Question: What made me realize I needed a different kind of planner?
For me, it probably started in university. In the first year of my undergrad, I had a professor pull me aside and tell me that I could be really incredible if I just got myself organized. That kind of flipped a switch for me because, honestly, I like to be incredible.
That was when I started building what I now realize was basically a time-blocking system for my week. At the time, I had no idea that’s what it was called. I would just open up a Word document, create a table, and slot everything in: my classes, study time, assignment time, practice time. My whole week became little blocks of planned time.
It was Monday to Friday because my weekends were mostly just work shifts back then, so those were easy enough to manage separately.
What ended up being really important, though, was the white space. Since it was just a simple Word document with a table, there was room everywhere to write notes. Not class notes, but life notes. Context notes. Things I needed to remember for the day, random thoughts, reminders, ideas, all the things floating around in my head.
The system worked really well for me. Every Sunday, I would print out a new version of my schedule and carry that paper around with me all week. I would religiously check things off as I worked through them.
I also made sure to schedule things I actually wanted to do. If I had an hour blocked off to watch Game of Thrones at the time, I was excited to work through everything else so I could get to it. I became really aware of how my time was being used and what was pulling at my attention.
Of course, life looks a little different now than it did back then in my very simple single life. These days there are a lot more obligations, responsibilities, and moving pieces.
As I transitioned into my professional life and started getting more demands, more requests, more inputs, and more things to manage mentally, I realized that the pre-built planners you buy in department stores—or even a lot of the specialty planners online—just didn’t fully fit the bill.
I needed space for schedules, but also lists. I needed room for notes. I needed a way to visually understand my entire week at a glance while still having flexibility for everything else happening in my brain and life.
That’s when I really realized I needed to build my own planner, which eventually became My Day Planned.