The "Next Week" flyleaf

I have this flyleaf already for months ago in planner. It helps me in weekly planning. This is a laminated piece of paper, where I wrote with pen - Frixion users, attention: never write on a piece of paper you want laminate!!! I didn't wanted to spend too much time to designing an insert for this.

What all function the next week flyleaf has?

1. Keeping the weekly review checklist
Everything I have to do on my weekly review is listed here. I can use whiteboard marker to check the points off.

2. A list about our weekly routine

I didn't wrote this on the paper, because it can be change. It's on a post it note. As you can see some stuff is already added to it. Having the family routine by hand by weekly planning is very useful, I don't have think too much, what everything we have, only write them in. The are also recurring appointments and also tasks I have to do on a specific day on the week. 

3. Place for next week's tasks

Sometimes come something into my mind, and I don't want to add to my actual weekly tasks, because I have enough. I also don't want to write to my next week planning page, because I might use a different format (as before I tried so much options, or I just don't want to make it disorganized. I just jot it done here, and I can add to week, when I make the weekly planning. Sometimes works this post it as a master to do list, when I don't write next week something to my tasks, I just leave it here for later. While I have a page marker on the top, I can reach this place very quickly.

4. Pending items

On the back I keep waiting on stuff on post it's. I review them weekly, if it's finished, or have I something to do with that thing. I have also a don't forget post it here just in case :)

What do you think about this useful tool? Would you use something similar? If yes, what elements would you take?

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask in comment! Share your experiments in our Facebook group, and get more help!  

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Highly customizable planners: Agendio

For couple of days shared people in Facebook planner groups the Agendio website. I checked it immediately, and was amazed. From 28 November will be available as planner refill.

You can 

- choose from different layouts (monthly, weekly vertical, weekly horizontal)

- give your labels for sections

- customize the sections: checkboxes, lines, etc

- divide your sections into more

- in the vertical weekly layout you can choose if you want a schedule, and if, what time span, add section(s) for tasks

- week start

- choose from different looks of the dates, fonts, colors

This is not bad, but what bought me:

I can add tasks and events, what happens always on a day of the week, or a day of a month, etc. It would spare me a lot of time to writing them in my planner again and again. 

(See here all of the features.)

I already started to working on my version. I need a vertical weekly, I'm living without it for a long time, but I'm missing it! (I just placed couple of original Filofax inserts today to my planner...)

I will go with something like this:

Let's go and try the builder! If you would like also a planner, don't forget to check the promotions here. If you don't find what you want, you can also write to the team!

All images copyright Agendio. 

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 13: First monthly review

One month is gone after you wrote your first monthly plan. The question is now, what happened? Did you finished everything what you wanted? Did life changed? Had you have to changed something? Could you predicted what you can finish in a month?

What is a monthly review?

It will take 1-2 hours, please schedule time for it! You have to revise everything: your yearly plan, your goals, projects, last month, changes in your life.

Steps of monthly review

1. Clean up your inbox

Hopefully there is not too much things here :) As a reminder, here is how to do it.

2. Make a frame for your upcoming month

Take a look into your monthly calendar: what will be happening in the near future? How much appointments do you have already scheduled? Are you planning vacation? How much responsibility do you have? Start to write to your monthly plan tasks/projects you must/want finish - related the calendar items. Deadline: it connects surely to a project. Birthday: Do you have to buy present? Do you have to organize something? 

3. Revise your goals

Are your goals still actual? If not, rewrite them! Write tasks to the monthly planner connected to your goals.

4. Revise your yearly plan

You could have adjust it, if you should make changes in your goals, if you hadn't predicted what you can do in a month and you didn't finished something or something came up. Write the tasks for this month from the yearly plan to the monthly.

5. Review your projects

Actualize your projects list, you might finished some in the last month, or created some new one. Go through the project pages: check if you marked all finished tasks, steps, if not, do it no. Actualize your task lists. Decide on which project you will work in the next month.

5. Last month

Review the last monthly plan: have you finished everything? What not, is still actual? If yes, plan it for the next month.

6. Write in your recurring tasks

It worth to create a list for things happens/has to do every month. I have to pay bills every last week of the month. I make the same promotion on the first week of the month. Presumably you have also similar things.

