Digital Planning

In a world where many of us like order, process and a clear direction it might be a good time to consider the way in which you plan. Having a good, structured planning system is the foundation to creating organisation, but how do you do it?

Some people like to write everything down on paper. They literally pour out everything that’s in their brain on to paper and then try to make sense of it all. This can work, but does have its draw backs; you might lose the paper, you can’t easily move things around when you have written it down, you have to be pro-active in reminding yourself what is on your list to do. Have you considered digital planning? Going digital can really move your organisation to the next level.

Note taking

The joy of pen and paper is that you can jot anything and everything down. A digital note taking app does the same thing. One we recommend would be GoodNotes. This app allows you to organise and categorise your notes into different notebooks. You can use a digital pen to handwrite your notes, then even change your handwritten notes to typed text with the click of a button. You can quickly search your app to pull up exactly which notes you’re looking for. Many of these note taking apps also allow you to import planner templates, so whatever your planning style, you can find a template to suit you.

Task and project management

There are various pieces of software that provide task and project management. We use Asana and not only does it create out master to-do list but also allows us to assign tasks to others in our team. It also helps us break those bigger projects down into smaller task and the comments feature means everyone is updated on the current status of a project. These are all powerful features that your wouldn’t get by writing it all on paper.

Calendar/Scheduling app

Knowing what you are doing and when is hugely important in organisation. An online calendar like Gmail allows you to keep track of all your appointments. You can add the location and add notes to each entry so you arrive at that appointment as organised as you can be. A reminder can also be set, which will send you a notification to let you know the meeting is coming up which means you never forget! As well as a traditional diary, you can use a digital calendar to manage your time blocking. Set aside chunks of time where you want to get specific things done and you can easily move these chunks of time around within your week so you know you still have time to do everything but are flexible enough to meet the demands of life.

Collaboration

If you work within a team there are a number of collaboration tools like Slack that you can use to keep your team informed, engaged and on track. These tools are a powerful resource for brining your team together and making them more effective.

Digital planning can be a good switch in order to provide you with more focus, flexibility and organisation. Will you be swapping?