Wednesday, July 8, 2015

The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Daily Plan

Planners are a great way to record upcoming appointments and to list tasks, while keeping all of that information together.

But if you stop there, you aren't getting everything that you could out of your planner. There are so many other possibilities - filing information that you use on the go, project planning, a quick in-box.

My favorite possibility? Using a planner to create a daily docket (or daily plan). A daily docket lets you get through the day smoothly and accomplish most of your goals.

Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a daily docket that works!

(I use Quo Vadis Textagenda for my daily pages, but you could do this on a Franklin Covey daily page or even on blank paper.)

Step 1: Copy appointments from your monthly pages to your daily docket.

TIP: As you copy things to a daily docket, mark them off with a highlighter. I use the code "D" to show that I put appointments on my daily docket. That way, I still only have one page to check as I go through my day - since the monthly calendar stuff is on the daily docket - and I avoid duplicating or forgetting information.



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Step 2: Capture anything from yesterday on your daily docket or elsewhere in your planner.

In the example below, I had a couple of things that I need to do today (like unpack from vacation). Those go on my daily docket for today. But paying the lawn guy can wait until Monday, since it rained today so he won't come out.



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Step 3: Copy tasks from weekly pages onto your daily docket, both from today's entry and those things you will do today from your weekly list.



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TIP: Draw an arrow in today's entry on your weekly page so that you don't have information in two different places.



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Step 4: Add extras, like prep lists of stuff to bring out of the house tomorrow, menu plan, and notes for tomorrow.



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Step 5: Put your docket on the side of the planner that does NOT block tomorrow.


Note in the above picture that I have dedicated spaces on my daily docket for each grouping of items:

*am appointments
*pm appointments

*prep items (for leaving house, like an umbrella or work bag)
*must dos
*should dos
*must dos repeating tags
*should dos repeating tags
*menu
*tomorrow

For more guidance in managing your time and your life, click on Etcetera below and join our Facebook group!

Etcetera.

Linked at:

DIY Sunday Showcase
Kenarry: Ideas for the Home


DIY Vintage Chic



5 comments:

  1. I love this example. I am a dedicated planner user with month-on-2-pages and week-on-2-pages, as well as a Master Task List tabbed section where I rapid log/brain dump to-dos, tasks, etc that get migrated over to specific days (bullet journal style). I like the 'daily docket' idea as I use my planner for personal and business and often run out of room on the lined, daily sections on the Wo2p (and that's with an A5 size!)

    I'm going to give this a try. Do you have a place to suggest a printable for this? Also - curious - what does the O4 (at least that's the # I think it is - the photos aren't very clear) you have to the left of every entry?

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  2. I bought an inexpensive Quo Vadis planner from Barnes and Noble (and love it for the color, paper feel, brightness, even cut etc.), but a similar layout is available from Becky at Planner Fun:

    http://www.plannerfun.com/2014/10/31-days-16-bonus-printable-undated.html

    It's undated and printable.

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  3. I just downloaded the printable. It looks really neat! I may end up using it alongside my own daily pages I've created.

    BTW, I saved this post in Pocket! I plan to refer back to it often and get myself into the habit of using daily pages every day. TFS! :)

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  4. I just bookmarked that site to print it out. Thanks for the tip!!

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  5. These are great tips! I am working on being more organized! Thanks for joining the Link-It To Me Link Party, I hope you will join us again this week! Pinning :)

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