Schoolhouse Review Crew: 7-Minute Life Daily Planner

It has been a running theme on the blog that I need to get organized and get my time in order. I had the chance to try out The 7 Minute Life Daily Planner for a review and get to put my thoughts here. This 266-page planner is published by published by The 7 Minute Life, and offers access to additional online tools and printables as well.  Let's dive right in, shall we? One of the things this book does at the beginning is to walk the user through a series of exercises designed to clear the mind of clutter, prioritize life goals/plans and desires, and create workable steps to achieve them. I wrote my feelings at the time on a blank page in the beginning of the book so that over time I would have a measure of my journey using this program. It starts out, "I feel frustrated at my own inability/unwillingness to get it all together. I am excited by and proud of a few things ... but my own failings with respect to keeping the rules set, keeping my papers and things organized and the examples I show my kids are pretty bad and very frustrating." I then listed out things that I feel pressured by, and went to work on the steps outlined in the book. 

The Good: 

• The opening exercises. They challenged me to work through my thoughts on what I wanted in life, and forced me to recognize that I have been "drifting" a little bit in life this last year, even as I've achieved things in various areas of life. I have not been as focused as I'd like and I think this method can really help me get there. Being aware of the problem is the first step, right?

• It's pretty clearly laid out, and easy to use

• It recognizes and helps with goals in different areas of life, not just as a lump sum of parts. (90-day work goals, 90-day Personal goals, etc.)

• It includes things like a generalized grocery list, place top put home repair needs, a "rolodex"/connections list (very helpful when you run a home business with a Network Marketing company!), Annual Projects and tasks, etc. 

• It gives most of the book to "Daily Progress Report" pages that lay out what five things will I do before 11:00, three life connections to make today, unfinished tasks, what money was spent and more. Doing these things each day will help make day-to-day tasks more likely to be pushing me in the direction of my ultimate goals. 

• It reads out like a checklist: water intake, did I take time for sleep, exercise, reflection, reading, and to answering the ultimate question: Did I do what I said I would do today?

• The book has a handy plastic cover on front and back, and little folder pockets to keep certain things in. 

The Not So Good:

• Okay this may seem petty, but the light, light, light yellow-green color used throughout the book (even lighter in some parts than what you see on the screen there) is very hard to read sometimes. The little icon pictures in the image above (the little time clock in the "sleep" box, for instance) are not that dark and nearly invisible. 

I am still working through the steps so I can't give an "end result" to what I wrote in the beginning, but I can say this: This book is definitely helpful in getting one towards the goals one wants to reach. It helps me follow many of the same tenets outlined in books about what "successful" people do each day, and helps me prioritize how my days could - and ultimately should - go. At $24.95, that's a bargain.