7. Make the plan!

I highly recommend to portion out them to the weeks, as I showed in the monthly plan post. But of course, you can make a simple list also. Or thematic. 

Homework for the next week

Make your first monthly review. Please share with us your plan in the From Chaos to Order Facebook group!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask in comment! Share your experiments in our Facebook group, and get more help!  

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How to build your perfect planner system? Week 6: Make your first reviews

How was going with planning? Hard to find the best way, isn't it? Don't worry, keep trying other structures. (If you didn't done yet, read the last post here.) Today is time to take a look on what happened on the last week.

What is a review?

Shortly: checking what you accomplished and what not. Decide what you have to do next. You can download my printable review checklists here.

Daily review

You have to make it every day. The ideal way would be to make it at the evening, but some (as I) make it at the morning. Planning takes time. But also save too. Schedule a planning session for every day! 15-30 minutes, you will see how much you need.
What to do?

• Take a look into your calendar, what appointment will you have? You might prepare something for it. Block out this times in your daily schedule. If you need to travel, block out the traveling time too! I make it like this:

Out blocked time helps you to decide how much tasks you can plan for the day.

• Check yesterday. What tasks aren’t finished? Copy it. You don't have to move them for the next day, decide, when you want or have opportunity to make them.

Higlighted tasks are done, x-d are cancelled, marked with arrow is moved forward.

• Check your weekly plan. What tasks are what you want/must do today? Write on your task list. 
• Clean up your inbox. What should I write here? You know, what to do. If not, read it here! 
• Make the plan. If you schedule your tasks, make it now. You don’t have write task by task to the schedule, you can write also “bigger” things, as email, work, calls, etc. 
• Set reminders for appointments. If you tend to forget to leave, use a calendar on your phone (I use Google Calendar), and set reminders. You can set for your working sessions too if you wish. 

I took a video once how I did my daily review. Watch it here.

Weekly review

• Schedule for it 30-60 minute weekly. When? Friday evening or at the weekend - if you have possibility for concentrate work or Monday morning. 
• Clean up your inbox if it not cleaned yet. 
• Check your Friday as by the daily routine. 
• Check your weekly planner - decide what to do with the unfinished things. Move them, cancel them or move to someday section. 
• Check your monthly planner. What have you planned for this week? 
• We didn't talked before recurring tasks (coming soon :)), but it is on the downloadable print out… Write these tasks into your days (like Monday: laundry, Wednesday shopping) 
• Tracking list: coming soon. :) If something generate a task here, write it to the weekly tasks. 
• Check your calendar. What deadlines you have? Write appointments to the daily pages. You can do it now, for the whole week, or on daily basis. When you write all at the same time you can better plan your week, you see, on what day you have more time to do your stuff. 

I took a video once how I did my weekly review. Watch it here.

If you make it regularly you will never miss a task you wanted but not done.

Homework for next week

Make your first weekly review as soon as possible. Schedule time for the next today. Do your daily reviews from now every day! Don’t forget to schedule time for it. You might write down how much time you need.

Next part: Values

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask in comment! Share your experiments in our Facebook group, and get more help!  

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Inbox - in the planner???

What is an inbox?

The idea comes from the GTD system, in there you have to collect all the stuff you need to deal with - no matter it it trash, task, todo, or info material. Inbox (for me) is a place, where thing that has to be handle lands before I find it's place. What I mean about this "things"?

• receipts
• letters from school, maybe with events, or only with infos
• notes written by me (someone else)
• tickets
• emails printed out
• shopping list on a post it
• etc

Where is the inbox, and how it looks like?

My inbox was for the first time only a pocket after the dashboard in my main planner. The pocket is very useful, because not every piece of paper can be punched. If you have no time/opportunity to punch the paper, or you don't want now to deal with it, place into the pocket.

After that I read in a blog (sorry, I don't remember any more) that she has some notepaper at the beginning of the planner to write notes quick down. And this is also an inbox. You write here your ideas, a todo list, or shopping list. And you will remove this note paper later, where it belongs in your planner!

More than one inbox? Oh, yes, I have more. As I decided to remove my calendar from my main planner to be simpler to carry on, when I'm out of home, I might write something in that smaller planner. That's why, that planner is an inbox too.

