21 Tips On How To Plan Your Best Year With GoodNotes & Digital Planner
I’ve been throught a lot to be right in this place. However, its was an exciting and instructive journey. My ability to analyze complex information and transform it into clear plan allowed me to prepare 2022 Digital Planner for GoodNotes.
During each challenge, I noticed that a profound understanding of the our thoughts, everyday activities and habits was the key to success. I decided to show you and at the same time prove myself again that what’s difficult at first glance can be divided into a specific number of information and then simple tasks.
Why is it worth starting to plan your day?
Our everyday life is filled with a vast amount of data and information that we try to understand, interpret and divide into tasks. Unrelated, ever-growing amounts of daily duties — reach us in an unorganized, and uncontrolled way. We are also continually looking for new challenges and at the same time, we are bombarded by newer planning apps.
We forgot about simple methods had accompanied us from the child. Raw data itself is worth very little. Our planning system is often based on memorizing or doing ‘everything’ — not only what is important.
Overwhelmed by the massive amount of daily tasks, we forget that a simple plan is a peaceful head. A lack of proper understanding of priorities means a wrong process of reasoning and planing. This often means bad decisions. Because of this, 2022 Digital Planner for GoodNotes was created.
Our look at daily challenge is often very shallow and lacking a more comprehensive view. Our view is based only on the minimum volume of understandable information. The planning process without data transformation into information, information into knowledge is ineffective.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” — Benjamin Franklin
Choose the right tool
People in the past drew pictures and graphics to communicate and plan tasks for thousands of years. From pictograms on the walls of caves, through Egyptian hieroglyphs to the latest ideograms. People love to use handwriting & drawing for planning and storytelling, because it activates our brain for learning and later interpretation more effectively. We forget about the benefits of this solution and a deep relationship between ta simple plan and its implementation.
We live in a digital world and we are all aware of its incredible benefits. Does that mean we are stuck with computer to-do applications? Definitely not.
However, there is a great way to combine traditional and proven methods with a digital approach. Meet GoodNotes — beautiful, searchable handwritten notes with the note-taking app that turns your iPad into digital paper.
Choose the right digital planner & method
You probably know the feeling when your morning resembles a slowly unleashed storm of inaccurate information. We had the same, but we found ways to organize our thoughts, create specific tasks, creative work and peaceful end of the day.
The biggest challenge for us is to filter data, focus only on the essential information and plan them in a transparent way. Using the 2022 Digital Planner for GoodNotes may be similar to putting your glasses on, where everything suddenly becomes visible. 2022 Digital Planner for GoodNotes is also a method of organizing knowledge about the world around us.
However, you must remember that the purpose to optimize the planning process is not to present tasks, information or knowledge elegantly. The primary goal of effective and simple planning is to increase the level of understanding our daily tasks.
Planning tips
1. Plan for tomorrow at the end of your day
If you already know what your next day will be before you start work, you will be more focused on doing your job because you know what you need to do right from the start.
Instead of wasting your time and energy in the morning thinking about what you need to work on, you can start doing it right away. That’s why planning the day before night is so effective.
You will be much less stressed and feel calmer. Once you know exactly what you’re going to be working on, you’ll be less overwhelmed. When you have a plan right at the start, you’ll be much less exhausted and distracted. Focus from the very beginning is a skill that is extremely important in today’s world.
2. Plan your main goal first
If you don’t define your main task and treat all tasks as “very important” then you won’t really make any progress. Proper day planning means categorically blocking time on one thing that is most important in your life and work right now.
You may ask yourself, “What is my most important goal in work or life today?
Whatever your priority is, make sure it’s the first thing you plan in your 2022 Digital Planner before doing anything else!
3. Create a daily schedule with a calendar
Most people think very visually (that’s good!) but unfortunately even the best-structured to-do list doesn’t correspond directly with your time.
You may feel terrified that you do not know where to start or how to allocate your time for the most important tasks.
Think of your calendar as a subset of your to-do’s list. Add time blocks to your calendar, starting at the first item from your your task’s list.
I know from my own experience that this works great because it makes you think about how long it will take. Thanks to this, you will avoid the mistake of not taking into account the time spent at meetings or other additional things.
4. Group similar tasks
Creating groups means linking similar tasks to do them together or one after the other.
If you do similar things at once, you will be much faster and your work will become more effective. The key is to find similar activities and create a recurring timeslot for them in your day.
5. Be realistic
If your goals are too ambitious, you may feel frustrated with your lack of progress. On the other hand, if they are too simple, you can forget about them because you will have “a lot of time to complete such simple tasks”
I think somewhere in the middle is the perfect place to achieve your goals. Plan a little more than you think you can do. Also remember that you can change your goals! They are not scheduled once and for all! In a few months you may be in a completely different place, that’s normal!
