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Do you plan using a digital calendar? A paper planner or both?
I’m going to talk to you guys about how to use both digital and paper calendars together.
I wish that I could have you all raise your hands and tell me who right now uses digital planners and who uses paper planners. Or do you do some kind of a combination of both of them together?
Obviously we’ve spent the last number of weeks talking about different digital organization options. But, did you know that I actually do a lot of my business planning on paper.
I’m a little old school like that.
And if you are too, I think this episode will be really great for you to dive into how you can better align your different planning tools.
It is perfect timing since out year long Pink Pop Planner line is officially on pre-order for our yearly planner.
The Case For Paper Planners
Paper elements are important to the way my brain works and the flow in my business. If you’re anything like me, you might also benefit from using some paper planning.
I’m so passionate about this, I’ve created my yearly business, Pink Pop Planner that you can use for any 14 month work cycle.
You can start it at the end of the year or really anytime that you want to plan from.
Maybe you are working on a school calendar, like many of us do, and you want to start it in the fall.
Maybe you’re ready to start in January.
It’s never too early to start planning for the year ahead.
If you’re interested in this planner that I think is really beautiful, plus the whole planning system that comes with it will benefit you!
There is audio tutorial included with the book… So it’s a little bit like a Podcast in planning offered by me, along with the planner.
Find these planners @ Pinkpopmedia.com/planner
How To Create a Hybrid System
Now to talk about how to combine the paper planner and the digital systems together to make a planning strategy that is unique and works just for you.
So, where do we start with a combined hybrid system like this? We start by knowing how each of the calendars is going to serve us and serve our businesses.
Digital Calendars Win With Teams
I use my digital calendars for everything that involves other people.
This is really important because it’s really hard to share paper with other people.
So things like my team planning, and our family planning calendars are not real effectively shared with paper calendars to others that don’t live in the house with you or work right next to you.
Having anything that involves other people on a digital calendar is always the way to go!
I do have a family paper calendar in our kitchen, our fun calendar which is an exception. But honestly, only works because we are all living together and sharing that space.
Keeping a digital calendar is going to give you a good overview that can be shared with multiple people for responsibilities activities. Things like that.
Paper Calendars Win For Long Term Planning
Using a paper calendar is more for my own personal planning and I find it works best for both long-term goal planning and also real short-term daily planning.
Here’s how I use and sync these two very different styles of planning.
And I’m going to talk to you a little bit about how I do it on the personal side and also in the business side, because I think they play into each other.
I don’t have like completely separate systems. If you are a busy digital entrepreneur and you have family you’re responsible for, your mom with kids, or you have a partner that you’re planning around, then having a system that works together for both personal and business is a must!
Obviously we have to take into account our personal situations while we are planning our business.
How To Combine The Planning Systems
I use Google calendar to schedule our family activities, appointments, trips, all of that as long out as I know the information.
This allows my husbands and kids to have access to the calendars and to see our scheduling days or even months out.
I learned this real fun trick that you can make your Google calendar as pretty as you could possibly imagine it. By just doing a couple of things.
It’s a real fun way just to make your Google calendar look as aesthetically pleasing as you would like it to be.
How To Create A Pretty Google Calendar
1. You’re going to figure out what your color vibe is, you can do this for your business and you use your brand colors. If you’re doing personally think of your own color vibe.
2. Get the hex code, which is that strange looking digital number for these colors. Go into Pinterest and you’re going to search kind of for a color combination with your hex codes. So you could think about what your aesthetic might be, and maybe you’re like feeling like boho chic fall.
So just go ahead and put the search in like boho chic fall color palettes Hex Codes, it’ll pop up a whole bunch of options of color combos with Hex codes right there for you.
3. Copy those Hex codes.
4. Inside of Google calendar, using the little three… menu that pops up next to each calendar – go into the colors
5. Use the plus + sign and put your hex codes there, watch as it changes the calendar.
6. Do this on repeat until your calendar is exactly the color options you want it to be.
This is real fun because it can make your Google calendar look just as pretty as you could imagine it… and that’s just going to make you want to use it even more.
Creating a Google calendar that works for you.
So, this is where all my longterm stuff lives. This is where all of our long-term family stuff lives.
My Personal Hybrid Planning System
And then once a month, I take that digital calendar and transfer it to a big paper, one in the kitchen that everyone can see. Each family member gets their own color on that big paper calendar.
