What is a productivity planner?
I said some time ago that I was going to make this blog post, explaining in more depth something that I started doing a few months ago. My productivity planner is something like a regular planner, but with a specific focus on getting tasks or jobs done as opposed to just date keeping. I made mine with my business in mind, but I use it for my entire day to day, and I've found it extremely helpful in getting my life together. I just wanted to run through the process that I followed building this, as the pre-made planners I've found tend to be rather pricey, which is why I decided on building my own in the first place.
It's simple!
Making your own planner really doesn't have to be complicated, and what's so great about it is being able to tailor it to you and your needs. It also can be incredibly cheap too! All you need to get started is a book of your choice (mine was £2 for a lined notebook I've bought from a craft store), and the cost of pen ink (and I'm sure you have a spare pen or two laying around). I also recommend having a separate piece of paper or somewhere to jot some brainstorming down while we're going through the design phase.
I personally would select a book that is small enough to fit in a pocket or whatever your daily bag is, so that you can take it with you no matter the occasion. The goal is not to draw your layouts for each page in one sitting, but instead to settle on a design simple enough to be able to draw the layout quickly as you go. This is useful for any slight adjustments you might want to make to the planner throughout its use, as remember, your needs may change, or you may decide you work better certain ways.
Research, research, research.
This is the part that I found most fun when working out what I wanted for my own use. The goal is to look at other productivity planners for inspiration while keeping in mind the types of things you do day to day. I mainly used amazon to look through the top selling planners, opened them all in separate tabs, and wrote down all of the "features" that I liked the look of. Don't be afraid of more visual features either, like quotes and illustrations. These can go a long way to making your planner your own. Here's a couple of examples of the ones I found:
It's very easy to find an abundance of books, all with a different specialty. If you only want daily planning, you don't have to do this, but on your mock-up sheet I suggest writing monthly, weekly and daily as column headings and then organizing all of the features you've found into these intervals, similarly to how most planners do. This will give you a great sense of what you find important, and help you decide on frequency. Don't be scared of experiment a bit, as it took me a while to realize that certain features of my own planner were being filled in too frequently or I didn't really gain anything from them. As a rule of thumb, less is more. You don't want to be so consumed with your productivity planner, that you aren't actually productive!
Planning, planning, planning.
Continuing on from the previous point, continue refining your book features and try an settle on the ones you find necessary or helpful. Don't just add fluff or fun things if you aren't committed to using it, as ideally you want to make use of every section of your planner every day, which will help you build good habits from it's use. Also gauge the approximate size of each content section as you go so you're ready to do a mock design on your separate piece of paper. Again, this can all be adjusted with use, so don't worry too much or jump ahead and fill in each page.
I ordered mine in such a way that was chronological to how I normally think about planning my day in a morning. For example, my task lists come first, and are also ordered from most important to least, so I'm filling in top down. This really helps me personally, as it feels like I'm building a structure of importance for my day while forcing me to really consider the actual importance of individual tasks.
Natural flow.
A suggestion of another technique is to break section titles into questions, so naturally you start thinking about exactly what to put and what you mean by each part. A simple task list is a bit open ended and could mean anything, so why not say, "What is your necessary tasks for today?", or that essence in more compact form. I find this really helps lead my thoughts and helps my thinking flow from question to question. I started doing this, but after a bit of practice, condensed everything down to what it is now. A good planner should make you have an internal conversation with yourself about what you NEED from your day.
I need to re-iterate, as with everything I've identified, keep everything as short as you can while still getting as much value as possible out of it. Ten of the most important things for your day, but condensed is far better than two large paragraphs of text. A planner shines the best when it can be used at a glance, rather than having to dig through lots of visual "noise". It's why I keep each of my sections consistent with what are essentially three bullet points a piece. This also helps me prioritize.
Helpful extras.
When it comes to the visual presentation of my pages, I find it important to include standard diary features, so that I can have everything in one book and don't have to carry around loads with me every day. A simple daily thing is the date, which is useful for tracking tasks and progress, but you can also have larger stand-alone pages, such as notes or important dates pages. Maybe even things like contact information or addresses, which will really help make your book a one stop shop for organizing your time and getting things done.
One last thing I will suggest as well is to take care of your mood, which might not seem important to some, but I promise is a good idea when it comes to productivity. It's the reason I have my habits, daily gratitude, and mood as scored components of my own planner. It's really great I find for self improvement, and should you wake up in a bad mood, the practice of gratitude can really help in starting the day right. My mood score is my small space for self reflection at the end of the day, and it has really helped me identify ways to improve my energy when working and socializing.
To calculate my scores at the end of the day, I award points based on the priority of each task, with each section being of diminishing importance (remember what I said about order being important?). Top tasks are worth 4 points, which helps me mentally prioritize, and habits worth just 1 (which can be nice little boost if nothing else). To me this almost game-ifies the whole process and really plays into my personal psychology. I recommend you do the same thing if you can find something that engages YOU.
Get started!
There is no time like the present, so go on, get going! Maybe use a couple pages as a test and be mindful of the layout you've settled on and how it might fit. Don't worry if it's not perfect, as what matters is you getting the most practical value out of it and learning along the way. I hope that it has been as helpful to you as it has for me, and as always, have a good week everyone!