Learn New Ways to Use a Free Planner Printable Schedule

As part of my ongoing monthly planner series with Becky from Planner Fun, I am showing you 6 new ways to use her newest, free planner printable.

My Dirty Little Secret: Scheduling in a Planner

I love paper. For planning my day, there is nothing like putting ink to paper. I adore the scratch of the pen on the rough surface. My mind thinks in lists, so writing tasks that visual, orderly way is intuitive.

But this week is a little bit more busy than most.

My secret? When my week looks like that, I plug in my times into Google Calendar...

...and then I fill in the blanks with workouts and work hours.

TIP: Color-code the entries appropriately.

I use green for things I must do (appointments/timed tasks), yellow for things I must be at but passively (like staying home waiting for a package to arrive), and red to indicate another family members activity that does not require anything from me, but must be on my calendar.

Blue means work and purple means workouts. Working on a big project gets entered in orange.

Yes, Mrs. Paper Planner uses a technological approach to scheduling.

After all, I do whatever makes the most sense throughout my planning, and this makes sense. Google Calendar gives me a layout and the ability to move things around that my paper cannot match. When scheduling big projects, workouts, and my limited hours of paid work, having the calendar grid really helps me to map my time.

Understand, living out of Google Calendar would never work for me in a long-term way. I still need paper for tasks and for an overview of my month, so I only use Google Calendar as a tool during my weekly planning to make decisions about how I will be spending my time.

In fact, I still write the actual schedule on my Daily Docket, so it is easy to take with me and reschedule on the go.

How do you use technology to supplement your paper planning?

Etcetera.

Time Mapping

A friend of mine is teaching a college writing course, tutoring, and working a third job from home. She needs to work at the extra jobs for 30 hours per week. Plus, she is a mom with all the responsibilities that come with parenting a young child.

Another friend is a nurse, working three to four shifts per week. Her hours are not 9 to 5.

I also work a strange, part-time schedule. I generally work about 15 hours a week as a lawyer. I also substitute teach, blog, write, and volunteer.

For anyone without a regular, 40 hour per week schedule, keeping track of available time becomes important. I use time tracking to figure out how much time I have.

I used this print out and highlighters to create a time map of my next week and figure out how much time I have left to work between the hours of 7 a.m. (when the kids leave the house for school) and 4 p.m. (when they return home).

Red is a scheduled time item that is not flexible at all.

Yellow indicates that I must do the task, and that the time noted is the optimum, scheduled time, but it is flexible. (For example, I still need to workout each day, but could do so in the morning instead.)

After adding up the time available, I have about 25 hours. I work no more than 15 hours at my grown-up, big girl job, leaving me 10 hours to schedule everything else. 10 hours is a lot of free hours (more than usual), so I will probably tackle a big task (like taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning out the freezers).

TIP: Time tracking does not need to be limited to figuring out free work hours. Use it to schedule or to visually record how you spend your time.

I don't use time tracking every day or every week. But every now and then, it really does help. 

Etcetera.