I’m all for using a weekly planner (obviously!) but not for everything. There are a few things I prefer not to plan in my weekly planner.
5 things I plan (but not in my weekly planner)
1. Budgeting
I’ve mentioned before that I use Excel for budgeting. I explained in detail in this post.
A long time ago I’d budget on paper. First, I tried a monthly calendar with stickers for bills, income, expenses etc. But I found I’d rarely look at it. I don’t have kids or a partner so don’t have many bills or expenses, nor do I do shift work.
I tried converting a few notes pages of planners for budgeting but that never really stuck either. I then made a dedicated budget planner but that ended up being too overwhelming. I found I didn’t need to record everything money related. I’m good with my money and don’t waste it on unnecessary things so don’t need an itemised list of every single expense. I also didn’t want to spend so long punching numbers into a calculator then doing it again to check it’s correct.
I ended up switching to Excel for the automatic formulas, ability to generate pie graphs etc. I dabble in shares – it’s much easier to run different scenarios with share prices, have a visual pie chart of what shares I own to see where I need to diversify etc.
Read more: Why I Switched from paper to Excel spreadsheets for budgeting
If you’d like to try budgeting in excel, the spreadsheets I use are available here.
2. Day to day routine tasks
Little things like empty the dishwasher and do the washing (apart from non-typical things like a reminder to wash a duna), I just put reminders in my phone and set it up to send me a notification at a certain time. I don’t want to write these things in my planner – it takes up too much space and makes it feel cluttered.
Things that are a routine habit that I do at the same time every week, I also don’t bother adding to my planner. I don’t really bother adding them to my monthly habit tracker anymore either. Things like go for a walk for an hour every day I already do as part of my daily routine. If it’s a habit I’ve developed then I don’t bother writing it in my planner.
Related post: 15 habit tracker tips & ideas to try
3. Travel Planning
There’s far too much to plan over a long time period to do travel planning in my planner (or even just in the notes section of a planner). With so many things to organise I’ve tried many methods including a printable planner, apps like Trello and Excel. The best method I’ve found is separate tabs in Excel including a tab with a master to do list from which I’ll pick tasks from each week to add to my planner.
More details on my travel planning process in this post.
4. Project planning
I don’t have one perfect method for planning projects. I usually get a piece of scrap paper and list out what I need (e.g. checklist by milestone, a gantt chart, mind map etc.) and then choose one of my many planners with this layout.
Some I’ve used over the years:
- My own printables – particularly the anything list
- My room organization planner printables
- Excel task lists
- Excel – gantt chart
- Color coded checklists (Happy Planner refills are useful for this)
- Kanban Flow (similar to but better than Trello)
- Project Planning Using the Action Method Book
- Using the Mi Goals Planner for ecourse planning
Read more: Using the Mi Goals Planner for ecourse planning
Some that are on my radar to use in the future:
- Cobbery planner (review coming soon)
- Agendio (can make custom page layouts)
5. Meal Planning
I like to use dry erase for this. I’ve used both laminated menu planning printables with whiteboard markers, as well a small weekly whiteboard you can get from discount stores.
More planning tips
- Bored with your planner? 25 ways to mix it up
- 15 Review questions to ask yourself at the end of every week
- 30 Purposes for Your Planner
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