Have you used planners in the past but then felt disappointed when they didn’t make you anymore productive or help you to make much more progress than you expected. If that sounds like you or that is the situation you currently find yourself in, you are not alone.
So many women come to the planning community looking for a planner to be their ultimate productivity sidekick. They do some research, look at some planners, watch some reviews- they choose the planner they feel most excited about- their unicorn planner, they get it home, they spend all this time setting it up exactly as they want with all the information they need inside, so excited that they now have achieved planner peace, and then they start using the planner and they still have just as much to do, they are spending the same amount of time doing it, and they aren’t seeing any more results than usual. The planner is not making them more efficient or strategic with their time and tasks- they are just as overwhelmed and busy as they always have been, and they still don’t have time for the goals and priorities they say matter to them!
Yes, the planner helped a little bit. It helped them remember the tasks they said they wanted to do and it helped them remember their appointments, most of the time, when they actually checked it. Perhaps you can relate to the excitement of setting up your planner and then the reality that you have a hard time checking back in with it. This happens much more than you think! Getting a planner and filling it out once doesn’t mean you are going to suddenly have a reliable planning routine.
So, if this sounds like you, you are in the right place and I want you to know that if this happened to you in the past, I totally know why it happened.
Because most planners aren’t actually planners. Most planners are simply a paper based reminder systems. Think about it. Most planners on the market give you a pretty standard system of inserts. The inserts might look a little different, they may be laid out in a different way or use a different font or style, but the vast majority of planners out there to buy are essentially the same system.
They give you a yearly reference calendar, maybe two years of reference calendars so you can check dates.
They give you a monthly spread, usually a boxed grid style where you are meant to write in some events or due dates, but not very much because the boxes only hold so much. So, you can fit in some birthdays, trash day, holidays, drs appointments, maybe some important due dates.
Then they give you either a daily or weekly agenda spread. A weekly agenda may have lined sections for each day of the week, maybe a task list on the side or be broken out into boxes. A daily agenda might include a daily hourly schedule.
Then at the end of the planner, you may get some notes pages, or contacts pages- some very brief reference section.
That system of inserts inside most planners is giving you a step by step process for how to use the planner. So, it’s saying put events here, put tasks here, put appointments here. This is your day. Right? That’s a system to help you remember, not a system to help you be more productive or strategic.
Just writing down a to do list isn’t making you more productive. Having an hourly schedule doesn’t make you more efficient or help you achieve your goals. It may make you initially feel more productive- which is part of the neuroscience behind planning- which is that the physical act of writing out or typing out a to do list or schedule makes your brain feel more at ease. But your brain feels that way whether or not you actually do the tasks and follow the schedule, or not. So, with most of these planners, you write out some tasks, you feel better, you may then move on with your day and ignore that list in your planner because you feel better just because you wrote the tasks down.
But what if you come back to that list- those reminders you wrote down. How do you tackle the list? I guess you just choose a task from the list that you feel like doing because on that list there is no prioritization- there is no clear objective for the big picture you want to accomplish. There is no strategy. And so what happens is most people take the easiest task off that list and do that. They sift through the list and they choose what they feel like doing. And then at the end of the day, the list still has some tasks on it and 9 times out of 10 those tasks were the important things that actually needed to get done. But they have been pushed off for tomorrow now, right?
And so you come back to your planner the next day, and you see these tasks and you add some more for the new day and you choose again. But because there is no structure or strategy for this list, you look at the items and say to yourself “I don’t feel like doing these things- I didn’t have the energy for them yesterday and they seem even more urgent today and I feel like that’s a lot of pressure on me right now, so I am going to do something else.” And so you take another easy task off your list, and every time you check off something easy, you get that hit of dopamine- and that hit of dopamine makes you feel like you are getting things done, you are checking boxes lady, you are feeling productive. But guess what? At the end of the day, those big scary urgent tasks are still there, and the longer they sit on your to do list ignored, the bigger and scarier they become.
Have you ever done this? You’ve left something on your to do list for so long that you are irrationally scared to approach the task?! I know I have done this many times, so I am not immune to this situation either- it’s human- it’s neuroscience. The longer we avoid something the more pressure we feel and the more pressure we feel the more our brain turns on the fight for flight mode and we generally avoid the task and pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead of just doing it and getting it out of the way which is what would actually make us feel better and solve the problem.
Okay, so we have all this, we have an existential threat created by our planners just because we are using this system of inserts that aren’t really meant for planning or doing, they are meant for remembering.
Go ahead, look inside some of the planners in your stash- look at some planners at target or staples, or online- this system of inserts is repeated over and over and over. You think their are thousands of planners in the market, but their aren’t- their are just multiple sizes and variations on this one system!
Darn, what are we supposed to do?
How do we get a planner that actually helps us plan and avoid situations and downwards spirals like this?
Because we are ambitious ladies here- we have things to do, we have goals, we have families, we juggle priorities and responsibilities like a boss and we don’t have time for a planner that isn’t helping us do more in less time, a planner that isn’t helping us get clear on what we need to do to be successful.
Well, this is where I found myself circa 2014. Premade planners were not doing it for me- so I started designing my own inserts to create a planning system that actually helped me get my ideas out of my head and onto paper, helped me to organize those ideas strategically, and then helped me schedule and track it all so that I was getting things done!
