Sometimes planners and journals lean into the functional use. And there is definitely a functional use to both. Oh, and by the way, one item can be both your planner and your journal. But a lot of times we want planner decoration ideas, stickers or markers or washi tape or any number of ways to jazz it up.

How to Be More Creative and Colorful with Your Planner Decoration Ideas

Almost everyone who ever purchases a journal has the dream that someday someone out there will read it. Some even dream that their journal will someday be the source of reading entertainment, amusement, and enjoyment by a large audience all around the world. Of course, that will not end up being the case for the vast majority of us. Still, we can make our journals as creative and interesting as possible for our own reading and for anyone in our family or friends circle that might actually spend some time reading it someday.

Always Think About Your Journal

If you want to have a creative and accurate journal, it is best to log away what has happened in your day as soon as it happens. It is preferable to get this information down right away before you forget some of the details of it. It is all too easy with our easy to fail us human memories to forget even some of the most interesting details of our day over time.

The best option is to carry your journal with you everywhere that you go. However, if that is not an option for you, at least make sure you have access to a writing instrument and something that you can write on. Doing that allows you to capture the details of your day as they are happening.

Use Journal Prompts

Your journal could be a collection of details about what happened during your day if you want it to be that, but it does not have to be. You can take some of the fantastic journal writing prompts available to you via the Internet. People are always posting new ideas that you could expand on. They are often questions that we might not have sat down and pondered in the past, or they might just be simple ideas for you to expand on.

When you borrow these prompts, you are cutting out some of the creative strain that you might have put on yourself to always come up with great ideas for every entry. Let’s admit it, that can be incredibly challenging even for the most creative among us. Fortunately, we can always rely on someone out there to help us out with this. We can spend more of our time thinking about how we will write about the prompt rather than thinking of the prompt itself.

Break Away from Narrative

There is no rule that says that you must write in your journal in a particular narrative format. In fact, if you choose to do so, you can write in it any way that you like. Maybe you have been working on some song lyrics that just need to burst out on the page. Alternatively, you could write down a top ten list of your favorite whatever.

You might want to even throw some pictures in to the mix to make it even more interesting. You can get them made at just about any major retail store these days. Print them out and tape them into the journal for an even more memorable experience to read about and look at.

Don’t Be Afraid To “Go There”

Sometimes the biggest thing keeping you away from having a creative journal is yourself. If you are censoring what you write in the journal too much, you might end up sucking all of the creativity out of it as a result as well. Many people do this for fear of offending some person who might get their hands on it in the future. The truth is though, you risk much more if you do not tell your story the way it is meant to be told. Censoring yourself just takes away from the heart of the meaning of a journal in the first place.

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Some of my personal inspirations and where I get some of my planner decoration ideas

Now a few of my own recent planner decoration ideas

Erin Condren launch day purchases!

May decoration ideas

For this one, I just had to use my brand-new Rongrong Bookworm PET Tape and Washi set! I also supplemented the set with Planner Kate stickers and washi, Erin Condren Fall Highlighters, and Teacher Dual-Tip List Markers.

June decoration ideas

While I do like flowers, I lean more into the botanical type images and I think this turned out lovely! With plenty of space to still write and add things. This one is primarily Planner Kate stickers and washi as well as the Erin Condren Fall Highlighters and the Teacher Dual-Tip List Markers.

July decoration ideas

This one was more about a color scheme than a specific theme, but as it came together it definitely has a flower-type theme with my Planner Kate stickers and washi as well as the Erin Condren Fall Highlighters and the Teacher Dual-Tip List Markers.

How to Stay Consistent with Daily Journaling

Starting a new journaling practice is one that can help bring you clarity, insight, and healing in all areas of your life. But to get the most from a journaling practice, you need to be consistent with it. If you have a goal to journal every day, but are struggling with consistency, the following tips can really help you create a routine and find your own way of making journaling a part of your everyday life. it helps to integrate your planner and your journal, if you are willing to co-mingle the two.

Create a Journaling Habit and Routine

If you are on a journey to find clarity, set goals, or work on your personal growth through journaling, then you first need to create some structure and have a journaling routine in place.

• Add Journaling to Your Routine – Being consistent with journaling is about setting yourself up for success, just like you would with any other new habit you want to incorporate into your life.
• Turning Journaling into a Habit – By scheduling your journaling practice daily into your routine, you will eventually create a journaling habit.

