The Writer's Lifestyle

How Planners Can Help You What can you accomplish within a 24-hour day? A lot, you might say. But even if you did, can you say you've accomplished "everything" you've set out to do? We hope your answer is YES. But if you ever find yourself still wondering for the best answer to this question, you've already succumbed to poor planning practices. That's a bit of bad news right there. You haven't managed your time well enough to complete tasks you've wanted to do even if you're up to the brim with them. It's a typical issue but one with a solution. Time Management Woes No one starts out in life a planning genius. Why? Keeping organized is something we typically figure out how to do ourselves. Some people become good at it and some don't. We struggle from day one because we lack the help we need. We're not born with great time management skills, you see. And so the question remains, how can we become organized in a way that would guarantee productivity every day of our lives? And to that we say, use a planner and surprise yourself how easily you can be transformed. Prioritizing, organizing schedules and keeping track of your time will be a breeze once you have an idea how to get started. Let's help you out. Having a planner is going to change your life. It'll improve it with positive changes. And it will help you stay focused on what's important- even systematize levels of it subject to your needs. Believe it or not, this is more complicated than you think. Living in the digital age is one big distraction and we know that perfectly well. It's not easy to keep your life together when you're constantly distracted. Sound familiar? It should. Are you holding your phone right now? Then distracted is what you are. If you have a checklist of things to do each day, you're already on track in this adventure. However, planners should contain much more than just a daily to-do list. It should be more personal and made-for-you and your life's milestones. Planners also act as a coach and a guide for you. You grow as your pages progress. And this personal development is prompted by how well you create your steps - at your own pace. True enough, there are planners that offer that kind of flexibility. How To Manage A Planner One thing we know for sure is that life's unexpected. How about making that the main backdrop of your planner. You begin simply by defining a goal. Make it clear and measurable. Write it down at the beginning of the pages so you'd know where it is as you go forward. Page one in your planner should be about you and your dreams. You list them out should you have plenty of them. There's no limit. Building a planner is a map towards achieving your goals. First of all, you're in charge of it. Yes, YOU. Simply write each goal down - what is it you want to do? What needs to be done? For example, if you want to become a singer, write down "learn one song (step one)" and "record your own voice singing it (step two)." And then you progress from there. Next,tool up! Find the materials you need to get started on this journaling roadmap. Bear in mind that keeping a journal or planner is something you must commit to doing - meaning you should be contributing to the pages day in and day out. It follows that you get the tools you need like getting a notebook or a planner that contains monthly, weekly or daily pages with spaces for you to write on. And then get a reliable pen to write those pages with. These two are the basics. You'd need more later on. Get started. Do not limit yourself to a single idea. You have a lifetime of experience to draw inspiration from. Also, note that keeping a planner should not pressure you into writing something, anything. Otherwise, you'd end up with random thoughts on your pages that don't make sense. Actually, planners help you get organized - both in thoughts and actions. In so doing, how you think and what you do will be carefully structured and mapped out. And YOU did that at the end of the day. Yey! Keep at it. Don't stop. The more you progress in charting your planner, you'll realize that you'd have improved your ability to keep your day to day tasks on track. You'd become more efficient at managing your time. Your own efforts will lead you to your goals. One day, you may flip through page one again to read back on your goals and find yourself already there.

There's an app for that. That's true. We live in a very convenient world now. The old ways of pen and paper may arguably be going extinct. But there's a truth many planner enthusiasts would agree on - in no way do modern devices and apps stop planners from getting out of style. The reason is obvious - planners are still the most reliable productivity tool there is. If you use it well, it would strongly get you organized enough to make sense of your life. However, if you haven't used any planner before, our planners are going to prove a good beginner's tool - all 256 pages of it. Let this walk-through convince you. THE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS There are key elements in our planners that will make this a unique experience for every user. Even if you haven't seen it, we've made it easy to navigate through our pages. It should be a seamless experience because we've removed the usual clutter and added some nice extra features. If you plan on using the planner regularly, you'll find that you have become more attuned to your needs, your ability to manage your time and have acquired a lifelong skill in the end. The bonus? You've become a better version of yourself with how well you are handling your day to day and being productive in every step. Your Wordsworth Planner will be a master plan and a testament to how far you would go to see it through. So if you don't know where to begin this process, here are the important elements of our planner you need to know: Instructions/Users Guide - Not all planners begin with a complete user's guide. Often times, a user is left to figure out what happens at the beginning. Our planners are unique because they begin with a blueprint of the process. The premise of having a planner is to provide structure into your planning. You can use it well only if you maximize on its benefits from the start. This is why you will be taken to a core process - where you need your mind to be and how to make your planners work. The user's guide is a seminal overview. You will have to read this in order to know our real intentions for creating this planner, our mission and our ardent hopes for the user. Benefits - There's probably a good reason why you chose our planner above all others. That's what we are banking on. This planner, in all intents and purposes, will be an asset to you and your life. The planner lists down plenty of advantages for using its system. As you read through them, we are confident in the hopes that a lot of your needs would have been checked off. Advanced Calendar - Every planner comes with an advanced dated calendar for 2018 until 2021. It's made advanced so you can use your planner well into the future. This is also to make checking dates very convenient for the user. World Map - A planner is never complete without a world map - ours is integrated with the time zones as a value-added feature on. This service is added to support the next page which is where you list your travel destinations and itineraries. Travel Plans - This is the part where all future travels will have started. You can pencil in all travel goals here - even their proposed dates. It's a space where a lot of bucket list destinations will be marked in. There are two pages of dedicated spaces to get lost in. Mark these destinations and add why you're interested in them. They will serve as reminders for what you need to prepare before the travel dates. There's even room to paste in your past travel mementos and keepsakes. Goals Mind Map - After all the necessities are done, the next step is to focus on how to set your goals - from the smallest down to your most unfulfilled big dreams. Mind mapping, if you have no idea how to begin, is a strategy to create steps in goal setting. Our mind is so easily distracted when you really think about it. Most of the time, we can't distinguish which goals should take the least precedence over another. Mind mapping helps you get to the root of it all. Once you master mind mapping techniques and dissect your goals according to actionable plans, this page will be an access point to the rest of the months, weeks and days. Make sure to lead with this in mind. Vision Board Inspirations - There's a tagline you will find in this two-page space -"People, Places, Photos, Quotes". This will be your baseline inspiration board. Consider them a groundwork for what success should look like for you. A Vision Board is a blank space to start but as soon as you clip in photos, quotes, places, and people who will contribute to achieving a specific goal, it will become your mind's dream panel. As used in popular context, a vision board is a tool for attracting what you want to happen. This helps give your goals clarity. When you know what you want in life, you'll work tirelessly to make it happen. This is where the magic happens. General Goals and Target dates - Those who failed to figure out their goals will get a chance to revisit this task on these six pages. However, this is where things get more serious and more personal. Goal setting in this context will be broken down into 3 facets: personal, family and friends, and the professional or the top three (3) needs of every individual. This is the proper forum to tackle plans, ambitions, actions - everything which involves your general aspirations in life. You can't miss this part because there are specific target dates to be elected for each goal. The true purpose for these dates is to hold you accountable so you don't slack off. Specific Monthly Goals - In relation to the general goals set above, this section similarly lets you create top three (3) goals for the month. Actually, when you're not keen on making general goals and prefer to make them on a monthly basis, this is where you start. Goals are still sectioned off into the personal, family and friends, as well as the professional aspects. At the beginning of each month, you have the chance to position three goals for each section. Therefore, you'll have to do some more thinking on this process. You'll be pushed to choose the most weighted ones and their target dates for the month. Accountability always follows each goal setting so a date is mandatory at this point. Blocked daily entries (undated) - You'll be more familiar with this section of the planner as it closely resembles a blocked calendar. There are no dates specified all throughout this full spread so you can begin any time of the month. You can tackle 30 or 31 days of tasks here. It's a summarized view of what the month will look like so this is where you mark permanent dates and events like holidays, birthdays and anniversaries. Monthly Reflection Sheet - Your planner is also where you get to write about an important milestone in your life - as it happens, when it happens. At the end of each monthly blocked section, you have a space for writing details about what has happened in the past month."Breakthrough Moments", should you be blessed with them, can have a dedicated space in your planner forever. So don't waste this chance to check in with yourself. Review of the Month and Plans for the next - If you're the type that enjoys reviewing your monthly activities, this is the page you'll find most appealing. We've structured it to make accurate evaluations. First, you get to celebrate your achievements for the month - a gauge as to how productive you've really become in conjunction with your monthly goals. In the off chance that you've missed out on a task, there's a space to explain why this was so. Allow for some lessons as well as newly revised plans when closing out each month. Note that this process repeats so there are 12 chances to get it right. Weekly Overview Pages - If you find that monthly planning isn't specific enough, this weekly overview might work for you. In full spread, the weekly overview pages start off with one target focus and a space where you can enumerate action plans geared towards this focus. That will be your meter for creating your daily updates. The week begins on a Sunday and each day will start and end the same way with these assignments - gratitude statements and a daily to-do list. To-Do List - The highlight of your daily entries would be your top priorities for the day. It's simplified according to the primary and secondary tasks. This way, you will not have any difficulty assigning what tasks should come first. 15 Waking Hours - Every day begins at 6 AM and you're then afforded 15 waking hours to be as productive as you can make your day to be. Your schedule is arranged vertically for an easy read. Weekly Reflection Sheet - The same opportunity to review your past activities is provided in a reflection space at the bottom part of each page. It's a small but powerful add-on specifically to make reviews a daily/weekly habit. EXTRAS Don't be overwhelmed by what you see. As a productivity and development tool, the layout has a purpose and meaning. You're meant to explore it beyond its basic uses. So we've added in some valuable "extras": Grid and Lined pages - There are a lot more dedicated spaces provisioned for whatever purpose. For example, this could be where you write your grocery lists. Some people use it to brush up on their drawing skills by doodling. The spaces are left blank with nothing but lines or grids on them. This is available on all our planners. Motivational quotes - When you need a push on slow days, this will be your source of inspiration. Feel free to add your own quotes and goal-setting guides. The more you see them, the better it is for motivating you. When opening up our planner for the first time, you'll find it resembles a laid-out storybook. As a matter of fact, it sort of is - it soon will be filled up with snippets of your life, thoughts and even musings, after all. A reader would find a piece of you on every page and might even put together a novel from your life story. We hope it serves you well, dear reader.  

