If you're struggling to stick with digital planning, but you know if you can stick to
it and it'll be worthwhile, then this video is for you. If you have trouble
parting with your paper planner, then this video is for you. Or if you just want to
learn more effective ways of using your digital planner, then this video is also
for you. So let's go ahead and jump right into it.
[Intro music plays]
When I say "digital planning," do you think of apps and systems like Notion,
Trello, Asana, ClickUp, or do you think of iCal, Google Calendar, Fantastical, or do
you think of the trending hyperlinked and interactive pdf planners you can use in
annotation and markup apps like Goodnotes5 Notability, etc. that KDigitalStudio is
known for? Regardless of what first came to mind, I hope to share information that
can be applied to any digital planning system to make it more effective and more
productive for you. To start, approach it with a game plan. It might seem redundant
and a bit of an overkill to plan how you're going to plan, but I've found that
a lot of people actually know how to plan or get so overwhelmed that they don't
know where to start. So scribble down a game-plan- right now even. And you can
start by deciding what will be your master calendar, and what will be your supporting
calendar. If you're still transitioning from paper planning, or maybe you want to
have a combination of paper planner and digital planner, this will be especially
great for you. Your master calendar is where you enter in all your deadlines, due
dates, things that need planning that have a deadline or a tentative deadline. And
for me, my master calendar is actually Google Calendar. Your supporting calendar
is where you'll build out all of those plans, and write out tasks and to-do lists
associated with those entries in your master calendar. So for instance, let's
say you have a work proposal due on Saturday, so in your master calendar
you'll write out something like "work proposal due," you'll write the time, and
all of that stuff. In your supporting calendar, you'll flesh out some of those
details. Maybe tasks that are associated with your work proposal, maybe formatting
things, things that need to be included in the work proposal, so really your
supporting calendar is providing supporting information to the entries that
you put in your master calendar. My supporting calendars happen to be digital
too but this is a great time where you can incorporate some of your paper planner, if
that's what you're still using. So my supporting calendars are my hyperlinked
digital planners from KDigitalStudio, as well as my Notion dashboards. If possible,
however, I recommend automating your master calendar, so you can receive
notifications whenever there's a deadline, or something coming up. Or just use your
master calendar as the calendar you view every single day that you won't miss, that
you'll always check, whether that's your Google Calendar, or your hyperlinked
digital planner, or your paper planner. So in the instance that you don't flesh out
all of the details of any master calendar entries; perhaps they're not necessary or
you're not transferring information from Trello, or Asana, or digital planning into
your paper planner, your master calendar is still something you see every single
day so something won't get missed, so experiment with a combination of master
and supporting calendars to see what works best for you. Just last month, I settled
on a planning system, and I've been digital planning for over three years now.
It's ok to try out new planning systems. But a system is nothing without a routine.
We can build perfect systems for ourselves if that's even possible, but if we aren't
taking action on them and incorporating them into our routines, it won't stick,
and you'll lose interest in whatever new system that you're trying, and you might
miss out on some of those benefits. Once you have a system in place or a system
that you're experimenting with, incorporate it into your routines. So I
have daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning routines, and routines
can be switched up and experimented with too, but depending on the amount of plans
you have and the complexity of those plans I recommend first starting with a daily
routine, and then branching out from there Every morning, I get a notification on my
phone to check my digital planner. My phone is always with me, our lives are
essentially on our phones, and the likelihood that I ignore or miss a
notification to check my digital planner is very, very small. And getting notified
reminds me to pick up my planner and put it in use. And it's routine for me to
check my planner the first thing to start the day (aside from looking at my phone to
get the notification). Likewise, at the end of the day I also receive a
notification to check my planner, and this is where I can transfer any notes, any
deadlines, or any due dates that came up from my supporting calendars, into my
master calendar. So anything that is time- sensitive that needs to go and needs to be
added from my master calendar, I can transfer that information that I wrote
down in my digital planner or my Notion dashboards into my Google Calendar (my
master calendar). Regardless, your system will be unique. If you find that only
having one calendar works for you, then stick to it. There's no sense in adding
complexity to a system that works really great for you. Or if you're like me and
living a ton of different lives, you can different supporting calendars, multiple
supporting calendars. It's all about trial and error, but you're more likely to stick
to a system that is obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. So not only should
the tools that you're using be obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, but the
method and act of what you are planning should be too. If you found this video
helpful, you'll likely find my other digital planning videos helpful, and I'll
have those linked below for you to check out, as well as my video on getting
started with hyperlinked pdf digital planners. Also in the description is the
KDigitalStudio, Etsy, and website shop, so if you're after a digital planner to
incorporate into your new planning routines, you can check it out there. And
if you want to create your own digital planner, I have a class on SkillShare that
I'm just going to quickly promote. I'd love to have you in my SkillShare class if
you're interested in creating your own planner and really taking control and
customizing that system. You can do so by enrolling in my SkillShare class that I'll
have linked below. But I also have an entire course- an entire online course
dedicated to creating digital products beyond that of digital planners that you
can check out on my website and enroll in if interested. I have a lot of fun stuff
linked in the description that I think you'll find invaluable as well as
hopefully this video was. Thank you so much for watching, please don't forget to
like and
me. I post videos weekly on digital planning and iPad creativity, and I would
love for you to join the fam. Thank you so so much from the bottom of my heart for
watching another video of me, and I will see you next week with another video. Bye!
[Lo-fi outro music swells]