It might seem pointless to purchase a planner when you aren’t going anywhere – how would you even use it, right? However, I purchase a planner every year, despite suffering from (currently mild) agoraphobia.
During the extreme highs and lows of this year, despite being even more homebound than usual, I used my planner.. and although we all hope this coming year will be much more like “life as usual”, these tips can help with using your planner even more efficiently, too.
Tips to Use Your Planner:
There is, of course, the obvious use for your planner – appointments and meeting times. But did you know, there are other ways to use your planner, too?
- Personally, I love keeping my To-Do list in my planner. With the Happy Planner vertical layout (not an affiliate, I just buy and use a the Happy Planner every year), I can divide my to-do list for each day into morning, afternoon, and evening – with two or three tasks (depending on how long it is estimated to take) for each section.
- Your planner is also a great place for your goals. And no, I don’t mean write them down and then flip to another week and forget about them. If you want to track your goals in your planner, MAP OUT each goal step-by-step, and then break it into daily tasks. Include at least one daily task for your goal per day/week (depending on how fast you want to finish the goal).
- Meal planning, if you are so inclined, is also great included in your planner. That way, when you finish each day, you can see at a glance what you had chosen for dinner – without having to spend valuable time and energy figuring it out when you’re starving! You could take this a step further and include breakfasts and lunches – if you have the vertical layout, just write your plan for each meal at the bottom of each section.
Diving Deeper:
Read the above tips and still have questions? Here’s where we will take a deeper dive (so to speak) into each way to use your planner.
To-Do List:
We briefly discussed to-do lists in the planner, but if you still have questions, this is for you.
With the vertical layout (some planners aside from the Happy Planner have this too), there are three sections, one on top of the other, for each day. I love to categorize each section into “morning”, “afternoon”, and “evening”. Although I do this mentally, you could physically write those words in each section until it becomes automatic.
Then, write two or three tasks (decide how many tasks based on estimated time each task will take) in each section, whether it is “morning”, “afternoon”, or “evening”. You can do this ahead of time for the entire week, so you have each day planned in advance, or the night before/morning of each day.
If you know you have an appointment or meeting in one of those sections, write it FIRST. The same goes for anything that’s really important – it’s best to get the big things done and out of the way as soon as you can.
Otherwise, just fill in your tasks and repeat!
Goals:
Goals are a little trickier, but once you get the hang of it, they operate much like to-do’s.
- Decide how many goals you want to accomplish in the year. (Keep it manageable – like one or two, if just starting out.)
- One goal at a time, break the goal into chunks, and slowly break each chunk smaller and smaller until you have daily or weekly tasks.
- “Schedule” these tasks into your day or week, like you would to-do’s.
Want even MORE details on how I use my planner for goals? Read Using a Planner for Reaching Big Goals – and note that this article also details a DIFFERENT way to use your planner when you don’t go anywhere (my previous method).
Meal Planning:
If you are a planning type person (and since you’ve gotten this far, you probably are!) then I’d guess you like having a plan for each day – which includes meal times.
No one likes being hungry and ready to eat, but having nothing prepared! As a Trim Healthy Mama, this could even mean “falling off the wagon” in moments of extreme hunger.
Enter: your planner.
We’ve talked about sections for “morning”, “afternoon”, and “evening”, but not so much about how to meal plan using those sections.
After making your meal plan each week (you know, the pesky paper that you misplace and then have no clue what you are making despite all of the time you spent preparing) simply write your breakfast at the bottom of the “morning” section – underneath your to-do’s and goal tasks – and repeat for “afternoon” and “evening”.
Although it won’t making the actual meal planning process faster (or more enjoyable) it WILL keep all of your to-do’s, goal oriented tasks, and meal ideas in one place!! Win!!!
Has your planner been sitting gathering dust this year, or have you found a way to use it? Let me know in the comments below!
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] but don’t have set times and places to be, I’ve got the perfect article for you… Using Your Planner (When You Don’t Go Anywhere) was written for pandemic times – when no one went anywhere – but applies perfectly to […]