Five easy tips to making using a planner a habit you will keep! Hi, this is Mim Jenkinson and you're listening to The Planner Podcast. Welcome back! Today are we going to talk about remembering to use your planner. I've spoken to so many of my readers and customers who really want to get into planning but one of the biggest things, which sounds really simple, but it's actually a big challenge for some is just remembering to use it. You know, making using a planner a habit. Sometimes you just don't know where to start with using a planner. Sometimes you just forget to use it regularly. Perhaps you just can't seem to make using a planner work for you and you think that perhaps you're not an organized person or you're not really a planner person and give up quite quickly. I think is a bit of a shame because planners actually, in my opinion, help you become organized so you don't become organized to start planning. It's the other way around! So, I wanted to give you a few tips on how to remember to use your planner more so that using it becomes something that you automatically do and that you want to do because you are really starting to see the benefits. I've got some practical ideas on how you can start to remember to use your planner a bit more. The first one is just to make sure that you are actually using the right kind of planner. Sometimes this is going to take a little bit of trial and error and it isn't as simple as just going into Kikki K or Erin Condren or Kmart or Target and looking at the planners and picking the one that you think is right for you or that that's the prettiest or will fit in with your desk or your handbag. These things are important but it's more what's inside and how actually using the planner is going to work for you. For example, I'm a big list maker so for me, a vertical planner where you actually write your plans in a vertical list each day, that's perfect for me. A horizontal planner or one with only a small of space to write in is not going to work for me. You might be someone who's more into bullet journaling or even just being a bit more creative and doodling and perhaps a vertical planner hasn't got the right kind of space capacity for you. You may need more space. You might have your planner like I do on my desk every day. It doesn't really move. I actually don't even take it away with me much anymore. So it doesn't matter to me how big my planner is, but if you're someone who takes yours out and about every day, you want to make sure it fits in your bag isn't too heavy. There are lots of different things to consider when making sure that you choose the right one. And I actually have an online program called Paper Planner 101 which helps you in a lot more detail pick the right planner for you. So, I'm going to link to that in the show notes or you can head to www.lovefrommim.com/planner101 to get much more info on that now. My second tip on remembering to use your planner is to find a time and a place to plan and then stick to it. That might be first thing in the morning and you might decide to keep your planner on your desk if you work from home or if you have your planner at work. It might be that you have your planner in your handbag all the time. So you know that when you finish with it, that's the place you always put it back. What time works best for you to actually use your planner? Is it first thing in the morning? Last thing at night? Before the kids get home, when you've got a few minutes to spare? When is a time that works for you and that you can consistently stick with every day or every week? For me, I actually like to plan my week ahead on a Friday afternoon. It took me a while to actually find this sweet spot and I used to plan on a Sunday evening for the week ahead. Now I find that last thing on a Friday when I'm a little bit kind of sleepy and not really focused, is actually a really nice quiet time for me to wrap up the kind of week's work and then think about what, I hav