Find a Style and Method of Journaling You Love

It is also important that you not only find the style or type of journaling you enjoy the most and that will benefit you on this journey, but also the method of journaling.

• Style – There are dozens of types of journaling, from a basic daily journal where most journal entries are stream of consciousness about your day and how you are currently thinking and feeling, to specific journals meant for the benefits you receive, such as a gratitude journal or goal-setting journal. And you can definitely integrate some of those planner decoration ideas.
• Method – The primary methods are writing or digital. Digital journaling can also come in many forms, from using your smartphone to make notes in a digital journal each day, to using your computer and documents where you type your journal entries each day.

Use Journal Prompts for Inspiration

The final method for being more consistent with your daily journaling practice is to use journal prompts. You can either choose your own prompts to write down in your current journal or notebook each day or get a prompted journal where the prompts are already printed on the page.

Either way, journal prompts offer a great way for you to do more introspection and practice self-awareness. Just writing your thoughts on a blank page isn’t easy for everyone. Some people would prefer answering a question or being given a topic to write about, as opposed to a brain dump or stream of consciousness in their journal.

You can find prompts for just about everything, from bringing up cherished memories and planning the future, to gaining more clarity and working on your personal growth.

We haven’t talked about planners and journals lately, so let’s take a look at both! But did you know that your planner can also be your journal? You don’t need a separate one (unless you like it that way).

Your Planner Can Be a Bullet Journal

Was your resolution to be more mindful and more organized? There’s nothing like old-fashioned pen and paper to help make this happen.

Or maybe you’re a veteran journaler looking to transform your practice. Regardless of your experience journaling, the Bullet Journal can boost your practice.

One of the most basic forms is a bullet journal (hint = a bullet journal is an excellent way your planner can be a journal). Bullet journaling involves a great deal of customization. Have you spent time looking through journal formats and found that there wasn’t one that fit your needs exactly?

Enter the Bullet Journal. The basis of the journal is simplicity in the form of bullet points. The founder says that the more effort is expended to create a list or entry, the less likely we are to continue to do it. Instead of complicated recording methods, the basic structure of this journal is the bullet.

From there, journals can be customized to whatever need you have. If you have a million to-do lists, this is a way to track them all. If you want to set goals and habits and track your progress, this allows you to do that in a way that is intuitive for you. It includes an index that you update as you go, and you can track future tasks or last month’s tasks that didn’t get done.

It makes use of something called “rapid logging” which is just a fancy way of saying jotting down notes. The idea is to get things out of your head quickly so that you can use symbols to organize and track them.

It’s a journal and a to-do list all in one. Once you figure out your system, it makes a lot of sense to keep track of both things to do in the future and the daily events happening now. This method gives you a complete picture of what your life is like so you can reflect, make changes, or simply create gratitude for day to day occurrences and circumstances.

Bullet Journals are easily customizable and are intended to reflect a natural system of organization already in your head. You don’t have to worry about organizing your thoughts as you get them on paper. Instead, you mark them with a logical series of symbols after they are down on paper to track.

Benefits of Bullet Journaling

The first thing to know about bullet journals is that they are extremely beneficial. Here is a list of some of the top benefits of using this type of journal.

They Are Versatile

One of the most significant benefits of switching to this system is that you can use any notebook.

No, really.

Although many of the demos use the simple dot grid to help keep things straight, you can start today with whatever notebook is lying around.

Journals are like purses or closets. They’re never perfect, and there’s always something else you wish you had. Instead of using what someone else thinks are organized, the system follows how you think.

This kind of customization removes the fear around buying the wrong type of journal or finding out later that there’s a better system. As you grow bored of a system, you can switch it up to reveal fresh ideas and see your to-do list in a new way. No boredom means you’re more likely to stick with the system.

They Work with Any Budget

Another benefit is that you don’t need to invest a ton of money. You want something that is rugged enough to go with you everywhere, but there are a lot of cheap notebooks out there that can get the job done. Some planners can run you upwards of $50 or more. This is an expensive experiment to try and then abandon.

It Has Multiple Uses

The Bullet Journal also functions as several different recording notebooks at once. Your planner can be your journal! You don’t need to buy a journal to record day to day activities, a habit tracker for all those New Year’s resolutions, and a planner to keep organized. You can do everything in one space. Simplification means you’re more likely to stick with this system and see real change.

Anything you can do to simplify your process and make it more personalized to your needs keeps you from dropping the system. Though Bullet Journaling can seem overwhelming at first, once you figure out your system, it needs little maintenance to carry you through each day. No more feeling guilty that you couldn’t stay consistent.

