A small-business owner explains how the Franklin Covey planner keeps their work organized: daily action pages, voicemail tracking, meeting sheets, and contact pages all in one place. The system cuts interruptions and eliminates sticky notes, but only works if you actually use it and prefer paper over digital.
The one that I use right now, and I've been using forever, is Franklin Covey. Um, their system has worked for me. The key is this: any system you use takes discipline. And when I work with people, I tell them, look, I can give you a great system, but I need to know, do you like computer? Or do you like paper? Like, I like paper. You know, I'm old, right? So I like to write things down. But if you like a computer and I try to shove a piece of paper in your face, it's not going to work for you. But I like the Franklin Covey Planner because it gives me the opportunity to put everything in its place. From meeting notes, where do they go? Post-it notes are like the biggest disaster of the world. People put these things on Post-it notes and then they have to look for things. So I really like that. Um, you could go to frankencubby.com. You can call me and I can connect you with my partner who has, you know, some other options which are a little bit more in depth. It depends on how big your business is as well, but I know your audience is, is mostly small business. Is that correct? That is correct, yes. Right. And so a personal planner that is in different pieces. So in other words, when I'm writing in a planner, I have one section for what I'm going to do today, right? I have— and if I get a phone call and just take a voicemail, I'll write that in the planner, return voicemail, unless I'm going to return it next week, then I'll put in next week. I'm not going to add everything onto my list. I have one sheet per meeting. So if I have a staff meeting, I have one sheet in the back that you could flip back to, and anytime I think of something I need for that meeting, I write it there so I don't forget. You know, we get so busy, we forget. If I have a particular person I talk to all the time, instead of calling them every time I need something, I flip to the page where they are, where their name is, and I write it there. It stops a million interruptions. So it's really knowing if I have an email I have to return and I'm going to do it next Tuesday, I flip to next Tuesday and I write, return Dotty's email, and then I might put the date of the email so I could reference it quickly. So it's knowing where to put something Every time you get a call, you go to a meeting, having a place to put it and to organize it so that you can easy reference and go back and forth. That is brilliant.
