A recent Coffee Sunday meeting with a friend encouraged me to start making & keeping to a schedule.

Don’t start your day until it’s on paper.

The friend said this to me.

You don’t actually have to make your own planner

I made one for you.

Turns out, the easiest way to make a planner is to whip out the old keyboard, gulp down a cup of coffee, slam your hands on it a few times inside a php file, and click print.

The results? A customized planner worthy of love.

1. Pick a start date below. The planner’s range will be the date selected plus one month.
2. Follow the link.
3. Print out double-sided on 40lb HP Heavyweight Project Paper, 8.5″ x 11″. Be sure to turn off all margins. The easiest way to print may be to save the page to a pdf and then print from there. This works best on Chrome. Alternatively, if your printer cannot handle the margins, use a third-party printing service.
4. Take to Office Depot and ask for the following:
   • Black Regency Cover
   • Frosted Front Cover
   • Black Spiral Binding

Choose start date:

View planner

What he taught me

I had been already keeping a daily task list, but had begun to notice some faults with my ritual. The friend I had coffee with offered some solutions.

Write your plans in pencil…. because, you know, stuff happens. Since the beginning, I had been writing mine in pen. I liked the formality of it, “I WILL get this done.” I loved the way it turned my list making into an artform. Ultimately, it left me defenseless when I had to lead an actual life; often times, I would end up having to through the list out the window.

Schedule the time spent on each task. Making a To Do list is great, but becomes a problem if time management is one of your weak suits (if you think it’s not, you’re probably lying to yourself).

If you’re not careful, one task can consume an entire day, leaving no room for any others. Scheduling how long you will engage with a task limits the amount of time it can steal away from you.

Break down the day into 15-minute increments. I actually still don’t do this on a regular basis, but he mentioned that he does it and loves it. The planner I made allows for it if it’s something you’re interested in doing.

The rule I have actually been following: Don’t schedule something that doesn’t fall on a 15-minute increment. In other words, don’t plan something at 10:50a when it can easily be scheduled for 10:45a.