The inbox extensions

We have a chalkboard in the kitchen, there can all family members write what we have to thinking on. Mostly what to buy. If I'm cooking, I don't want to take my Filofax, I write on the board quick. When the board is full, I write everything to my planner on the right place.

My phone: if I'm driving I can make audio notes with a voice recorder in my phone (I have to remember - how hard it is!!!)

Why should you have an inbox?

Simplifies your life, minimize the distraction. If you have an inbox, that gives you the opportunity stay in your task on you are working, and leave you to decide later, what to do with that info. In my daily routine I have a task, called "clean up inbox". Every morning I'm looking through, what I have here, and I put away. Do your tasks, when you have time for it! Imagine a situation (happens with me often): I'm working on my computer. My daughter comes home, and gives me a letter from the school with lot of events for the whole quarter. Yes, I could punch it at the moment, and starting write the appointments into your calendar, but it makes no sense, remember: I'm working on something! It can also happen, that you don't know yet, where you should place that piece of paper, take your time to find the best for it. Or you are away from home, get a receipt. It is going to the inbox. At home you can put away, where you have your receipts.

Good luck! Later I will come back with a tutorial, how to create your own inbox pocket, because I don't like mine, I will do a new one :)

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Free printable: Daily/weekly/monthly review checklists

See my reviews videos on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSO54zLLVuaPyMUY_4RgDZlzNyWyWTBJL

I created a printable checklist for all. You can stick them on a Project Life card, or use as is, you might want also laminated.

Youtube video.

Click on the picture to download.

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Where do I find my inspirations for planning?

Flylady

Flylady is a home care program, you can subscribe it, and get starting to build out your system. What I learned from that: 

• having routines
• plan for cleaning
• you can do any not-liked-activities for 15 minutes - use your clock
• you made your chaos over a long period, you can't remove that in a day, take your time
• hot spot - work on them every day

GTD

Or Getting Things Done by David Allen. It is a book what I didn't read (yet), a system for completing your tasks. I read about it on the internet. Main things (it can be inexact):

• get all todos in one place, called inbox
• than sort out where they belongs (something I remember: by computer, calls, maybe/later)
• you have to write micro actions what can be done (like call xy instead of organize a meeting) - they are doable steps, which help to accomplish the tasks. Called next action. (that would be for me not working, I have for one day maybe 50 things, what I'm doing, that would be a chaos)
• review your progress monthly, weekly, daily basis

What I use from that:

• inbox
• reviews

43folders

Find the homepage here. But better google it, what it is exactly. It is builded to working on GTD. Core of the system:

• you have 43 folders
• 12 for each month
• 31 for days
• actual month is on the front, with actual day
• when you clean up your inbox, you place the thing you have to working on to the day, when it is actual - if it is in the current month, or to the month if it is the upcoming.
• at the morning you take out the folder of the day, and working on the things, they are in. the folder of the day at the evening goes to the next month folder. 
• at the end of the month the month folder goes to the end.

I simplified this to my 17 dividers system, working with month end weeks.

Internet

I also browse a lot on the internet and read about time management, work efficacy, etc.

Videos on Youtube.

Blogs, what you should have to follow:

http://www.giftieetcetera.com/

http://homemakersdaily.com/

http://philofaxy.blogspot.ch/

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The Daily Review

It would be to do at the evening to know what is waiting for you tomorrow. But I'm not able to. I'm making it always mornings.

Lets see, what I have done and leave yesterday:

I have to make corrections on the planner, and make the Thank you promo. I use these markers here:

Take a look on weekly plan. I marked with highlighter what I already done. Two things are what I have to do. See the Fata Morgana release? I know it, that I won't have time to do it, it is not in my Monday plan...

For Purple Caramel (this is a pattern) test I have a checklist, laminated, I can re-use it later. This can I find in my 17 folder system by this week. A test runs more weeks, I only have my eyes on it, answer, correct if there is something. I checked the list, I have nothing to do now with it.

This is the miscellaneous weekly to do list. I could pick some to do-s from here and write to the Daily Plan, but for now, I leave it so, and I scheduled time for working from this list.

And what I got for today. It seems a little bit too much, but we will see. Can you see the little dot by the Thank you promo? It means, that I have rescheduled it already once. I have to start with it...

How do you do your Daily Review?

Happy Planning!

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