Focus Planner Quick Start Guide
Want a quick crash course in how to use Australia’s best productivity planner most effectively? Get everything you need to know about this planner / diary right on this page. This is a planner for productivity, a planner for focus and a planner for work life balance. You’ve already invested in this great productivity planner called the Focus Planner, so we want to make sure you get the most out of it.
There are three key elements to your Focus Planner and, if you use them correctly, you feel in control of your life, you will find more work life balance and you will get more done in less time. Making this the ultimate planner for productivity.
Sounds good? Let’s go!
THE THREE ELEMENTS:
The three key elements of your planner are:
- Monthly Plan – your Focus Planner helps you understand what needs focus and attention this month
- Weekly Plan – what is going to get attention this week according to your monthly plan
- Daily Plan – for full focus, this is what will get done today, according to your weekly plan
Notice how your Focus Planner allows each element to break down the elements that come beforehand? Let’s dive in for some more detail:
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Your Monthly Plan
Using your Focus Planner as a great productivity planner means that you need to be clear about where you want to spend your time. At the start of every month, think about what really needs your focus, time and attention. You might have a yearly plan with some milestones for projects, or you might just be facing some specific challenges this month. At work, this might be as simple as focussing on a project that is being neglected, or some staff issues that need your attention. Or you might know that it is going to be a crazy month of sales.
But your Focus Planner is also a tool for work life balance. For this, think about the above for each of these three areas: Work, Home & Relationships and the area of Self (for more on these three critical areas, see this video). And once you’re ready, write these “Most Important Things” on the left-hand side of the page in the appropriate space.
Once you’re done with that, think of a habit that might support your achievement of this. It might be something you can do once a week or twice a week, but make sure it’s repetitive – that’s how we build habits.
For example, if you need to get more sales at work this month, your habit might be to make 20 calls every day, or to spend the first 30 minutes every morning mining for opportunities. If you need to spend more time with your family, your habit might be to do the school pick up three times a week.
For more on MIT’s and key behaviours, watch this video:
Your Weekly Plan
Now it’s time to check out your Weekly Plan in your Focus Planner. You write your weekly plan at the start of every week – say, Monday or Sunday night. To make sure you stay on track, look back at your Monthly Plan and use it to determine what needs your focus this week. Write these things in the top left table of your Weekly Plan. It is really important to always reflect back on the Monthly Plan when constructing your Weekly Plan in the Focus Planner – this way you stay on track for those bigger picture items.
Think also about any project milestones that you really need to accomplish this week. If your big project milestones are a way off, then write something smaller to accomplish by the week’s end. Write these in the appropriate space. This part of the planner diary should help you to stay on track.
At this point you can also use your habit tracker on the lower left-hand side of the page. Take the habits you nominated in the Monthly Plan and write them in the tracker – tick them off as you do them every day.
For more on the three work life balance areas of Work, Home & Relationships and Self, watch this video:
Your Daily Plan
Finally, every day (or the night before) you’ll plan out your day. Reflect on your Weekly Plan and write the Big Impact Tasks that will get you closer to achieving your plan. Write these in the areas on the left-hand page. These should be guarded closely and your time spend on these should be the most important part of your day.
Hopefully you can see why we think the Focus Planner is Australia’s best productivity planner. Everything is designed to keep you on track with full focus on the big picture!
On the right-hand side, use the day planner to organise the times at which your big impact tasks are going to get done. We suggest that you actually plan these in amongst your other commitments, so you know when they are going to get your attention. This planner diary aspect of the daily spread helps to make sure you can assign your time most effectively.
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That’s it! The three key elements of the Focus Planner in a nutshell. For a more in depth look at using the planner super-effectively and managing your day for maximum impact, check out our Focus Bootcamp over at our learning site.