What to Write About

And now the real beauty of the Bullet Journal – you can write about anything that you want. Getting started is easy. You need a blank notebook and a pen. That’s it.

Rapid Logging

Most people start with the rapid logging pages. This is your list of to-dos, notes, and observations. Once you jot them down, begin to mark them based on a system of symbols that you’ve created. If you aren’t sure what the symbols should be, you can look at examples of what others are doing and modify accordingly.

It’s important to keep your notes short, but you can always expand on the next page if there’s something you need to write more in-depth. First, quick. Then expand.

Index

The next part is the index. At the beginning of your journal is a running index with page numbers marked and a list of your symbols so you can keep track. This will help guide you as you get deeper into your notebook and need to look back or find other information previously recorded.

Give yourself two pages for the index just to be safe, but you don’t have to record everything. Make judgment calls about what information will need to be retrieved quickly later as you are making your entries.

Future Logs

After the index is your future log. This is the calendar portion of your journal and can help you get a handle on what’s coming up, so your planning today is more efficient. Set up the pages for it first and then add to it as you get into the day to day stuff.

After this, many journalers have a big picture view of each month. As you enter the month, make an entry at the beginning of that section to see a bird’s eye view of what’s coming up and any thoughts or preparations that need to be made.

You can track lists that need to be completed by month’s end, record birthdays and any prep, household tasks, and any other monthly related things.

Big Projects

From here, create pages dedicated to any projects or habits you are making. You can keep track of the books you’ve read, for example. You can also make a log of any improvements in your health, or watch your debt fall as other examples.

These projects get their own dedicated pages and index entries to help you see your progress over time. You can create them wherever you are in your journal and find them quickly through the index. This also gives you an idea of when you started for further tracking.

Tips for Bullet Journaling

This can all seem overwhelming the first time you set it up, but the important thing to remember is that perfection isn’t necessary. The journal evolves as you do. The longer you adopt this system, the more likely your journal is to reflect what you need, but don’t get mired in perfection the first time.

If you don’t know where to start, there are blog posts and YouTube videos dedicated to different types of layouts and ideas for things to track. You can find a few that match what you need and copy those or use them as a starting point to create your own.

Take Your Time Learning

Start slowly in the beginning and begin with the basics: future log, rapid journaling, and index.

Once you get the hang of your own system, you can begin to add layouts to track more complicated things. Also, it’s not essential that you be artistic either. In fact, many Bullet Journalers don’t have any art training and use straightforward layouts.

Make it Look Amazing

That said, if art is your thing, then decorate your layouts. This is the perfect opportunity to decorate what you’re doing in your journal. Many of the more complicated spreads rely on art and can be a great way to get in your creative edge.

Work Out What You Want First

If you still have trouble getting started, take a few sheets of scrap paper and experiment with some layouts before you start recording them in your notebook. This will let you see firsthand what a few things will look like if you still aren’t sure what layouts you want to follow. Transfer the ones you like to your official journal or staple them in.

Prompts to Help Get You Started

The journaling prompts for a bullet journal are a little different than other types of journals. Here are some tips to help get you started: the first six pages of your notebook to leave room for the index and the future log, and make sure your very first rapid log has a page number attached to it.

Now that you have the first rapid log page, go back and make your first index entry. You can title it however you want, but it’s likely that this very first rapid log attempt will be important later.

For the future log, make three spaces on each page to log months. You don’t need a lot of space for each month, just enough to record significant events that will likely affect how you plan during that month and any of the other parts of the year. These can correspond to birthdays, major holidays and vacations, and other necessary parts of the year.

Be sure to record your organizing symbols for rapid logging somewhere in the front as well. This will help you to remember as you get used to your system. Again, if you aren’t sure what you want to do, following the official Bullet Journal format is a good bet for those until you decide if you want to create your own.

It can also help you to identify one or two big goals or projects and make those dedicated pages here as well. If your resolution involves drinking more water or reading more books, now is a good time to write down where you are and track where you’re going. Log this page in your index, of course.

How Journaling Can Change Your Life

Whether you’re dealing with anxiety and depression, or simply going through a rough patch in life, journaling can serve as a free and entirely self-managed form of therapy that’s actually quite effective. In fact, keeping a journal can be beneficial even when you’ve managed to reach and sustain a state of emotional balance and mental peace. Following are several, significant ways in which journaling can change your life.

