Another Monday — another Best Laid Plans episode! Today’s episode features BLP’s very first guest, planning aficionado Beth Cubbage! Beth is a mother of 2, consulting manager at a software company, and productivity enthusiast with a particular interest in simplifying & digital/paper hybrid methods. I have been following her blog for quite some time and while I find her methods fascinating, they are fairly different from my own!
So — given that I want to share lots of different planning perspectives, I invited her on as the very first guest. On this episode, Beth and I discuss the planning tools she loves, her “ride or die” planning rituals, the pros/cons of planning out weekends, and more!
In the Q&A segment, I answer a listener question about fitting in monthly/weekly reviews — what if your schedule is just too cluttered to do them!?
LINKS from Beth’s site:
PRODUCTS mentioned:
New theme music!
Attentive listeners may notice new music on today’s episode! This was graciously created and donated by Amanda Hawkins, the multitalented and patient wordpress pro who moved this giant blog over from blogger last year! The band is Rushmore Beekeepers with additional production by Greene Means Go.
13 Comments
Looking forward to this one. The Rocketbook Panda Planner appeared in my Amazon suggestions recently. I’ve been playing with it … and am not entirely sure how I feel about the digital aspect. I do *really* like the Panda Planner and am thinking about purchasing the paper version. I was an Erin Condren fan prior to this year, but was ready to look around at other options even before the brouhaha this summer.
Anyway, perhaps this episode will convince me to stay with the hybrid PP.
Kanban was a lifesaver for us during “virus schooling”. My 13 year old (understandably) didn’t like us hovering or checking in on his progress throughout the day and wanted to be independent but needed tools to remember zoom calls and assignments. Each morning, he would check his schoolwork and build his kanban board. We would review it and give feedback on tasks that may have been missed then pretty much let him manage his tasks and time until the end of the day when we’d review again after he said he was done. We added a “waiting” column for him to track anything he was waiting to hear back from teachers or classmates about. I’m in software development and another tool I use at work which I taught him is the pomodoro technique for focused work time. Kanban+Pomodoro worked for us!
ohhh that’s awesome to hear! I am contemplating a giant Kanban style bulletin board in A’s school area . . .
Your pictures of your BuJo inspired me to start tracking my pages read. I started with just a sticky note, but I made a graph style for the month today and am loving it. Both in a big book and life in general, it’s nice to track small wins or accomplishments, even though I never thought I “needed” to track books. Thank you 🙂
When your love of the week is a product, could you maybe also include that in the “products mentioned” here? Loving the podcast so far!
I agree, this would be helpful!
I will definitely do this from now on!
Thank you so much for having me, Sarah! Happy to answer any questions people have about my part of the episode.
I’ve had my Pocketbook Panda Planner (and the subsequent RB notebook) for about three weeks. I really like this planner. My hesitation about this product is primarily around the Rocketbook functionality. I work for a large US Government contractor. IT security is a Very Big Thing. I assume that the photos themselves are going to a Rocketbook server before they go to the final electronic destination of choice. Do you have any details on RB’s use of the images loaded to their servers?
I still really like the Rocketbook notebook – it’s a slim little notebook, with both grids for bullet journaling and lines for note taking. I use my company provided device to take photos (*) of the notes, email the notes to myself, then add to OneNote. (*) – I cover up the QR code before taking photos. Maybe this makes me paranoid (??), but better safe than sorry.
Amy, this is a great question that I have also wondered about. I don’t know the answer but I can try to find out! I will let you know what I learn.
I’m really enjoying the podcast! This episode was EXACTLY the length of my commute this morning 🙂
This was fabulous. Love all the tips and tricks.
I love that you’re having people with different planning styles on the show! I’m new to paper planning and love digital, so this was great for helping me improve my hybrid approach. Definitely looking into that planner and I immediately bought the rocketbook for taking notes. I hate going through notebooks and then not having my notes for easy access later depending on what I’m doing. This way I can file things with their appropriate projects, or just leave them in a central repository for access down the road just in case! Love it.