In the last post, I detailed the way I plan every day of my life using my personal customized bullet journal (you can read it here). While planning out the details is something I love doing, it is also important to step back and look at the big picture and for that, I use my weekly planner and my monthly calendar. Therefore, I divide this post in two parts explaining how I use my planner and calendar. Remember to look out for the tips I use to stay in track at the end!

WEEKLY PLANNER

• I bought my weekly planner from Amazon.in  for 349 INR (USD 4.89) It is made by TinyChange. I have eyed their planners for quite a while now, and this 2020 I gifted myself their weekly planner – Tiny Leaps Undated Weekly planner
• It has 52 undated weekly planning pages which means you don’t need to plan every week.
• It has a wiro binding which lays beautifully flat and it is so easy to write on it. And the page quality is simply superb
• The one think that attracts me most about it is its simple and functional design with a practical guide
• So, here are its features and how I feel about them
  • A motivational quote for the week which kinds of sets the mood and inspires everyday of the week
  • It has space for writing the weekly scheduled events in a checklist format. I like to use the tick boxes in the same bullet journal format, i.e. – A tick mark to indicate the task done, A cross to denote cancelled events and an arrow mark to show tasks that have migrated (shifted over) to the next day
  • It has a clean format with clearly labeled days of the week with space to number them date wise along with a space to write the month and the week number on top right corner.
  • A very interesting addition is the Theme of the week, which I have found helps in adopting the required mindset for the week
  • There is a large enough ‘space of infinite possibilities’ I love writing the week’s blog post title so that I know what to research plus any other ideas, notes etc are jotted down during the week in this place if it not already full.
  • For a long time I have struggled with the habit trackers so, these weekly daily habit trackers allow me to follow a habit for 7 days without any commitment, which is something I sorely needed because I don’t have the patience of making them and I love trying new things!
  • Added to the already given weekly list, we have a separate To-do List where we can write Tasks that need to be completed during the course of the week. I often write the assignments I have to get done by the end of a particular time and break it up into smaller chunks of work tagging them all to a specific days, this enables me to complete a project/assignment that I can tick off while allowing me to divide and finish the steps to a task.
  • Now, comes my favourite part – The Weekly Wellness challenge. I absolutely adore it! There are really cute and easy tasks but at the same time slightly challenging but eventually they build up good habits. The challenges I have done till now are dandy and some examples include – concentrating on one’s body posture, making at least one handicraft, giving someone your full attention while talking, making a digital collage etc. I look forward to the Sunday weekly planning precisely because of this portion

MONTHLY PLANNER

• This is a very basic practice I do on both an yearly and monthly basis.
• Yearly, I write down the birthdays of my loved ones on my desk calendar and then also copy it down to my google calendar
• And then on a monthly basis, I write the scheduled events like exams or when my cat takes her deworming tablet.

TIPS

• I often make my plans and timetables in the night because it is quieter then and also, planning at night helps me wake up the next day, knowing exactly what my day looks like and it love that feeling – the feeling of waking up with a purpose and hitting the ground running.
• However, remember that nothing needs to go according to the plan and so the essence is to be flexible. Almost everyday my time table gets disrupted and I try to complete it by nightfall. So, don’t worry if you didn’t achieve your goal, it is okay, it is not the end of world.
• Color coding is a great way to categorise your tasks and make your planner interesting. I used to do a lot of it but my new planner bleeds through so I have stopped. But you can add it in your planning strategy.

I intend to combine this system with a digital solution so as to have access to it all the time. Send your suggestions for planning on Android system. And tell me how you plan your days.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, HAPPY HUSTLIN’