Excited about a Planner

I’m excited about a Planner. I didn’t think I’d ever say that.

Recently, I’ve tried a few planners that focus on goals. I like my Passion Planner but I get overwhelmed with it. I’ve tried the Mini Emergent Task Planner from David Seah, and while I liked it, found it easy to set daily priorities, and keep in my bag on hand, it doesn’t have the goal setting the others do.

But Michelle Nickolaisen, a friend of mine, who I’ve worked with on productive in the past, recently designed and launched a planner. I kind of got to see part of her creation process as we were meeting for client appointments, and ended up with a preview version of the planner.

So long and short of it, Michelle has a Kickstarter going on for her planner right now. I backed a physical copy (even through I could just keep printing more pages). I literally took my Passion Planner apart and added the pages Michelle created for money goals and niggly things.

Instead of blathering on, Michelle has videos talking about the use and the inside of the planner at her Kickstarter. It’s very reasonably priced as well. Take a look and let me know what you think, or if you have questions before you back. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bombchelle/the-freelancer-planner

Years ago, I used a paper planner for everything. My daughter was a baby at the time, and I kept all her goings on and mine, plus business on the same paper calendar. It did not work well. I missed my appointments, Riley’s dad forgot her events, and once I even lost my planner and everything fell apart.

It took a while, and was a difficult conversion for me to using Google Calendar and an online scheduling tool for client appointments. The reminders for me, and my clients (and Riley’s dad) have become something I can’t live without.

But an online calendar lacked the goals and the solidity of paper planning- particularly goals.

On June 1st, I had my tonsils out. June has been a rough month, to say the least. I didn’t get a lot done (aside from launching my website redesign and putting out a Feng Shui cheatsheet that I’m excited about. This one sheet for June really held me together. I almost feel like I have a powerhouse in my hands with this planner.

I struggle with schedules. Every time I seem to get a grip on working during the day, I get asked to do a bunch of interviews in the evening, or my daughter gets out of school for vacation. I learned that rather than trying to schedule to work on paperwork from 9-10:30 and calls from 11-1, that I set myself a major goal and a minor goal for my day, plus any scheduled appointments.

Michelle’s Freelancer Planner allows me the flexibility to work on an hour by hour schedule or by day, and it’s not separated pages and pages apart like a normal planner.

*Just a note, I wasn’t asked or expected to give a review of this product. All opinions are my own.