How Do You Organize Your Schedule On and Off Campus? You Need a Better Day Planner!
Ah, back to school. Time to start getting organized for class.
New textbooks.
New notebooks.
Maybe that backpack will last another year, but definitely grab that pocket calendar. After all, you can’t miss a deadline, and you’ll want to know how many days til the next vacation.
And thus the whirlwind of the new semester begins, with great optimism for how organized and on top of everything you’ll be. You’ll write in your classroom hours each week, block out times for homework or grading, make sure your major commitments are on the schedule. Life will be orderly, on-time, and stress-free.
I’ve been there too: buy a day planner, use it for a couple of weeks, then start forgetting to write some things down. Gradually the planner would be so incomplete as to be almost useless, and it ended up lost at home, under a pile of papers. Gradually, all those hopes for absolute organization dissolved into a bag full of folders, books, and haphazardly scrawled sticky notes with urgent dates and times.
Often I’d unearth the calendar over the winter break, and maybe even buckle down and use it for few more weeks in the new semester, but for some reason I couldn’t — or wouldn’t — stick with it.
Then a few years ago it dawned on me: I was trying to use something that didn’t fit the way I live.
That’s Why I Created The Better Dayplanner.
There are a few things wrong with every other product I tried:
- Not enough hours to fit a busy dawn-to-midnight lifestyle
- Too many complicated rules and symbols for maintaining an ever-changing schedule
- Too little space for notes or random thoughts I want to remember
No Off-the-Shelf Planner Fits Academics Like the Better Dayplanner
Most of the dayplanner designers’ worlds start around 8 AM and end at 6 PM at the latest.
That’s great if you’re working at a typical corporate job, but if you’re in the academic world, life doesn’t fit those hours.
What if you’re a morning person, and you like to study or exercise or meet for coffee before 8 AM?
What if you’re an evening person, and most of your activities revolve around 7 or 8 PM?
What if you’re in an online program, and you fit your school around the work day?
As a working student in an online program, I realized if I was going to make my calendar work, I was going to have to make my own.
How Many Day Planners Have You Seen That Start at 5 AM?
Here in Arizona, the days begin early to beat the heat. It’s common to rise by 6 AM or even earlier. My own day starts at 3 AM for several reasons, one of the most important being I can get some quiet time in before the family wakes up. I’m ready to go with planned work by 5 AM, and even after a long work day, often I’ll have activities scheduled in the early evenings, from tennis league to seminars and even date nights (yes, I have to actually schedule them in advance!).
I’ve looked in a lot of bookstores, office supply warehouses, and mail-order catalogs, and I’ve never seen anything comparable to the Better Dayplanner. I guess the folks who make up calendars aren’t the kind of people who need to track 12- or 14- or 18-hour days.
Wait a Minute, You Say, Your Smartphone Has a Great Calendar Built In, Right?
Two words: dead battery.
I know, I know, you can put in recurring appointments and awesome Star Wars light-saber battle alarm tones and sync up your schedule with your computers at work and at home and never be out of touch with your calendar again.
Yes, I admit there is value to online calendars, and I use Google Calendar for recurring events and important dates both my wife and I need to keep track of, like kids’ school functions and vacations.
But day-to-day, I bet I can flip my planner open and write down an appointment faster than you can click and drag and type and save. And I probably won’t accidentally delete what I wrote in pen.
Maybe I’m just old-school, but I like having things in writing.
Plus I can scribble a quick arrow or star to make a change. Or add a quick note on the page without fumbling around with my phone or iPad or SuperTablet3000.
Trust me, real men (and women) still use paper.
So … What Is This Better Dayplanner?
I designed the Better Dayplanner to fit my long days – 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM – with ample space for notes. I included a page for planning the month and another at the end for marking achievements, follow-ups, and other notes. (That page is graph paper because I sometimes like to sketch things to scale. And heck, I think it looks cool too.)
I start the week on Monday, which puts the weekend days together on the right side of the planner. Let’s face it, we often plan something for “sometime over the weekend,” and those Saturdays and Sundays can blur together. With the Better Dayplanner laid out this way, I can plan my weekends more loosely and keep the Monday through Friday week more focused.
I highlighted the major holidays but skipped the cute features like moon phase and birthstones.
But I did use some space for inspiration … the kind that is meaningful to successful people. Each week has a quote from a person with a legendary success story. We can always use some motivation, and I’ve tried to choose many quotes with a sense of humor to lighten things up on bad days.
Plenty of Space for All Your Planning
In the very first week you use your Better Dayplanner, you’ll see why it’s so much easier to use.
For one thing, I used a full 8-1/2 by 11 inch, letter-sized layout, so you can actually write at a reasonable size. There is room for everything you do before, during, and after the “normal” school day. There is space for notes, but not page after page of blanks. That keeps the Better Dayplanner as thin as practical, with a total of just 142 pages in all: 2 pages per week, plus 2 pages per month. (As a convenient bonus, I threw in part of next August too — a few extra pages in case you just checked my math!)
I also spiral-bound the book so it will easily lay flat – and also can’t lose pages like a three-ring binder could.
With an understated, green cover and minimal text, you won’t feel like your planner stands out and draws attention, but you also won’t feel self-conscious that’s it’s not a super-premium leatherbound planner carried more for show than actual use.
Get Yours Today and Welcome the First Day of School!
Often we put off planning til it’s too late and we don’t have time to make the best decisions.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to get your Better Dayplanner before the last days of summer drift away. Just click the button below and your Better Dayplanner will be on its way in no time. At just $34 plus postage, you’ll agree this calendar is a bargain.
And There is No Risk!
I’m sure you’ll say the Better Dayplanner is the best calendar you’ve ever used. But if you don’t agree, you can return it for a full refund anytime in 90 days — no strings attached, no questions asked.
You have nothing to lose and so much to gain. For once you can own a tool that will help you be more efficient, more organized, and more successful. You could even say you’re buying yourself extra time that you might have wasted through disorganization.
“Failure to plan means planning to fail.”
It’s a cliché we’ve heard over and over, but whoever originally wrote those words knew that success starts with organization. You’ll be on the golden road to success if you start planning with the Better Dayplanner.
Sincerely,
Christopher Lake
P. S. If you aren’t sure $34 is worth it for my Better Dayplanner, you probably haven’t priced out some of the alternatives. Even if you’re just buying refills for an existing planner, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how affordable the Better Dayplanner really is. Order yours now!