps are: 1) Create a Master List, 2) From that, decide what you can do today and create your Daily List, 3) Work through it, 4) Transfer whatever doesn't get done to tomorrow's list. This system seems to be very popular with people who are on technology backlash.

I definitely have moments of List Breakdown. Sometimes I look at my To Do list and think, "I really don't want to do any of this sh-t." Or there are times (like currently) when I'm overwhelmed with lists in too many places. I have lists everywhere, in various Filofaxes, notebooks and planners. I would probably be much better off with all of my lists in one place, somehow.

How do you manage lists? Daily vs long-term to-do's, project plans, future plans, ideas...how do you keep track of them all? And most importantly, how do you make them actionable?

The Ides of March

I missed it! Yesterday was the middle of March ("Beware the Ides of March!"). It was also the birthday of a long-time friend of mine, so happy birthday to her!

And thanks to Charlie Gilkey, the middle of the month makes me think of a Mid-Month Review. I'm not going to steal his mojo (not that I even could, and anyway the man's got plenty of mojo to spare), so go take a look at his excellent post about it.

Last month was my first experience with his Mid-Month review process, and I found it so useful that I was really looking forward to it this month. It really helps me get back on the rails when I need to (especially this month when things are going not at all the way I expected them to). I find it really useful to take a step back halfway through the month, evaluate what I've accomplished so far, and figure out what I need to do for the rest of the month.

What about you? How is your month going? Humming along nicely? Or, like me, do you need a little nudge to get you "back on the rails?"

Monthly Goals

Welcome to March!

This month I'm doing something new (to me): I'm writing out my goals for the month. I'm hoping that having a specific list of what I want to accomplish in March will help keep me on track.

While preparing my list of monthly goals I've been reviewing my goals that I set out for myself at the beginning of the year and deciding what I can focus on this month. It's also a great time to jettison any annual goals that are no longer relevant due to changes in circumstances.

I was inspired to do this by Charlie Gilkey's Monthly Action Planner. It has a great format for helping you think through your month, any events that will happen, and your actions for making it a great and productive month. (I also highly recommend signing up for Charlie's Newsletter on his website Productive Flourishing. He sends periodic emails that are motivational and positive. They are like a helping hand to get back on track. Thank you Charlie!)

Of course any kind of list of your monthly goals is more useful than nothing at all. Most importantly, your monthly goals list needs to be someplace where you can refer to it often enough to be useful, at a minimum of once per week when you are making your weekly plans. It's one thing to write your goals, but it's a whole other thing to put them into action.

Last week I busted out my personal Deco Filofax (and am Calling the Dog with it and my Minister weekly planner), because I have so much going on right now and even more coming up in the next several months. I updated my tabs (which you can read about in What I'm Currently Using, scroll down) and freshened-up my Goals section.

Now I put my current month's goals page right behind my Goals tab so I see it first every time I open that section. The next page is my Annual Goals/ New Year's Resolutions, to refer to easily when I'm making each month's goals list.

When the month is over, I'll write the month review on the back side of that month's Goals page. This will let me evaluate which goals I achieved, and which ones I still need to work on. From there I can write the following month's Goals page. I'll archive the old month's page behind my Annual Goals page and put the new month's Goals page in front. That way I'll keep a record of monthly goals throughout the year to see how I'm progressing toward those annual goals. And with my current month's goals in front, I have easy access to it all the time.

Do you make Monthly Goals? Where do you write them? (On a page in your planner? On a sticky note on your bathroom mirror? In reverse-writing on your forehead with a Sharpie so you can read it every time you look in the mirror?)

Interview with Charlie Gilkey

Here is my interview with Charlie Gilkey, author of the Productive Flourishing website, time management guru, and creator of the awesome planners I featured earlier this week!

Charlie, first of all thanks very much for taking the time to answer these questions, I know Plannerisms readers will be very interested in what you have to say!


First let’s start at the beginning:

Q: When did you first start thinking about productivity issues and how people can manage their time? Was it based on your own needs, or on what you observed around you?

A: Before I just dive right in, I wanted to say thanks for the interview. I'm honored to be "here."

I first started thinking about productivity issues because of how complicated my life was. I was simultaneously working towards completing my Ph.D. (in Philosophy) while being an officer in the Army National Guard, and I was trying to be a husband worth having and finishing the basement in our house. Not only that, I'm naturally polymathic, so there were always things to do.

So, I did what any polymath does: I started reading and learning about productivity systems. I learned a lot that gave me a good foundation in the field, but the material didn't quite get the issues of being a productive creative person. It wasn't just me either - there were a lot of other creative folks who were just as stuck as I was.


