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We live in an insanely digital world right now. Our lives live in our phones and laptops. And there’s truthfully nothing wrong with that (hey, I run a business on the internet, after-all). But no matter how digital everything continues to get, I can’t seem to actually cut myself off from from paper products. In fact, I personally believe that a paper planner keeps me productive more than a digital one ever would.
In fact, sometimes I think the more digital people get, the more I dive into it!
I love beautiful notebooks and notepads. One of my favorite things at the beginning of each school year was getting to pick out which planner I was going to get to use that year. The sheer amount of planners I get to pick from as an adult is both incredibly overwhelming and ridiculously exciting at the same time.
Since I love paper so much, I thought I would share a little bit of my process with you about how a paper planner keeps me productive. It’s a little bit of madness, but hey, there’s a method to my madness, I promise. I have different methods for my full time job and my personal/blog life, but we’re only gong to focus on my personal/blog life today.
First, I have this plain notebook I carry around with me. (Though after seeing this Panda Planner, I think I may have to switch!) This is planner is basically my brain dump. About once a day I’ll go into my planner and make a list of everything that I need to get done. Everything from the tiniest “send an email” to the big picture brainstorm sessions.
I just want to get everything out of my head and on to paper.
Doing this feels so cathartic. It’s amazing to just have it written down and feel released from having it in my head. It’s like because it’s now written down, it’s no longer taking up the space in my brain anymore.
After I’ve dumped everything on to this one list, I start breaking it down. If it’s just a reminder, it gets a star. A task gets a box that I’ll color in when it’s done (or half color in for a half completed task). A dot goes next to every task that needs to get done that night. Any task that definitely isn’t going to get done that day? It’ll have a box with an arrow going through it.
I’ve stolen a few of these things from bullet journals, but I’ve found a way to adapt them for my own use. I’ve found that since I’ve gone back to writing down my tasks (instead of just making online lists), I’ve had a much easier time remembering them. After all, didn’t our teachers pound into our heads how much better we remember things once we write them down?
My method for tracking my tasks and getting them done, continues to evolve over the years. In fact, after receiving both the Panda Planner and Rework, I’m excited to start working both into my life. I love how Panda Planner breaks a single day down into daily tasks, goals, your schedule, and affirmations. Then at the end of the day, it has you do a reflect to see what you accomplished that day. I’m also planning to read a few pages of Rework every day to hopefully help with my productivity.