This is where I put meal planning and everybody can clearly see what’s happening, what we are eating etc.
One fun little tip I’ve been doing lately is writing myself notes on my Google calendar. I don’t know if you guys are already doing this, but I thought of it about a year ago and it’s been so helpful to me.
For instance… right now, I just needed to buy candy for Halloween.
Normally I would be like, shoot I don’t know how much candy to buy.
Well, last year I wrote down exactly how many bars we gave out. And I notes it in my Google calendar for this fall, so before I went shopping I looked and right there it said… here’s how many bars you need. And I was able to buy the exact amount of bars.
I’ve also been doing it after our family events or trips, making notes of what we could do different next year.
- This is what everybody loved.
- This is what I need to buy. As far as supplies.
It’s really helped me to be able to have those things pop up.
It almost is like a little backup memory from my brain. Do you have things you’d like to remember maybe a year from now, that’s kind of a fun way to use your digital calendar.
My Business Hybrid Planning System
Okay. Now moving on to work. Because, this is a business planning podcast after all.
For planning my own digital business, I start with a digital planner in the same way as I do personally.
Digital Planner for Activities
I fill in work events, things like conferences, meetings. You can also do this using a large yearly paper planner or a year on the wall type planner.
I also fill in some bigger goals that are substantial in nature on this calendar. If I am planning for launches or big campaigns that goes on a calendar.
I’m going to be working through the sales process for one of our blogs, that’s going to go on the calendar.
Anything that’s like really big and exciting, or I know will take a lot of time.
Digital Planner For Calls & Meetings
I also use Calendly for team meetings for podcast interviews, coaching calle and things like that. So digital calendars of all forms are important to my business.
Paper Planning In Business
The real magic of business planning always happens when I bring this planning down to paper.
But the real planning magic for me happens on paper.
Using a planner to track long terms goals, ideas and plans is the best way for me to understand the big picture and make sure my business is working towards what I want it to be.
Connecting The Systems
And here’s where my digital and paper plans connect.
Once a week, I take everything from the digital calendars and I write it down into my actual paper daily planner.
I note all the activities, meetings, home things, anything like that goes into my paper planner for the week.
Then I look at my quarterly, monthly and weekly goals, which I have done in advance using my Pink Pop Planning system.
- I start by fill in the work time slots, I have open. So for instance, on Monday, if I have a doctors appt and possibly a phone call with my broker. I can note that and know that in between those times, from 10 to 1 I can work.
- I take these open slots of time and fill in the goals.
- I find the empty spots I have to work and I fill in what it is that I really want to be able to accomplish that week.
This comes together in a paper planner. This becomes the daily planner that I work from all week.
So that’s my own system.
Your system might be different, but I think what’s most important is to build out a hybrid system that works for you!
How To Keep Up A Planning System
This whole system breaks down if we’re not keeping it up.
We need to set time set aside time every week to be able to sit down and actually focus on our planning.
CEO planning time
I do this on Fridays as part of my weekly CEO time before signing off for the week.
Many people I know, like to start off the week and do this on a Sunday or Monday as a prep for their week ahead.
The timing of when you do it is a lot less important than the consistency of actually keeping it up.
Then the next step is to build out time to connect with whoever needs input.
This can be family members, or team members, or anyone that’s going to have input on your schedule.
Weekly Planning Meetings
Matt and I sit down every Sunday and have a quick life family meeting.
We talk about who’s cooking, who’s driving what kid where, we also talk about what we’re going to need this week with work and our own personal goals.
It’s been a really helpful habit to start both for my business and also for our marriage.
How To Have Flexibility In Your System
The last step is to make sure you’re keeping your digital calendars up to date and synced.
Especially for your family and your business team… during the week plans sometimes change, things come up.
Our best laid plans are still wrought by human hands.
One of my favorite quotes.
You need to adjust accordingly to find flexibility in your planning, but be sure that you’re updating and adjusting your calendars as well.
This will help with the overwhelm! It will allow your business and your life to flow more smoothly together as things change in your week.
So that’s how I do my own hybrid process.
What part of this, can you implement to make your weekly planning flow better?
I’d encourage you to take one part of this at least to implement into your own hybrid planning system this next week.
Hoping that it makes your planning flow better for your business and also for your life.
Thanks for listening & happy planning!