My new planner. Isn't it pretty? For the guys, there are more manly looking themes, ;0

Okay, as absurd as it sounds to my organically organized friends, my new planner is making all the difference in my progress. In keeping track of what needs to be done, where I need to go, who to call/ email. I can set aside time to write and establish goals on a daily basis. And I jot down tasks I completed that weren't on the list so I see where the time goes.

For the last several years I've just made lists. EVERY where. I'd have a partial list on my white board, on my recorder, on my writing notebook, on the back page of a workshop, by my chair, on a sticky note by the other computer, or on the little notebook in my car or mail truck. Needless to say these never made it onto a consolidated list. And I forgot most of them as soon as I wrote them down. Hey, it's the truth.

A writer said to me, "This is something, I never understood. How (or why) does a planner lead to accomplish more than without?" She's not a prospective customer of Day-Timer or Franklin Covey, lol. If you can keep all this in your head and organize your day without it, you're luckier than you realize.

Another writer said, "It works because it focuses the mind. You're not wasting any brain power on trying to remember everything and worrying that you're forgetting. Instead you know exactly what you need to be working on and when, and don't have to fret that you're missing something."

That's it!

So I set up my planner. It's awfully pretty, much more so than on the website. Here's a picture I took of one of the monthly pages and the facing page.



This view is of my setup. I fudged the pages to take the picture but you can see on the left I have things to do, bottom left anything writing oriented as well as communications/phone/email, the appointment/schedule section I use for scheduling sprints, classes, crawfish hauls, or to jot down stuff I did during that time that I didn't have scheduled (in case I want to see where my time went).

Big plus: As you can see I'm using the journal page on the right for my minimum words per day - approximately 350. If I do it through November I'll have an additional book written! &;-)) This is in addition to my current project and really just to get me started.


(Now if it just had an arm twister in it to drag me to the treadmill. I DID list it though on the little page/bookmark thingie on which I wrote tasks I need to do Every Day. As a matter of fact, exercise is on there three times!)

Something else I started years ago was the Custom Notes in the back. I purchased the A-Z address tabs and some extra six hole punched note paper. Here's an example: under C, I put a sheet called Computer classes for any thing that comes to mind. I also have one under S for Story Ideas, C for Character ideas, B for Buy later ;).










And last but not least the lovely leather binder I got on clearance to tote it around in.





Like the old James Brown song goes, doo, doodle, doodle doo. I feel good. I knew that I would, yeah.