I have come to the conclusion that I am just not going to use a journal/planner. It’s not for lack of trying. 

Sitting on my desk is a stack of journals and planners that I attempted to use at one time or another within the last year (brace yourself @haideralmosawi).

• Fear-Hacking Journal (courtesy of @keni)
• The Full Focus Planner from Michael Hyatt
• The Freedom Journal from John Lee Dumas
• The Mastery Journal from John Lee Dumas
• The Project Evo Planner
• The High-Performance Planner from Brendon Burchard

The journal I lasted the longest with was the Freedom Journal, perhaps because of its simplicity. The purpose of the Freedom Journal is to set one goal to reach in 100 days. You set micro-goals ten days at a time. Each day you practice gratitude, set measurable objectives, and create an action plan for the day. Each night you recap how the day went. There was no “evaluate and monitor every dimension of your life” or “plan every 5-minute chunk of the day.” 

Let’s face it. No matter how I try to plan with the main job, my day is driven by the needs of the client. So a planner would really only be beneficial for my personal time. It turns out, I seem to be doing fine without one. There’s always room for improvement, but I just don’t feel like I need a traditional journal/planner right now.

I will revisit my stack of planners when I finally have freedom. When I am running the show doing everything on my own, I may need that extra help. 

In the meantime, it’s back to putting points on the board.