That three phase system became the basis for a my personal planning philosophy that I call Functional Planning.
Functional because it helps you get everything you need and want to do out of your head and onto paper so you can organize that information strategically, and then schedule and track your work to it’s successful completion.
Step 1, Step 2, Step 3- this is how we plan functionally.
Functional planning is based on research backed time, task and personal energy management strategy. Plus, it incorporates actual neuroscience so that as you follow through with functional planning techniques, you are actually training your brain to think more productively and strategically about your tasks and how you spend your time.
For years, I have been obsessed with the concept of Functional Planning and I’ve been sharing my journey here on Youtube and on my blog and social platforms, as I research, design and create functional planning tools to help you create the strategic plan for your life.
The culmination of this work is my signature Functional Planner known as the Charmed Life Master Planner.
I created the first iterations of the Charmed Life Master Planner back in 2015 and every year since I have evolved the design to incorporate the newest research and technology so that your planner becomes the single greatest productivity tool in living your best life.
And for anyone who may be new to me and wondering about the name of the planner. In 2015 I designed a unique month on two pages, vertical week on two pages planner that I called the Charmed Life Planner, and that was all it included, monthly and weekly pages because that’s how planners are sold right. But I also sold the Charmed Life Planner in a bundle with project planning inserts and I called that bundle the Functional Planning Bundle.
And I sold the planner like that, until 2018 when I added a third and final section to the bundle that I call the Brilliant Ideas section- which are the ideation inserts- brain dump, brainstorm and notes pages. Once I added that third section, really completing the planner and the functional planning system- I started calling it the Master Planner. It was the one planner to rule them all! So, I merged the two names. Charmed Life Master Planner because my brand name is Strange and Charmed, my shop is the Charmed Shop, I’m all about living and teaching others how to live a more Charmed Life. And Master Planner because this one was it- this system was the embodiment of Functional Planning mastery. So that is the history of the name of the planner!
The Charmed Life Master Planner is a first of its kind Functional Planning System. System because the inserts included in the planner walk you through a specific process for getting your ideas out onto paper so you can prioritize them because we know we can’t do it all at one time, we have to make choices and select what is most important and put first things first and second things second.
Then the system guides you into organizing your tasks into strategic project plans so you can create a step by step process for achieving an objective, goal or outcome you desire. Finally, the planner gives you a variety of calendar pages so you can outline your plans for the year with a big picture overview on the yearly views, and then drill down to the monthly view, and into the weekly and daily views if you need that much detail- it’s up to you!
The concept is that you create this big picture plan for your year, break it down into action steps and you can track and schedule those tasks down from the macro view to the micro view, so that each day you know exactly what you have to do to move your life forward, and as long as you do those few essential tasks each day and week, you have made necessary and impactful progress. This is all based on neuroscience and productivity research that tells us that humans see their time and plans as unique structures- so it’s important to have multiple views in your planner to mimic the way you see time in your mind. This is known in science as chronoception- which is your perception of time. And this is also based off the science of what is known as time-space synesthesia, which is the way some people, including myself, perceive time as part of their physical space.
Now, this is something I’ve only ever really discussed privately within my Master Mind, but I experience time a little differently than some other people do. I actually see time around me like a ring around my body. And because of this synesthesia I experience, when I plan, I need to be able to see time laid out visually, as opposed to seeing it as a list. And this factor has played heavily into how I design my planner inserts, because some people, like myself, have a very visual experience of time, and most planner systems do not provide the right layouts for people like me to see their plans in a way that allows them to make an accurate prediction of what they will be able to accomplish with their time. So, if you experience time space synesthesia like me, or you just consider yourself to be a very visual person, the Charmed Life Master Planner includes inserts that most planners don’t include, so it is a more functional system for anyone who is neurodivergent in any way.
Every year, I work to refine these inserts and this system, really making the system as accessible as possible to the greatest number of women because I know and believe and am living proof that this process, once you learn it will take you from overwhelmed to organized. It will take you from chaos to clarity. And it truly helps you work smarter not harder.
For years the Charmed Life Master Planner was only available as a set of print at home inserts.
Then in 2018 I turned it into a book bound planner that you can purchase on Amazon.
In 2022, the planner got a huge makeover in terms of style- all the same great function, but I just had to give her a makeover, the girl was 7, she needed it!
Then in 2023 I unveiled the next evolution of the system – The Digital Master Planner!
So, the Charmed Life Master Planner comes in three versatile formats:
- Print at home inserts that you can use to create your own custom planner system in the binder of your choice
- A Digital Planner PDF hyperlinked and compatible with a variety of PDF annotation applications and tablets
- A Book Bound undated version so you can keep your year together in one easy to use book and never waste inserts again
Each version includes over a dozen elegantly designed inserts based on productivity and neuroscience research to help you capture your plans and ideas, define strategic objectives to work towards and to track and allocate your work each day. The Master Planner is truly a tool intended to help you take your goals and tasks from to-do to done!
No matter which planner format is compatible with you, the printable inserts, digital planner or book bound, the Master Planner is the productivity system and tool you need to actually start getting more done!
Click here to make your selection and get started Functional Planning today!
I can’t wait for you to see and feel the difference a complete Functional Planning system makes to your productivity.
xoxo,