6. Schedule a break
Focusing can take a lot of energy, and lack of it later can turn your productive day into an unproductive day.
To reduce fatigue and keep you energized, try the Pomodoro technique. Work on task for 25 minutes and then taking a short break before the next 25-minute sessions.
After four “Pomodoro sessions” you can take a longer break to rest and reflect.
7. Celebrate and summarizing
No matter how your daily work looks, take the time to celebrate your small and big achievements. Celebrating your successes is an amazing motivator.
You can also reflect on your day. Ask yourself what went right and wrong. Reflection not only increases future productivity, but also gives the brain time to de-stress.
8. Eliminate distractions when planning (and not only!)
Each day starts with minimal disruptions, but you must remember that you should focus on the most important things. GoodNotes and 2021 Digital Planner should be your only things that capture your attention.
Log out of social media accounts. Close websites where you are reading news articles. If you have a distracting app in the background, close it.
9. Try journaling
Starting and ending the day with writing a journal (e.g. with the 5 Minute Journal method) helps to clarify and systematize your thoughts.
Many people have noticed a huge difference in their happiness and gratitude when they make time for it. It’s also an easy way to add routine to digital planners!
You can use the “notebook” section in the planner to start writing your journal.
10. Keep Everything in One Planner
Make sure everything you plan and write down is in one app and planner. Be creative! You can have hundreds of things in your planner that can make your life much easier!
In 2022 Planner for GoodNotes, you can plan days, weeks and months!
11. Make your planner a place of inspiration
Planner is not only a place where you can write down tasks to be done. It should also be a place to find and add inspirations. One of the things that brings many benefits is collecting valuable texts, links, quotes from books, etc.
Creating monthly inspiration is much more practical than simply making an annual resolution. Be sure to come back to your notes every week to keep yourself inspired.
GoodNotes tips
12. Lasso Tool
The Lasso tool is one of the most useful things in GoodNotes. You can use this tool to copy items, move them elsewhere on the page, or paste to a new page.
13. Zoom in to write
Use zoom if you want to write or sketch with greater accuracy. A special zone is a very convenient solution. Thanks to it, you don’t lose the entire document from the workspace.
14. Custom color
GoodNotes offers an unlimited choice of any color from the color palette. Another good news is that you can save them for later use!
15. Changing the size of stickers
Unlike a paper planner, you don’t have to limit yourself to one sticker size. You can make them bigger, smaller, widened or narrowed with the Goodnotes sizing tool. Be creative!
16. Straight lines
To draw straight lines, you make sure the Snap to Other Strokes option is turned on in the Shape Tools menu. When you draw a freehand line, it will automatically straighten. This is a very useful option when drawing tables or flowcharts! You can also transform your drawing into perfect shapes when you draw and hold pencil — using Draw and Hold option.
17. Pen thickness
Imagine you have 10 pens of different thickness in front of you … that’s possible with GoodNotes. Do you want to write a headline? Use a thick line. Do you take notes in the margins? Change the line thickness to very thin.
18. Display all pages
If you want to have access to the view of all pages in the planner, click on the 4 squares in the upper left corner. This view works great and gives you a top view of everything.
In this menu, you can tap the down arrow on the pages you want to duplicate or delete. You can also reorder the pages by pressing and holding your finger on the page, and then dragging it (while still pressing on the iPad screen) to the desired position. Once you’re happy with the new location, take your finger off the iPad screen.
There are also “favorite pages” and “bookmarks” options, which may be helpful when working with the planner.
19. Double-tap Apple Pencil 2
If you have a second-generation Apple Pencil, you can double-tap the pencil to effortlessly switch from the pencil tool to the eraser tool.
The ability to erase errors effortlessly is revolutionary! Ii is working like a magic trick every time.
If you have Apple Pencil 2, try it out! It is very convenient and you will save a lot of time!
20. Use digital stickers
Digital stickers can perfectly personalize your planner. You can use them without restrictions on any page. Add additional information, highlight the text with an icon or fill the calendar visually. Plan and exercise your creativity!
21. Use the search function to find information quickly
If you want to find something quickly but forgot to bookmark the page, you can use the search function.
Another magic trick! Even if you handwrite your notes, GoodNotes will recognize your handwriting and show it in search results!
What do you need at the start?
- Download the GoodNotes app from the App Store
2. Start planning with 2022 Digital Planner for GoodNotes
3. Start a new year with superpowers!
