Five Minutes Planning in the Morning Goes a Long Way Time is precious and every minute counts. While this sounds cliché, it is the world in which we live. With today’s hurried and overloaded schedules, even a few minutes can be hard to come by. But, with a mere five minutes every morning, you can make the rest of the day more productive and fulfilling. Here’s how… Start your day—either at work or at home—by settling in and getting comfortable. Before you turn on your computer, dive into your inbox or grab that pile of mail waiting for you, start your five minutes of planning. During these five minutes, focus only on the day ahead, what you want and need to accomplish, scheduled meetings or events that need to be kept, and so forth. To do this effectively, you only need two tools—a planner and a notebook. Your planner will serve as your “master schedule,” a place to keep all information that is required for you to not only excel in the workplace but also maintain your family and personal schedules. Use the type or style of planner that best suits you and your needs—there is no cookie-cutter solution, as everyone and their planning needs are unique. Whether it’s a traditional binder, a pocket planner or a designer organizer, it must work for you if you’re to successfully address your daily tasks and schedule. Many people prefer a digital organizer using one of the many personal electronic devices available to them and syncing their Outlook, Gmail and other online calendars on these hand-held tools. Again, whatever works best for you is the best solution. No matter what medium you end up using, there’s a kicker—you only need to look or access it once per day, and that’s during your five minute planning time each morning. How can you get away with this? Enter the notebook. Contrary to the planner and its once-per-day access, the notebook or similar note-taking tool is meant to be on hand and accessible throughout the day. Every morning, as you review your master schedule, transfer that day’s to-do lists and schedule of events to your notebook. And like your planner, it’s recommended that you use a note-taking tool that best suits you—a spiral notepad, note cards, sticky to-do lists, a business notebook, etc. Whatever you use, it needs to be portable and go with you at all times to not only keep you on task and schedule every day, but also to track and record new items and events that you can then record transfer to your master schedule the following morning. Every minute of every day is important. Taking just five of those minutes in the morning will help ensure a proficient, productive and fulfilling day ahead. For more great tips on getting better organized and maximizing your time—or to share your own tips and tricks—visit and “like” our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/dayrunner. About Day Runner At Day Runner, our mission is to assist people in “designing their day” with a touch of fashion and function. Many products can be configured for individual planning needs. Our loose-leaf day planners allow users the flexibility to easily select the page formats and style that they like and put them where they need those most. Our products are available from many office product retailers and dealers nationwide and can also be found in office supply catalogs. For more information or to order your planning and organizing tools, visit www.dayrunner.com.