2012 daytimer process

The planner pad is the best daytimer I've seen for ensuring progress on goals and projects.  I'm not using the daytimer in the way that the planner pad people recommend though.  My focus is more of a goal-oriented focus. 

The biggest problem that people usually have with goals is that they fall off their radar some time through the year.  It's hard to keep our goals in mind on a daily basis.  Having a good daytimer that doesn't let you fall off the wagon is a big help. 

At the top of the planner is 14-15 lines (which the planner calls categories).  I use them as days.  10 of the lines are used for tracking goal-oriented activities that I want to do every day throughout that week.  When I go back to work in a couple of weeks, there's space then as well for 4-5 lines of work-oriented goals I will have - the primary one will be being a good manager and all that entails.  I'll know more about how to attack that once I start in the role and see what kind of mess I'm dealing with. 

In the first column (Monday), I list the outcome I want to reach or daily activity.  Here's what they are for next week:

• 30 day shred daily
• Tax accounting done (Monday's activity is recording gains / losses on shares)
• Decluttering (Monday's activity is posting office chairs on freecycle)
• Writing
• Workout (eg. Monday is 3-4 sets of arms)
• Fitbit (Monday is to reach 10,000+ steps and stay within calorie limits - there's about 5 different metrics I can play around with hitting targets for)
• Fun (eg. reading, going out, kids, movies etc.)
• Renovation - eg. a week of painting and putting together the master bathroom
• Deep clean on house (Monday is bathroom - gotta get ready for that painting!)

There's a lot of focus on there on fitness and that's because my #1 goal this year is to get back in shape and not let myself get derailed like I have in the past.  Work is important, yes.  But some day the work will be gone and I don't want to be left with 20-30 extra pounds and a lonely life because I forgot to put myself, my family and friends - and my health first.

Under the daily things to do is other things that aren't time-oriented that I want to get done that day that have nothing to do with the above goals.  eg. errands and weekly type of things and one-offs.  And over on the side are about 20 lines for misc. things that I don't want to forget to do but are sort of like "someday / maybe" items in GTD.  I go through that to pick out things to do for the daily list as well as top of the head things.  But I don't work from this catch-all area.

Below that is a small section of 10 lines that I've made into a grid for my daily cleaning list - the goal being to touch each room once a day (also a vitamin reminder).  I tried going without a daily list for awhile and I'm just not at that stage yet to do without it.  Maybe I never will be - or not for another 7 years or so when the kids and pets are gone.  I'd rather have the mess and have them here with me anyway.