My Ultimate Daily Planner Printable
I feel like this printable has been 26 (my lifetime) years in the making. I designed this little planner page because I was frustrated with failing at the little stuff...because I know that the little stuff is what makes all the difference.
I wanted a planner that would keep certain aspects of my life from falling through the cracks. Aspects like health, being grateful, staying on top of my finances, and taking full advantage of all the big and little opportunities that come into my life on a daily basis.
I have tweaked this printable over and over and over. It looks pretty simple, but that's exactly why it's so powerful. Allow me to walk you through how this thing works...
How to use the Daily Planner Printable
write in the date and circle the day
I find it particularly helpful to be aware of both the date and the day because I am able to flip back to "last Monday" or "last Wednesday" without having to refer to a calendar to match up the date with the day first. This helps me look up recent activities quickly and gives me a solid sense for how my week went.
You never think: "What did I do on the 25th of August?"
You think: "What did I do last Monday?"
write in your top 3 priorities
This is where the magic happens. Keep the most important thing the most important thing. I know that it does not matter how much stuff I get done if I don't pay attention to what will make the BIGGEST difference. Sometimes the tasks that I write in this box seem small, but I'm able to connect the dots and see just how key they are to my progress in accomplishing my BIG goals and living my BEST life.
write in your schedule
This schedule box starts at 6am and ends after 9pm (leaving you 8 hours of sleep in between, well that's the ideal anyway). I love being able to map out my day right away without any lines. If something didn't happen as planned, I go back, scratch it out and rewrite it. I don't care if it looks messy. At the end of the day, I want an accurate record of what actually happened in case I need to go back and check.
record your health & fitness
Did you know that people who write down their meals, eat so much healthier than people who don't? In this area, I've covered all my bases for what I need to pay attention to in order to stay healthy and have energy. In the past, when I wouldn't keep track of my health habits, I ended having bad habits. And it's true, your greatest wealth is your health. It's really hard to "enjoy the journey" when you feel like "blah."
record your income and expenses for the day
This section has been my life-saver. I've struggled for so long trying to find an easy way to keep track of my day to day financial activity. This it it! At the end of the day, I write down what income I've received and where it came from (I have multiple streams of income) and I write down each expense. At the end of the week, on my "Update my budget" day, I take my planner pages from the past week and simply transfer the numbers to my monthly budget printables.
write your to-do list
I don't care for To Do lists that are a whole page long. If your to-do's can't fit on a post-it note, it's too much. The boxes where I check off my to-do's are particularly important because I rarely get everything done. So I use symbols that help me manage unfinished tasks.
check mark = complete
arrow = do tomorrow
x = no longer have to do it
write your "I did it!" list
Keeping an "I did it!" list is a powerful way to realize that
YES, you accomplish sooo much each day!
Every day we get stuff done, stuff that we might have never even added to our to do list. Like, maybe you had a crazy day and you didn't even get to your to-do list. Well, instead of beating yourself up about it, how about reflecting on the million things you actually did get done anyway?!
record opportunities and the action step you plan to take
Every day, opportunities come our way - big and small. It could be an email from somebody asking if you are interested in working together on a project. It could be that person you bumped into at a coffee shop who wants to refer your services to a friend. It could be a brilliant idea you had for your business. Stuff like this happens all the time to you and me.
We design our lives with what we do with what we get.
Every day, you get opportunities to move forward, to make tomorrow better than today, to actively craft your life. But if we don't have our eyes peeled, we miss them. I didn't just want to see opportunities, I wanted to hold myself accountable to identifying the next smallest action step necessary to take advantage of them. At the end of the week, I'll look back at this section on each sheet just to see if the opportunity is still important, if I took action, and what I should do next going forward into the new week. I build my life and businesses through this practice.
write in your gratitude
No matter what kind of a day you had, there is always something to be grateful for. A study showed that people who write down what they are grateful for at the end of the day, enjoy a much greater sense of well-being and happiness than people who don't.
When you focus on gratitude, your fears fade.
When you focus on gratitude, you live on the abundant side of life.
