My Favorite Paper Planner & How I Use It in My Life and Business

Hey Friend!

Today, we are diving into planning, which is not something I often cover on the podcast. We will talk about how I use a paper planner in my life and business to keep me organized, increase my productivity, and create a keepsake for myself and my children.  

My Choice of Paper Planner for Productivity and as a Keepsake

I have used the Horacio Printing Dream Planner for the past three or four years. Thankfully, I have become friends with Polly Payne, the owner and creator of Horacio Printing, so I got my hands on a planner a little early. 

I can attest to the incredible quality of this beautiful keepsake planner. It has golden corners to keep them from bending or fraying. My planner from 4 years ago still looks brand new and holds up for something I use and have in my hands daily.

There are two options for this planner. I love the coil one, which I have. There is also a bound option, which is more of a book-style planner. Both have a little pocket in the front for things.

The paper is thick and luxurious, and the tabs last. If you want a planner that you can keep and that will be foundational and sustainable in the long run, I cannot recommend the Horacio Printing planners more highly.

Now that you know a bit more about the planner that I use, let’s talk a little more about how I use it in my life and my business.

What Is a Paper Planner?

A paper planner is simply a tool for organizing your life and business, increasing productivity. I am one cohesive person with a business and a life outside of it. I need one place to manage these things, so I use one planner for both.

My paper planner is a space I use not just as a scheduling tool but also as a place to collect my dreams. It is the place where I create an annual vision board for my company. I write my annual praise report in this planner. It is where I put in my miracle moments that happen every month. More than simply a planner, it is a capsule of a year of my life. I saved it so that I can go back and look at what was going on in my life in that year.

This capsule allows me to look back and see my praise report for that year and my goals. It is such an amazing, beautiful way to see my year in a snapshot in one cohesive spot. This is important to me, so my planner needs to be high quality. It needs to encompass the fact that I want all these different pieces of my life in one place. It cannot just be a scheduling tool, as I have said, but needs to be something that can be a keepsake for me, my family, and my kids in the future.

Using My Planner for Praise and Productivity

Looking back with praise and thanksgiving

At my CEO retreat, which I attend with Polly, my other friend Chelsi, and some of our team, we take time to reflect on the past year. From this, I create my praise report for that year. I write this report on the first sheet of my paper planner. My dream planner has a blank sheet, which is perfect for this. I write out every single thing that happened in 2023 that was a praise report.

This might include revenue, productivity, or download goals for my business. In my personal life, it might be health goals, marriage goals, parenting goals, or trips we have taken. It is all those things that happened that were of God or were amazing that year.

Looking forward and setting goals

Now that I am in this headspace of looking at how much God has moved in the past year, I create a vision board for the following year, an actual visual within the paper planner. Like we used to do in college, where we cut clippings from magazines, I do something similar, but this is more of an adult version. I create words in Canva, write out scriptures in pretty fonts, and print them out. I put some family photos in here with beautiful stickers. In the end, I have a double-sided vision board of my goals for the year ahead.

This way, my planner now contains the praise report from the previous year and the vision and goal board for the following year. I can keep my planner and move into the new year beautifully, with a snapshot of my dreams and wishes, how God had spoken to me about the things that were coming, and what actually happened.

Using the planner to see God’s work in my life

What is so crazy is that when I look back in my planner from four years ago at my dreams, desires, wishes, and God-breathed goals, so many have been done. Not all of them have come to fruition, but when it comes to these, I praise God for the ones that weren’t supposed to happen. When you do this, looking back and seeing just how far you have come is amazing.

Using My Paper Planner to Create Possibility

Setting up my practical bucket list

The next thing I do is set up my bucket list for the year ahead. The Horacio planner already has a beautiful dream planning section set up so you are able to write up your bucket list right there for the next year. For me, this includes financial, business, home, marriage, motherhood, health, spiritual, personal, and my top goals. In this space, I write out the things that I have visually created on my vision board. Because I am a goal-setter, I love to know if I have achieved the goals that I set out to achieve that year.

Setting up my spiritual goals

Under the dream planning section, you can do a lot of internal auditing. This includes more around what you want to become, declaration statements, encouragement, and how to refocus. This might include doing some work around what you need to shift in your prioritization. It might include generosity planning. It is more of a focus on the spiritual side of your life.

By using the planner this way, you are setting yourself up to be very clear on your goals and dreams for the following year. This is an imperative piece of the planning process. If you do not speak life into the God-breathed dreams that He has for you, your business, your marriage, your motherhood, your giving, and your health, you are missing something.

From ideation to reality using a paper planner

I do not believe that we operate at our fullest capacity until we lean into God’s possibilities. By doing this process, I am pushing myself to rise into my Kingdom capacity. I do not believe that God wants us to play small.

