Watch Me Design My 2024 Paper Planner

And peek into how I stay consistent and organized in my business & life.

2023 Fully Customized Planner from Plum Paper

‘Tis the season for 2024 paper planner shopping! 

I was that kid who would excitedly get a new planner from K-Mart, plop myself on my bed with a bunch of markers, happily fill it out, and start planning for the school year. 

Today’s not much different. Now, thanks to customizable templates, I get to make my planner work for me. And annual planning happens in November and December, not in September.

If you’re thinking…”Paper? Who needs paper when we have digital planning tools?”

I use those, too. But I love paper.

Putting pen to paper has some creative benefits, too.

“Writing by hand increases brain activity in recall tasks over taking notes on a tablet or smartphone. Additionally, those who write by hand on paper are 25% quicker at note-taking tasks than those who use digital technology.” Source: University of Tokyo

"The use of pen and paper gives the brain more 'hooks' to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain," senior author Audrey van der Meer said in an October 2020 news release.

"A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write, and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sensory experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better."

Before I share how I plan for life and business, I want you to know that I resisted planning for a long time. Sure, I’d put key dates on my paper calendars, using colors I was drawn to. But I resisted planning for one big reason — if I missed my goals or didn’t follow the plan, I wanted to avoid feeling like shit. And the best way for me to follow a plan was not to have one.

This habit wasn’t serving me, so I plan differently now. 

How I plan for my life and business and how a paper planner fits in 

Near the end of the year, I start planning for the coming year. Mapping out key dates, launches, book releases, or book anniversaries. This lives on a plain doc with the headings: 

This was for Q1 2023:

Simple 3-month plan of high-level content, offer promotion, and which program was running

Next, I plan my content (blogs, which drive social media posts). Knowing what I’m going to promote, I can decide what blogs I’ll write and what I’ll talk about on social media. 

How do you know what to write about? Look at each of the offers you’ll focus on promoting or an aspect of it, and answer this question:

==> What do my potential clients need to know, feel, or believe before they’ll take the first step?

Ask that question for each of your offers (and if you have one offer, that is plenty), and you’ll find dozens of ideas. 

Content planning in 12-week batches. 

With my big list of potential topics, I’ll scan to see what I’ve already written that can be updated, refreshed, or rewritten. I track every blog post in a spreadsheet with its title, theme, URL, date published, and link to the draft.

Next, I’ll order it and choose a topic for each week to publish a new blog. I’ve had blogging schedules from daily (when I had a food blog), weekly, and every other week. Now I’m back to weekly (often 2-3x a week now because I have a lot to say 😂). When you’re choosing a blogging frequency for yourself, start with something doable, then add one — you want to stretch yourself a little. 

My content plan is loose and flexible.

If inspiration strikes mid-week when I’ve already drafted an article, I always follow that nudge and write about it. Then I’ll rearrange the topics and maybe move some to a parking lot to revisit later. 

Once my quarterly content plan is ready, I plan when I’ll do the writing and editing in my 12-week plan. 

The 12-week plan goes into task-level detail. 

Example: “Blog” would never be on my task level detail. It’s too vague. And when we have vague tasks on our to-do’s, they tend to feel big and overwhelming, so we wind up avoiding them. This is how people set out to start a regular blog with the best intentions, and then week after week, they let it slide. 

Here are the tasks associated with blog writing:

1. Draft SFD (surrendered first draft) of [topic] (make it specific!)

2. Edit blog on [topic]

3. Finalize blog on [topic] and publish

Now, I might end up touching certain articles more than three times. But the key here to my writing flow is that each task happens to align with the moon phase and/or my menstrual cycle. 

1. Draft SFD (surrendered first draft) of [topic] (make it specific!) - Waxing moon/follicular phase — great for writing fast drafts and planning

2. Edit blog on [topic] - Waning moon/luteal — great for details and completing

3. Finalize blog on [topic] and publish - Waning moon/luteal

🌙 If you want to learn how to write following the moon (or a menstrual cycle), join us in Finding Flow — we start November 13.

See if there are any spots left.

The 12-week plan lives in an online doc with the following headers:

A snippet of a 12-week plan structure. Task-level detail for 1 week.

I revisit my 12-week plan at least twice a week — at the start of the week and at the end. I’ll visit again mid-week to add new ideas to the parking lot or to future weeks. 

The final step is the daily view and this is where a paper planner shines. 

Each week, I review my 12-week plan and write down the task level detail for the coming week on the corresponding day that I’ll do that task.

Every morning, before I open my laptop, I have my list of items ready to go. There might be some new ones scribbled on there, but I know where I’m going each day. Before I dive into working, I review each item and give it a priority by numbering them on the left: 1, 2, 3…

For the past three years, I’ve used a daily view for my paper planner. But it’s almost two inches thick, and I want a smaller one to carry around with me for all the places I work and write, so  I’m trying out a weekly view now. 

Here’s the set-up for my daily view in my 2023 planner: 

Inspiration if you decide to customize a planner with daily pages.

What each section on the daily planner page is for:

• I AM: manifestation statements

• I FEEL: I write the day of my cycle, moon phase, and sign

• ACTS OF SERVICE: Un-prompted nice things for others like writing a review, sharing a post, sharing another business owner’s work

• TODAY: Daily schedule from 9 am-7 pm

• HOME TO DO: Self-explanatory

• TO CLEAR: Shadow stuff and things coming up for healing

• TO MANIFEST: my to-do list

• GRATITUDE: I add all the things that pop up throughout the day I’m thankful for

👀 Peek at my process for customizing my 2024 paper planner

I recorded a screen share of the whole planner design process for choosing my weekly view. Watch it below (11 minutes if you watch at 1.5x speed) 👇

Note that I pause it a few times to make decisions, so it’s a little jumpy in spots.

Plum Paper has a pre-Black Friday sale going on until November 12. I can also send you a code for 10% off with their affiliate program if you miss their sale. Send an email to hi@theintuitivewritingschool.com and I’ll send you the code from Plum Paper (I know, it’s a big of a process. I wish I had a link for you to simply click).

Go deeper into planning with these resources:

• Free: The Grounded and Intuitive Approach to Content Planning

• Free: 12-week planning workshop and template (color-coded for the moon phase)

• Paid: Each quarter in The Intuitive Writing School Community, we create our content plans and 12-week plans together as I guide members through the process. The next session happens on December 13. Doors close for the year on December 8.

Happy planning!

💜 Jacq