For the Love of Lists

Engineering life one step at a time

Free Printables: A Week of Daily Planners

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As much as I have tried, I’ve never found a planner I could stick with.  Some didn’t offer enough detail, and some overwhelmed with too much.  I could never find the right “fit”.  So, inspired by yet another Pinterest binge, I realized that it was time to make my own.  Now I’d like to share my planner with you.

Daily Planner

I had a couple of requirements before I started to develop my planner.  I started off focusing on a daily sheet for the following reasons:

  • It keeps me focused on a specific to-do list
  • I can vary the sheet for work days and weekends
  • I have room for all my scribbles and notes
  • Every day feels like a fresh start

One of my biggest productivity problems is the never-ending to-do list (are you with me on this one?).  Using the daily sheet, I limit my task list to only 3-5 slots per type (i.e. work, business, personal) plus separate items for chores and errands.  I also automatically prioritize (yay color-coding!) and schedule my tasks on the adjacent calendar.

My planner seems complex at first, but it works for me because I can categorize all of my tasks and activities at a glance.  It is also important for me to include information on meal planning, fitness, budget, and daily inspiration (typically Walt Disney or Henry Ford quotes).  Even when I’ve had a rough day previously I can turn over a fresh page and start off new.

Here’s a breakdown of my planner:

  • Date/Weekday – Each sheet has different task slots and chores, including “fun” categories for weekends
  • Daily Activities – The “Pray/Read/Journal/Plan” section is for motivating activities I try to do every day
  • Inspiration – I love inspiring quotes, and I try to find a new one each day
  • Book – A reminder of which book I’m reading that day
  • Challenge/Reward – I set a specific challenge each day tied to a reward (ex. completing 3 tasks = an episode of Gilmore Girls)
  • Schedule – The shaded areas represent my non-work hours, and I block schedule tasks and activities throughout the day
  • Tasks – I try to accomplish these in priority order (red-orange-yellow) and check them off when they’ve been completed
    • Work – I’m a full-time engineer so this is where I track my assignments
    • Business – I use this for blogging and organization (AIAA) tasks
    • Personal – This one’s for everything else in my life
  • 10 Minute Tasks – I like to write down a few mini tasks I can get done even if I don’t feel like I have time to check anything off my list (ex. shredding papers, clearing the dresser)
  • Contacts – A list of people I need to contact (email/call/etc) for work and home
  • Errands – A list of places to go and things to buy
  • Chores – We have different chores assigned to each day, with room for items that need extra attention
  • Nutrition – Here I track my meal plan for the day, preps I need to take care of for the next night’s dinner, and check box reminders for vitamins, health monitoring, and my food log.  I also have 10 bullets at the bottom to track water intake.
  • Fitness – I’m usually working with a 30-day challenge, and I like to write down options for physical activity I can do throughout the day.  The total records the amount of time I spend exercising in a day.  I also keep a reminder box for nightly stretches.
  • Budget – I use this to try to stay accountable for any spending decisions throughout the day
  • Notes – For any reminder or thought that doesn’t fit the sheet, I keep this open.

Here is the link to my daily planner.  It includes all 7 days of the week in one file, so you can print a week at a time and get prepared each Sunday.  Let me know if you like it!

Free Printable Daily Planner

 

How to Clear Your Inbox with Only 3 Folders

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Disney Week is over, so let’s get down to business.  And I’ll pretend I’m not hearing the music from Mulan in my head…

This week, I’m going to share an idea to organize your emails and clear your inbox with only three folders.  And here’s the best part: you can use this system for nearly all your paper documents and files as well.

How to Clear Your Inbox

By the time I left grad school I had four email accounts, and each was loaded with hundreds of reference emails.  I’d be looking for a past message from a professor or a flight confirmation, and, while the search function helps, it can be time consuming.  I frequently lost tasks within the inbox black hole too.  Plus, it’s been proven that our minds get stressed by information overload, whether or not we think it affects us (and in my case, I’m well aware that it does).  So I decided to find a better way to handle emails.

I looked through my inbox and realized we get the same types of emails as we do standard documents: things to respond to, things to do, things we’re waiting on, and things we’ll reference later (oh, and trash, but you should know where to put those).  So I decided to set up three folders:

  1. Action – Things I need to do
  2. Hold – Information I’m waiting on (ex. need a response, short-term reference)
  3. File – Information I’ll need to reference later

As for the things I needed to respond to, I took care of it in one massive batch at first.  But now, if it will take me less than two minutes, I respond right away (a habit I learned from the popular GTD system).  Otherwise, I consider it a task and it goes in the Action bin.

Here’s how the system works:

Action: This is the most important folder in your work email, in particular.  Any task/response that will take longer than two minute goes in this folder and is added to my master to-do list.  When I’m looking for the tasks that need to be done I sort by “From” or “Subject”, depending on the subject.  If I get a new response through an email chain (and the prior emails are still at the bottom) I simply replace the older email (typically it gets deleted or put in the file bin).  When a task is done, I either delete the emails or file them for future reference.

Hold:  This one’s kind of a mixed bag, but it really comes in handy.  It’s for information you’ll need to act on or for reference in the near future.  For work this usually contains tasks I can’t act on yet (either due to time or needing a response) and information related to future events.  At home this is the spot for travel reservations and order confirmations.  The trick with this folder is to review it frequently to determine if the contents should be moved to the action or file folders (or can be deleted).

File:  So this may be where I stretched the truth on only needing three folders, but technically I still consider this part of my inbox system where the actual reference folders are part of my general email system (it’s like your inbox vs. your file cabinet).  Any emails I think I’ll need later on get put in the file folder.  This requires some real discernment, because, like a lot of people, I get tempted to keep everything.  Only keep the emails you’ll really need in the future; it will save you a lot of time and space in the long run (even virtual storage isn’t endless).  Once a month I go through my file folder and empty it into the appropriate reference folders.  With my work email I even skip the file step and drop emails directly into their reference spots as they come in.  The key here is to make sure you’re actually filing these and not letting them pile up!

I’m not going to lie: it took me hours to get all those emails sorted at first.  But now my inbox is empty, and stays empty continuously.  When I get the day’s emails I simply handle them according to my system.  And because I’m only dealing with a few at a time, it’s easy to determine which are really trash and which are important.  Another great help has been Unroll.me, which showed me all of the useless subscription lists I had been on and let me remove them in minutes.  Now all of the sales emails I only need to see when I’m shopping are rolled up into a single daily email.

This has helped me keep on top of my emails so well that it’s been implemented on all of my accounts.  Here are a few more ways to take advantage of it:

  • Use it for your incoming mail (bins like this or this are great for it)
  • Use it for your paper work/home inbox (a file cabinet helps for reference documents)
  • Modify it for spring cleaning (ex. clothes: action = needs tailoring/repair, hold = seasonal, file = put away)
  • Remember, if it doesn’t fit in any of the three categories it’s either something that can be done immediately or it’s trash. Handle it accordingly.
  • Schedule a date with yourself once a month (or week, depending on quantity) to empty your File folder. Use this time to also scan your Action and Hold files for content that can be moved.
  • Set your inbox folder to show you how many emails it contains, not only the unread ones. This notification can remind you of your goal to keep it empty.  Do the same with your Action and Hold files to stay alert to how many tasks you’ve got on your plate.
  • Use an email management program like Microsoft Outlook to access all of your accounts in one place.

I hope this can help you spring clean your inbox and gain some sanity.  Let me know how it works for you.  As I test out new organization systems I’ll be sure to pass them along, so be sure to sign up for my email list to stay up to date!