I meet SO many people who want to write a book, and as I always say during my talks about writing and in my own writing, when we have the impulse to write a book, or to undertake any creative endeavor, it’s our life force wanting to breathe, expand, and express itself. This is how we thrive.

To stifle it and hold it inside, I believe, harms us. It affects our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, which, in turn, affects those around us.

Can you imagine a world where people have the time and space to creatively express themselves? I can… that’s why I’m so passionate about helping people write.

I use the word “magic” a lot when I talk and write about the writing process. The magic doesn’t just happen, though… we have to create the space to allow it to happen. The magic happens AFTER we start getting words on the page.

After working with private clients for awhile now, I’ve discovered that there are some steps we need to address before the work can begin.

The first two are planning and scheduling. 

Planning is taking a big, broad, comprehensive look at our lives and anticipating what might interfere with our progress. In my Conjuring Clarity course, we project and imagine blocks and obstacles BEFORE they happen, and we create solutions to head them off at the pass. Sometimes this requires changing habits and negotiating – even letting go of – behaviors that have become unwittingly routine but do nothing to help us achieve our goal.

Scheduling is simply the act of carving out the time and putting it on a calendar. This may seem like a no-brainer, but there’s an art to calendaring, and I’m always working to refine my approach. In Conjuring Clarity we also talk about which kind of scheduling and calendaring are best for you (digital, analog, or a combination of both) and how to find a system the will actually help you accomplish your goals.

• Google Calendar for ALL my appointments and meetings – even those with myself (because I look at it every day, and it sends me reminders and syncs with my phone)
• An analog planner for a monthly and weekly breakdown of my appointments (because I can write notes to myself there, and when I write something by hand, I remember it – science has proven this again and again)
• A digital list-making system for detailed daily planning – Notes or Stickies apps – both are free and sync with my phone (because I organize my days in two-hour chunks of time, and these give me an unlimited amount of space for this)

Honestly, I get giddy when I get a new planner – filling up all that empty space with possibilities fuels my urge to bring my ideas to fruition and almost always guarantees I’ll follow through. (It’s also a fun, relaxing task I can do while I watch TV.) I love breaking my big-picture visions down into manageable steps and tasks. And in the first two modules of Conjuring Clarity, this is exactly what we do.

With this in mind, I have a few planners I want to recommend* because as we get closer to 2020, I’m guessing many of you will be setting intentions to start and/or complete projects that matter to you.

Good Busy Planner offers weekly, monthly, and quarterly
layouts for different views of your goals. There’s also space to discover and assess goals, as well as a really cool mind map
type system for creating action plans.

Passion Planner made its debut in 2012 when Angelia Trinidad finished grad school and had no idea how to move on to the next phase of life. Passion Planner was her remedy, and it’s evolved into a phenomenon and a community. It has a simple, polished aesthetic and comes in a variety of sizes and colors, both dated and undated. It’s packed with pages and spaces to envision and dream, plan, reflect, and distill tasks. Learn more about the Passion Planner movement here.

This Bullet Dot Journal by Vivid Scribbles is excellent for creatives who prefer a list-making approach to planning and scheduling with an artistic flair. If you like journaling and doodling, this is likely a good one for you.

And here’s the one I bought… by Frasukis. The price was right, and I like its simplicity, its generous two-page monthly and yearly layouts, and its blank pages in the back for my manic note taking. Its ample yet thin. And its blue. 🙂

*I receive no discount, kickback, or benefit by recommending these planners.