The Effective Entrepreneurs Business Planner encompasses everything you will need to keep your business on track and your ideas flowing. This printable PDF file will keep you up to date for years to come!
There are four main parts to the planner:
- Calendaring Your Way
- Time Management
- To Do Lists
- Big Ideas
Let's dive right in and see all the parts that will get your life (and time) on track and in order!
Support Videos
Some of the planner concepts in this journal are new and revolutionary (and something you might have never seen before!) With that in mind, many of the planner pages have a video link at the bottom so you can have a helpful walkthrough of how how to use the planner pages.
Calendaring Your Way
In most planners you have to pick one or two ways to manage your time as if we all work the same way. But this calendar let's you print out all different kinds of calendar pages at will.
This works amazing for me as I go through the year and need different kinds of organization at different times. In the beginning of the year I have LOTS of to-dos and appointments and in the summer I am struggling to find time to work around my littles being home.
I just use different pages depending on what I have going family or work wise.
- Daily Appointment Calendar – A more slim line planner page with just appointments, to dos and notes
- Daily Goal Sheets – Includes things like daily to dos, appointments, affirmations, tasks, grateful fors, and ideas*
- Weekly “At A Glance” Spread – This is the most “standard” kind of calendar page, see your whole week at a glance* (you get 2 versions so you can pick either with notes or without)
- Weekly Goals Sheet – This is a great tool for moving your business forward with deliberation, includes appointments, must dos, long term goals, and expenses and income*
- Monthly Calendar – Just a big overview of the month, I use this to plan out the big pieces of the year (you get both the Mon-Sun and Sun-Sat versions)
- Monthly Goals Sheet – I like this one for planning ahead for marketing, sales and customer service, includes promotion planning , feature products, must dos, birthdays and more*
- 3 Month Calendar Overview – See 3 months at a time, great for planning trips, vacations and promotion weeks (you get both the Mon-Sun and Sun-Sat versions)
- Annual Overview Calendar Page – It is so much easier to see all the holidays and dates if they are on one page all at once
*includes a video walkthrough of the form
Time Management
One of the big things that entrepreneurs struggle with is time. Somehow we feel like there is somehow enough time in the day to accomplish everything we want. These time management forms will help you to get handle on your time and what can actually be accomplished.
- Where Did My Time Go – This is a brilliant worksheet for Entrepreneurs, use it to track your time for a week and find out what you love to do, what you can get rid of and what you should be handing off to someone else*
- Color Coding Your Perfect Week (for Early Birds & Night Owls) – There is no way you can feel like you have succeeded if you don't know the goal, scoping out your perfect week will let you see exactly how your time should be spent*
*includes a video walkthrough of the form
To Dos
Wrangling all of your to-dos can be a challenge sometimes. The lists can be LONG and not so productive. This system will help you take care of all those things that keep falling through the cracks.
- Wish List – You know all those things that you think you can get to but never do? those should be on a wish list that you might get to someday*
- Monthly To Do List – A specific list of things that you want to get done this month*
- Working Monthly To Do List – This allows you to get your todos in some kind of hierarchical order*
*includes a video walkthrough of the form
Big Ideas
This is the section that may have saved me the most time in my business EVER. Instead of actually making websites and buying domains and starting projects, I just scope out my big ideas on paper. Some of them did make it to the production queue but most of them petered out when I really started thinking about them.
There is NOTHING wrong with having lots of big ideas, it is just important that you make sure that they are going to be something that you complete, and not just something that is going to waste your time.
- Ideas – A comprehensive list of all the products and services you could ever make*
- Big Ideas – At this step you have picked one particular idea to start to develop more fully…lots of spots for scoping out your idea*
- Little Products – Now that you know the big things that need to be done, you can drill down to specific tasks that you have to get done to be able to ship something complete out*
*includes a video walkthrough of the form
Cover
Last but not least is a printable page that you can use as a cover for your planner! I love the Winston Churchill quote, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
I think it is so impactful for entrepreneurs as we go through our days with all the highs and lows that come about! Up is never going to stick around forever and even in our darkest moments of despair the only thing we have to do is get back up and keep fighting!
My Planner Story
I have been an entrepreneur since I was 8 years old and selling products in the store behind my parents house. And during all that time I struggled with keeping all my great ideas under control. I would start something and leave it hanging, too frustrated to EVER dream of trying to swing back and around and pick it up.
This left little pieces of my soul lying out there doing nothing over the years and me feeling a like a complete failure from time to time. Now don't get me wrong, I have had some glorious wins and created some products and services that I have absolutely adored, but I always felt like I was scrabbling to find a way to keep all my great ideas together.
I tried tons of different calendars and planners…oh the money I have spent. In fact, if I think back I have probably bought two calendars a year for 15 years totaling at least $3,000 not counting the extra costs for covers, bags and the like.
How This Planner Came About
So I was planning on which calendar to get this summer (I KNOW, it is an addiction) and I remember so clearly riding up to pick up my daughter from girl scout camp when I saw a video about how to use the ARC Planner System from Staples…wait what? I could move things around, make my own journal and calendar? Oh and my peeps without the ARC could use a plain 3 ring binder off the shelf from Staples too?
That was a day that will live in infamy for me. I started dreaming about the possibilities of not having to have sticky notes and notepads everywhere. Now I have all my ideas, hopes and business dreams in one single planner along with my calendar and blogging bits.
And you can have that too!
I almost can't believe this is real, that I will be helping so many business owners get their planning, calendaring and content organized.
Thank you for checking this planner out and for being such an amazing entrepreneur!