How Planners Improve Your Quality Of Life Envision this: The sun touched your face early and it was nice, warm. You get out of bed not forgetting to stretch out those neck muscles. You tie your hair in a bun, changed into yoga clothes and prepare to meditate. After 30 minutes, you tidy up and fixed a healthy breakfast. With the morning TV news on, you then finished up, brushed your teeth and hurried to change into work clothes. The time was 45 minutes after 7 am. The last thing in your routine was to feed the cat, managed a kiss on its little cheek and then said a quick goodbye. Sounds like a productive morning, right? All these things in your to-do list of morning rituals which you committed to do, got DONE. One at a time, you ticked off your tasks. When you’re self-disciplined, rituals matter a lot in your life. This was all part of your planner journey with the goal to keep repeating your mornings as best as you can. But why a planner though? Is it important to maintain one in a digital world? Our answer? Oh absolutely so. Actually, even more so in this fast-moving world. Sure, all your devices at hand could keep up with the changing world. Your smartphone can also easily remind you of any upcoming schedule. So why rely so heavily on a notebook? There’s a system in planners that builds you up for becoming better at everything you do. Lifetime Benefits of a Good Planner Analog as it may seem, planners are and will always be a gateway for positive self- reinforcement. And it takes just one planner to change your life. If you get one - the right one for you - your present mindset can potentially turn. But it would do that with the best of intentions. Brain Stimulation. Psychology is always behind every planner system there is. And it’s rooted on one thing only - the ability of your mind to influence routines. There exists proof that people who keep a planner, are better at remembering, organizing and mapping out thoughts. Every planner’s main methodology involves mentally stimulating yourself to produce more work. That is, when your brain gets fired up to perform a task, it segregates it into what’s important and what’s not. So consider it a daily exercise for the brain. When you keep stimulating it this way, you'll eventually trigger a mechanism within you to effectively plan a daily workload. And when your life is always revolving around schedules, plans and organizing them, this will be very helpful routine-building exercise. Keeping Focus. Do one thing at a time and you’ll do it properly. Sounds like an antithesis for multitasking but it does have a stringent meaning in terms of why planners are effective. One can easily get into the bad habit of doing so many things at once and then spreading yourself thin on each task. You’re just not giving your best and it could lead to lousy work. Planners have a unique way of having you create priorities. An example is a TO-DO list or dot journals. This way you’re able to accomplish one task at a time and give yourself the opportunity to give your 100% on each one. Self-Discipline and Structure. Planners are great at forming good habits. They are tools you can leverage to form rituals that promote discipline. Like the scenario on the first part of this blog, you can make yourself commit to doing one task and then doing it daily for days or months until you simply do them out of muscle memory. You can add some much needed structure in your life if you have good rituals. So tell yourself, no more lazy excuses. Unique Health Benefits. Your planners can be used in a multitude of ways, not just to simply list things down. Utilize it for jotting down the calories in your food, for example, to form eating habits. You may also write down important doctor appointments, not just birthdays and anniversaries. There are people who successfully incorporate their prescribed exercise routines in their planners to monitor health conditions. Some even pencil in their relaxation schedules to keep their stress-levels down. In a nutshell, you can organize your planners in a manner which promotes long-term health benefits. You’ll thank yourself later, if you do. Creative Outlet. It may be unusual for some but a unique benefit of a great planner is to give your creative side a chance to shine, if you so choose to do so. A lot of great planners out there such as this one, allow room for some embellishments like adding in a washi tape, even coloring as a highlight to indicate a task fully done. Some add structure by doodling. If you knew the things you have to do and when to do them, you’ll be less overwhelmed. That will always be the most important benefit of a great planner. Your life would be less cluttered, always organized and eventually free from stress. If by now you’re convinced of getting a planner, you’re already a winner, in our book.