Q: I noticed on your website that you are a former GTD user, but “fell off the horse” repeatedly with that system. Did your GTD experience inspire you to create your planners, or was there some other tipping point that caused you to hit the drawing board with your own planner designs?

A: In a roundabout way, yes. What I noticed is that there was a big disconnect between the "runway level" actions that GTD really helps with and the higher vision stuff - in some sense, you can say I'm combining Covey's ideas with Allen's.

The other huge catalyst for me was Dave Seah's planners. He's my design hero, and I always loved his work, but they still didn't quite fit me. So I started making ones that did. It turns out that they fit other people pretty well, too. (He's still the far superior designer, though.)


Q: I know that you do a lot of experimentation with the planner designs, and that some of the planners available to the public have changed designs at least once. How many incarnations have the planners been through so far?

A: Wow, that's hard to say. I'm constantly tweaking spacing, lead text, and elements, so whether that's an incarnation is another matter. That said, the Action Planners have been the ones that have gone through the most revisions - they're where I started, and they evolved as my understanding did.

Later planners were easier since I had a template and I knew what needed to be on the page. For instance, the Freelancer Workweek came out as a draft and people liked it well enough, so I left it alone, except for the aforementioned tweaks.


Q: What things do you take into consideration before changing a planner’s design?

A: I'll use the planners myself for a bit, and my own use cases are pretty instructive. So if I notice an element feels cramped, I'll try to air it out.

A curious designer can break more than he fixes, so I've learned to let things be and see what people want. The biggest driver of change, then, is feedback from users. People are far more likely to send me emails with constructive feedback, and this feedback drives a lot of the tweaks.


Q: You do a great job of listening to your customers and working with them to figure out what they need. In general how many people need to make a particular suggestion before you implement a change in planner design?

A: Thank you for saying so. ;p

If three people all write me and tell me basically the same thing, that lets me know that it's not just an individual issue. The other thing I'll keep in mind is feedback across time - some users are particularly good at reminding me that they asked for something a few months ago, and if they still want it after that long, it's not a "like to have" request.


Q: Who is your main customer base for the planners? What types of people are they and what kind of work do they do?

A: This is hard to say, really, since the planners have been a hit across many types of professions. Broadly speaking, they're great for creative people who need to make their ideas actionable, but they're also great for listers who lose track of the big picture. The planners really are all about integrating the Big Ideas and small actions.

On that note, the Freelancer Workweek is a bit misnamed. At the time, I was thinking about it from the perspective of a freelancer - I've had enough freelancers as clients that I know (and feel) a lot of their challenges and strengths. However, a lot of creative entrepreneurs like them because they're not so time-oriented, but instead help projects at a more global level.

The planners for bloggers are pretty tailored, too. I designed them to solve similar problems when it comes to the global and detailed views and how we get hung up. I don't use them that often, but when I do, they always help.


Q: Are there any surprising types of people who use your planners or people in lines of work that you didn’t expect would use your system?

A: Not that I've heard of, really. The reality is that, given that I'm a small online shop, most of the people who come across them are online denizens in a lot of ways.


Q: Have you heard of people using your planners in surprising ways that you hadn’t thought of?

A: This is similar to the question above. Some, like the blog planners, are fairly tailored, but even then, people have let me know that they used it to plan out newsletter topics. I didn't think of that use case, but it's very similar to post writing, so it didn't really surprise me.

The others are fairly general in how they can be used, so people will write back and say "I'm using them to help me finish my home projects," and I'll immediately see how they can be used that way.


Q: I think many people struggle and search to find the system that will work best for them in their situation. With so many planner options available, do you have any general advice or tips for someone who is searching for the planner system that will work best for them?

A: Here's the deal: there is no perfect planner system. I can't design it for you, and, really, you can't design it for yourself because your needs change all the time. The idea that one-size-fits all when it comes to meaningful action is just a myth.

That said, there are better planners, and what makes them better is if they help you work the way you work. I encourage people to ignore elements on my designs that don't fit them or to repurpose them in a way that supports their momentum. Modifying things this way is a good thing: it shows that you're aware of what you need and what's not working for you, and that you're trying to implement a new solution.

So experimentation is key. As is understanding that some days you won't need the same support that you'll need on other days.

One last thing: the question is not whether you did everything on your list today. It's whether you did what needed to be done in what time and capacity you had available.


Thanks again to Charlie for taking the time to do this interview!!

Productive Flourishing planners

I recently discovered the Productive Flourishing website by Charlie Gilkey. As I've said before, I do live under a rock so if everyone else already knows about Charlie's website, please forgive me! But if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go check it out.

