Choosing a planner for organizing your life can be a daunting task.  Not only are there hundreds of types and styles to choose from, choosing a planner that will work for you is very dependent on your organizing style as well as on your personality and information processing style.

Are you a creative type?   Are you more action-oriented?  Are you a planning minimalist or do you plan everything? Are you a “hands-on” learner? (If so, your planner will need to actually feel good in your hands.  You may also be the type who needs to physically write things down to remember them.)

Your personality style greatly affects how much time and effort you will put into using your planner.  If you try to use a planner system that doesn’t work with your natural style, more than likely, you won’t use it.   So don’t try to change yourself!   Don’t buy a planner just because it looks good or because you think you “should” be planning your days according to a particular system.  Use a planner that works WITH your style.   Lifestyle and work are also important considerations in deciding what kind of planner you need. For example:

Do you make a lot of appointments? Do you mainly do project work?  Do you need to see your days in great detail?Is a page per week or month enough? Do you need to track a lot of deadlines?

Other factors to consider when choosing the right planner for you include:

How mobile does your planner need to be?  Where will you keep it?  Do you need it to fit in a briefcase or purse?  How often do you need to refer to it and update it? Will you be comfortable with it and actually enjoy using it?  Does it seem intuitive to you?

Technology or Pen & Paper?
Technology is great, but it’s not always the best choice for time management, so don’t feel like there’s something wrong with you if you have tried and not done well with an electronic system.  You are not alone! However, if you don’t want to take the risk of losing your calendar, technology does have the advantage of allowing you to back it up.  So if you want the security of a backup, but still want to use paper, you may like using an electronic calendar that you can print out such as Outlook, Google, or Yahoo calendars.

Budget
Planners can range from free to hundreds of dollars.  To help you choose wisely, create a list of criteria for your new planner.  For example, you might want it to be: Simple, intuitive, easily portable, lightweight, colorful, plenty of room to write in each day, let me see a week at a time, easy for to see my availability, etc.

Getting Started
If you have never used a planner before, start with a simple, inexpensive one to get to know your style better.  Before buying, make a list of the features you would build into a calendar if you were designing one for yourself.  If you are currently using a planner, make a list of what you like and don’t like about it and add those criteria to your list.

Here are a few planner options that I have found work well for myself and for people I work with.

Microsoft Outlook is a great option if you want to have the advantage of using the computer to enter recurring appointments and reminders for events such as birthdays, oil changes and dentist appointments, yet still have all the advantages of a paper calendar such as being able to quickly see your availability when clients call to schedule appointments.

Planner Pads is a simple, inexpensive, yet very effective paper-based planner system. I used a Planner Pad for years before converting to Outlook.  Everyone I know who uses it loves it.  It’s great for people who want a simple, flexible system with a week/page and lots of room for notes and To Do’s.

BusyBodyBook is another innovative planner for moms who schedule multiple kids or anyone who is currently using multiple planners.  It has a grid for tracking 5 separate people or projects every day / week. For example, you can use one of the columns to track family meal plans.

Thinkbin is another creative approach to a planner / calendar designed by moms for people who prefer to see the whole month and have room for multiple appointments in a single day.  You can see it at Amazon.com.

There are many other planner systems out there that could work great for you.  Whatever you choose, the important thing is that you USE it!

© 2006 Ariane Benefit, Neat Living

Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed., is an organizing consultant, life coach, speaker, and author of the popular Neat Living Blog at http://www.NeatLiving.net which provides free organizing tips, home makeover photos and much more. Her mission is to help people simplify, organize and energize their lives. Her passion is helping families conquer the chaos and stress that keeps them from enjoying their life together. She provides simple practical organizing solutions that work for real people who just want a neater, simpler, less stressful life – not a perfect one. She can be found on the web at http://www.neatliving.org

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