Hello Achiever and welcome to this special Plan With Me article where you’ll be learning an effective and fluff-free way to set up March 2022 goals and expectations, with the help of a digital planner.
Planning is such a pivotal activity and, believe it or not, it’s something you can tackle surprisingly easily. Let’s see how you can set yourself up for success this month by following the simplest and most effective digital planning method.
We’ll be using:
- Planjuli Digital Planner 2022, which works wonderfully even for personal life organisation.
- An iPad Pro and the mighty Apple Pencil
- Notability as a note-taking app of choice on iPad
However, regarding the device, the stylus pen and the app you can actually use what you already own: an android device with a note-taking app installed will do just as fine. The stylus is actually entirely optional, as you can just choose to type everything in. It might not be as cozy as hand-writing, but the pro is that you’ll keep everything super neat!
Right, now let’s start with the actual digital planning process.
1. Start from the yearly overview of the digital planner
Right from the yearly overview, you can move around and visit any month page and any date page. Starting from the yearly overview, you subconsciously get context with regard to where you are right now in relation to your plans for the year. Then, simply tap on March to go to the March 2022 set up page.
2. Initial planning setup for the month layout page
First things first, it’s always a nice idea to use the highlighting tool to make some dates stand out: it can be personal events or business related events, you choose what matters. You should ideally use different colours for different areas of your life in order to make everything visually clear at a glance. We always refer back to the Dates and Events Page in order to highlight all the pivotal dates here.
3. Get clear on your goals using science-based evidence
Now, it’s time to get clear on the goals you aim to reach with the help of your digital planning process. Science says that overloading yourself with too many goals at once is the easiest route to overwhelm, so at Planjuli we set up space for just three main goals that need tackling this month. Usually, we write down two business-related goals and one personal goal, which we highly recommend.
You bring yourself into every situation you meet, whether that’s mundane, business-related, career-based or else. So it’s a very good idea to carve out some time to focus on you and improve as a person.
The reason why the space for each goal is multiline is, again, science-based. The more specific and descriptive your are when you write down your goals, the most effective and focused you’ll be when it comes to actually moving forward and achieving them.
Another great tip is to divide the main goals into three major milestones which will help you stay on your track and will improve your coping skills when you get a sneaky feeling that the goal’s too big. It’s never too big, you just need to plan it well.
Once you complete each milestone, you can quickly check it either by marking it or putting a coloured dot beside it.
At the end of the month, seeing everything - or almost - marked as done and achieved will be a major confidence boost. You’ll see it for yourself.
4. Define your expectations
Now, it’s time to put to great use the section below the calendar and goals. You’ll see it’s actually device in two columns and you’re about to understand why.
The first column is dedicated to expectations.
In this one, you can write in as much detail as you wish what you want or - better yet - what you expect to achieve this month. You can also add pictures and make it as visually appealing as you like. This column works as a source of inspiration throughout the month, so feel free to make it your own in the best possible ways.
5. Give yourself a reality check
The second column is dedicated to a reality check, aka what actually happened during the month as opposed to what you forecasted while planning. You should fill in this column at the end of the month by writing in what worked well and what didn’t, so that it can serve as a source of inspiration for - as they say - adjusting the sail.
And… it’s done!
There you go, if you followed along you have just completed a monthly digital set up that’s effortless and effective, with no time-consuming extras that don’t really bring result to your table. This laser-focused, effective planning process will make a great difference not only in the way you approach digital planning, but also in the way to reap the benefits of it.
Feel free to ask any question you may have and enjoy your fluff-free, result-oriented journey to digital planning with Planjuli Digital Planner.