Charlie is a productivity guru who also, hang onto yourselves, designs planners! And these aren't just any planners: they are designed to foster maximum productivity for out-of-the-box type people. His planners are designed for people who are freelancers, creatives, and other types of people who work to task rather than to time.

Most planners that I've seen are time-based, meaning the planner gives you the times which the user then fills in with tasks and appointments.

Charlie's planners are different. They are marvelous at getting you to think of your goals/ projects/ big picture, then help you figure out what you need to do in order to achieve or complete those.

He sums it up so well on his website: "You don’t need a system that helps you watch the clock. You need a system that helps you get your stuff done in the time that you have." Man, you can say that again.

I have to admit it took me a couple of days to get my head around these planners because they are like nothing I've seen before. They come from a different angle than traditional planners.

You can get some of these planners for free each month on his Free Planners page. Or, you can buy (for an extremely tiny price for the great planners you get) his complete Premium Planners for the entire year.

There are several different planners to choose from based on your needs, and they are designed to work (beautifully) together or individually:

The Annual Strategic Planner gets you thinking about what you want to accomplish this year and to break it down by monthly benchmarks. Similarly, the Quarterly Objective Planner helps you figure out what needs to be done each quarter to work toward your annual goals. Both of these planners come in the Premium Planner packs.

Each month has a Monthly Action Planner that helps you define your objectives for the month and plan around scheduled events.

There are two types of weekly planner: the Freelancer Workweek and the Weekly Action Planner. You can use them together or individually, depending on your needs.

The Freelancer Workweek lets you see the big picture of your week, all your projects and deadlines. It also helps you get a handle on how much you need to work on each project during the week. It's designed especially for people who need to track billable hours on multiple projects, so if you need to do that then definitely take a look at it.

The Weekly Action Planner is a place where you can capture all of those random tasks that you need to accomplish during the week, then helps you decide when you can get them done.

I think the Daily Action Planner (scroll to pg 2 after you click through) is my favorite. It helps you learn how much you can (or can't) accomplish in one day. But best of all it helps you focus on that day's goals and projects and keeps you from getting sidetracked (which I do all too easily). Each day's page allows you to keep in mind that day's goals/ projects, what tasks you need to do to fulfill them, and when you're going to do it. It even has a space to isolate those unplanned tasks that come up during the day (that are often urgent). Genius. The Daily Action Planners come in the Premium Action Planners pack along with the Weekly, Quarterly and Annual planners.

A technique that the Weekly and Daily Action Planners use is called Heatmapping. Basically you figure out what times of the day, and what days of the week, you are at your most productive and/ or creative. For example, I do my best work from 8:30-10:30 am, so I should schedule my writing during those times. If I tried to compose a blog post at, say, 2pm it would be sheer drudgery because that's my sleepy time.

Speaking of blogs, another wonderful planner he has is the Blog Post Planner and Calendar. The Planner is great for helping you break down your blog ideas by type, so that you have a variety of categories of blog posts throughout the month. And the Calendar lets you schedule those so you can see if you have too many of the same type in one stretch of time. It's great for helping you balance your content and avoid over-scheduling (or the opposite, too-long gaps) in your blogging.

As with any planner system, these have some pitfalls to watch out for. Often (as with most things in life) the good things and the pitfalls are two sides of the same coin:

The Coin: There are so many planner types with views from annual down to quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily.

Heads: This system helps you think about your main goals/ projects for the year, then funnels your energy all the way down to what you need to do TODAY to work toward it.

Tails: So many layers of planning can get overwhelming and redundant if you use more than you need.

Solution: Play with the planners for awhile to see what you need. Maybe you only need a Monthly planner and Daily planners. Maybe Annual, Quarterly and Weekly will do the job for you. Maybe you will benefit from using all the planners together. You decide. Which brings me to:

The Coin: This planner system is very personalize-able.

Heads: You make it what you need it to be. A certain box on the page doesn't fit your needs? No big whoop. Adapt it to whatever you need it to be. Or ignore it. It's all up to you.

Tails: People (or maybe just "I" but I think people in general) have a tendency to make personalized systems overly complicated.

Solution: Take a deep breath, and think about what you really need to see on your page and what is extraneous.

Because these planners are so flexible and can bend themselves to many different uses, give yourself some time to play with them and decide how they can best work for you. And the best part is, maybe you need to use them one way this week/month/ quarter, and a different way the next. You can do that easily.

Charlie's website has a ton of content on productivity, time management (more like sanity management for some of us!) and loads of great advice. When you have time you should look around and get some inspiration.

And coming soon: an interview with Charlie himself! Stay tuned!