I believe that He wants us to do incredible things that are fulfilling, better the Kingdom of the Lord, help people, inspire and motivate, treat our body like a temple of the Lord, work towards oneness in our marriage, and practice patience and grace in our parenting.

This all takes work, and it takes internal goal setting and planning. Your planner is where you write it all down so that it can become a reality in your brain. It allows the connection between your heart, your head, and the Holy Spirit to take place, and you can start taking action to become the person God is speaking life over.

Using the Paper Planner for Scheduling and Productivity

Mapping out scheduled events

Now that I have done all of this pre-work for the year ahead, I go into the planner and add all the scheduled events for the upcoming year. The planner has a monthly screenshot view, so I already put anything I know to be true. This includes birthdays and anniversaries, sporting events, back-to-school dates, when school is not open, and the holidays. Everything that I am already aware of for the year gets put in now.

Once I have done this, I can enter my time blocks weekly. I run my business using Chelsi Jo’s operating system. I highly recommend this method for systemizing your business.

The balancing act that my paper planner helps me manage

In my paper planner, at a glance, I need to see the beautiful balance between my life and my business. So, in it I will color my time blocks. I use highlighters to color out these blocks which is super simple!

Time Blocking for Productivity and Simplicity

Time with God

As an example of a time block, all the way across my morning, it says ‘God’ because I am doing my morning time with the Lord before my day begins. This is part of my morning routine and a fundamental need for me. Spending time with God is a must. It is a non-negotiable. I try to do it every single day. I don’t always do this because I am a human being with a snooze button. But I try my best.

Kids’ morning routine and work block

Then we have the kids’ morning routine. Part of my morning routine is waking the kids up, sorting out their breakfast, their backpacks and their lunches, and then between me or Brad, somebody takes them to school. When I get home, I begin my work block which is typically Monday through Friday from 9:30 in the morning until three o’clock with a one-hour lunch break. This block is green and that is when I work.

After school routine

Then I have an after-school routine which is blue. This is where we pick up the kids, make them a snack, and we do chores or homework or piano practice. This block is about an hour and a half. After this, I have a workout block, which is yellow because it is also a fundamental need for me. This workout block is about an hour long. We then have dinner and any other evening thing that we have to do, like maybe there is a sports practice to attend or my husband has a game of some kind.

Make sure your fundamental blocks are there!

On the weekends, I note any birthday parties, church, or whatever else might be happening so that when I open my paper planner, I can see my life. What are my priorities? There needs to be enough yellow on the paper because I need time with God, my workouts, time with my friends, and a date night once in a while.

These are all yellow. They are fundamental. I need to see when I am unavailable for work because I’m spending time with my kids or my husband. I also need to know my green blocks, which are my work blocks, so that I know how many hours I have available to spend on my company.

The Compass of My Week

When I finish mapping those color blocks out in my planner, I head to my operating system, where I can see what I am working on or who I am meeting with. This system holds all of those scheduled events.

I don’t want every single thing happening in my company to be on my paper planner. I want my paper planner to be the compass of my week. It leads me from my morning routine into my work block and then I can move into my computer to actually do the work.  

Monthly Praise in My Paper Planner

At the end of every month, I take a few hours and I write in my praise report for that month. This helps me to create my master praise report list at the end of the year otherwise I will forget. I know that there is a scripture that talks about really reveling in what God has already done.

We often look forward, focusing on what is next. But what about what has been done? A praise report does just that. It makes you stop, be still, and look at the blessings and beauty of God’s work and movement in the last thirty days.

I write anything that comes up as a praise report. I look back at my calendar to trigger my memory and at my weeks to see what has happened. Sometimes, it is just the smallest, most beautiful thing God has blessed me with.

Mama, I see hundreds of angels

An example of this is when my son and I were hiking. He said, ‘Mama, I see hundreds of angels.’ I looked over, and there were hundreds of white, sparkling butterflies, and he told me that the angels were right there by the butterflies. This was written in my praise report because butterflies have always represented the Lord’s presence for me. For God to symbolize that with my son and show him angels was such an incredible gift.

I might write down that I have had the highest download month ever. That is a praise item. It can be anything that comes up for me spiritually or emotionally or regarding my business or financially or a breakthrough in my marriage or parenting or friendship. I am not afraid of writing too many praises in my planner because it is such a blessing at the end of the year to go back and revisit them.

Once I have looked back at the previous month, I start to map out the next month.

Quarterly Evaluations to Make Sure You Are on Track

In the Horacio planner, you have a chance to do some monthly recap work. Every quarter you can go back through and do an evaluation. You can look at your personal growth, do a 90-day goal check in and look at your generosity planning amongst other things.

Which Paper Planner Are You Going to Use for 2024?

If this sounds like something you want to use to create a time capsule, a compass of what your business and your life should seamlessly look like, I highly recommend using the Horacio Printing planners. I pray that this planner blesses you as much as it has blessed me.

I pray this blesses you!

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