Using time planners

Time planners can keep you on track, but you have to use them. Find the type of time planner that will be the most effective tool for your lifestyle.

Tutorial

To successfully use time planners, you have to be an organized person who can stay focused on the tasks at hand. But you also have to be flexible enough to allow for life’s little unexpected situations.

Choosing a time planner is an important part of making the tool work for you. Is your day chopped into tiny pieces? Consider a doctor’s day, filled with appointments that are often booked at 15-minute intervals (or less). Then consider the potential he or she has for falling behind. Because the day is packed with appointments, any single appointment that takes more than the allotted time presents a problem. If your day is like that, you’ll need a time planner with room to enter new appointments several times each hour.

One option for a time planner is your computer. Most have calendars that can be personalized to meet your needs. You can print out a page of appointments each day or you can connect to your computer via your telephone or personal planning device. You can even enter information on your personal device and synchronize those entries with your computer so that anything entered on either the device or your computer will be included on both.

Some people simply prefer a traditional hard copy time planner and those can be very effective tools of time management as well. In the end, it comes down to what you feel comfortable with and what you’ll maintain and use most.

Remember the term “pencil me in?” Time planners for most people are not written in stone, even though you might have made an entry in ink. For the best use of time planners, allow yourself the ability to deviate when necessary. After all, life seldom takes time to check with your time planner before throwing a curve.