In a fast-paced world, it's important to find tools that help make your grand plans easier and manageable on a day-to-day basis. Being in leadership roles often means that drawing the line to create a sustainable work-life balance is tricky while maintaining productivity. However, proper planning can help overcome this challenge. So I've pulled together some useful productivity planners and management tools that can help you prioritise tasks and manage your time efficiently. No matter your preferred process for planning, one of these options should work for you.
First up, here are three online tools:
Miro
Miro is a wonderful tool for those that love scribbling on white boards or pieces of paper as they plan. Draw out ideas on sticky notes, map out your plans and edit or evolve along the way with your team. It's intuitive design makes it easy to use and for those who are creative or visual thinkers, it's the perfect tool that gives you the infinite blank canvas and space to plan in the way you want. Get started with a free plan and only upgrade if you want to collaborate and get your team on board.
Nifty
Nifty is a comprehensive project management tool designed to help you manage tasks, plan work, create roadmaps and collaborate with your team . A key feature is its visual roadmap that allows you to plan based on your goals, helps keep projects on track and align your team with the objectives. Nifty's very versatile to work to your project management style. You can view and plan in Kanban, Calendar, Swimlane, or use the simple list arrangement, whatever works for you. It also integrates with your calendar, popular apps such as Google Docs, Dropbox and more so it's a reliable place to go to manage your own time, as well as your teams'. A really great lower-cost option, Nifty offers a free forever plan to help you get started, and paid plans starting at $5/month per user.
Asana
Another popular project management tool, its main aim is to streamline team communication, project management, and task tracking. Not only can you plan your own work and team's projects, it's easy to share, communicate and collaborate on your plans with the rest of your team. If you love a checklist, then their checklist format allows for easy organisation and rearrangement of tasks, with a sorting feature for deadlines or start dates. Tasks and ideas can be evolved using comments, notes and tags, making this a living planning tool where you can watch your ideas unfold. You can try our Asana on the basic plan for free, and then scale to a paid plan if it's working for you.
For those that prefer putting pen to paper, here are some paper planners:
Passion Planner
I really like the Daily Undated Planner which enables you to set actionable goals for the year or month, track progress, and prioritise tasks effectively. On a daily basis, map out your main goal for the day, write out personal and professional checklists while mapping out your day by the half hour so you can realistically see what's doable that day. Plus there's space for jotting down ideas and end of day reflection. They have a useful quiz on their website to help identify the planner that works for you, plus the ability download digital versions of their planner if you like to write or plan on a tablet instead.
Papier Daily Productivity Planners
These planners enable you to plan your day effectively, set your priorities, and reflect on your progress at the end of the day, plus they come in a variety of cover designs to suit your personal taste. The thing that's great about this planner is it's aimed to help you strike a healthy work-life balance. This planner doesn't just help you plan your days and weeks, but it is also an excellent tool for tracking habits, setting and reviewing goals, jotting down your to-dos, making schedules, and even writing shopping lists. The beauty of it being undated is that you can start using it anytime throughout the year, filling out the dates yourself.
Vagami Self-Leadership Planner
The Vagami Self-Leadership Planner is an excellent tool designed for those in leadership roles who want to build resilience and lead themselves. An investment journal, beyond daily planning and appointment trackers, it includes daily mindset prompts, life clarity worksheets and a comprehensive goal planning system. This planner not only assists you in aligning your personal and professional life but also helps you stay focused on your mindset and achieve your goals.