• Evoke A Sense of Mindfulness — Far too often, people move from day to day without ever stopping to feel and express gratitude for the things that that are happening in their lives. They’re also overlooking a number of tremendous learning opportunities. Writing in a journal forces you to stop and reflect on seemingly minor events that might otherwise go overlooked.

• Establish a Positive Mindset — You have the power to fill it with anything you want. Spending time to reflect on the small blessings in life, however, can automatically move you from a negative and self-defeating mindset into a more positive and proactive one. You have another day to affect change in your life, strong mental abilities, the power of self-forgiveness, and more.

• Start Forming New Goals — Journals are also great tools for overall life planning. If you’ve ever wondered how some people seem to have their whole lives figured out, you should consider the fact that these individuals may be keeping journals (or their planner can be their journal). The best part about using a journal to establish and pursue life goals is the fact that this process can be an entirely informal one. This is merely a platform for bouncing ideas around and helping them take shape. So sometimes your planner can be a journal but in reverse!

• Enhance Your Creative Potential — The act of journaling can be an incredibly creative process as well. After all, you’re not just writing about the things that have happened or are happening in your life; you’re also writing about the way in which you want things to be. This flexes your imagination, enhances your creative skills, and promotes new and far more interesting ways of thinking.

• Build Better Communication Skills — In the very long list of benefits that regular journaling can provide, better communication is hardly the least. The practice of writing about your thoughts and feelings will make you more adept in issuing thoughtful responses. It will also improve your emotional intelligence, thereby making you better able to respond to the wants and needs of others in an empathetic way.

Plan your work for today and every day, and work that plan. ~~ Margaret Thatcher

7 To-Do List Strategies to Employ to Turn Your Planner into a Journal

Most of us know what a ‘to do list’ is and yet, the majority of people don’t use one and prefer to work from memory. They have a jumbled list of tasks in their mind and get these done in a haphazard and almost always, inefficient manner.

1. Have a to-do list — The best way to go about creating one will be to do a brain dump on paper of ALL the tasks and commitments you need to get done. This is an almost cathartic process that will bring you relief while it frees up mental energy.
2. Prioritize — The next step will be to use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize your tasks. You can easily learn this technique by Googling it or looking on YouTube for tutorials on ‘using the Eisenhower Matrix’.
3. Focus — Once you have your to-do list prioritized, the next step will be to focus on ONE task at a time. Avoid multitasking at all cost. It ruins one’s ability to concentrate and also leads to shoddy work. Take each task to completion before moving on to the next.
4. Limit your to-do list — Ideally, you shouldn’t have more than 7 items. Break the list up into 2 parts. At the top, have all the most important tasks which will yield the highest rate of return in your life. At the bottom will usually be the mundane, routine chores that need to get done just to keep life normal… but don’t really yield much reward. If you complete all the tasks for that day fast, you can add a few more from your ‘brain dump’ list and work on them.
5. Plan the night before — Create your to-do list the night before. This will ensure that you hit the ground running the next day instead of spending your most alert hours in the morning planning what to do.
6. Break down bigger tasks — Some tasks are too big to complete in one day. So, while they may be on your to-do list, you’re not going to be able to finish it all on that day. In instances like these, it’s best to write down that task on a separate sheet of paper and break it down into smaller tasks and create a checklist for the work process. Each day, you’ll work on one or a few steps in that checklist. These are the steps that will go on your to-do list daily… and NOT the huge, monumental task. Always remember to break it down into bite-sized pieces.
7. Carry over tasks — Sometimes, despite your best efforts, there will be some tasks that you just can’t complete in time. No worries. This happens. Just move them to the next day… BUT do NOT add them on to a list that’s already full. Instead, make them part of the list of 7 or so tasks that you need to complete. In this way, you’ll not have a growing list of things that need to get done that keeps getting longer by the day. Always aim to have only 3-7 items on your to -do list.

Last but not least, to-do lists aside, always remember to delegate and automate where you can. The hard truth is that you’ll NEVER have time to do it all. Tasks and commitments will keep popping up daily. The best way to maintain control of things will be to delegate or outsource the less important tasks to others.

So let’s bring it all together – how can my planner be a journal? In basic terms your planner is where you track your tasks and plans, and your journal is where you track your thoughts and feelings. If this all sounds new, start with a basic bullet journal or notebook. Not only can you create your calendars and your to-do lists, but with other tools like mood trackers you can also start developing your sense of journaling inside your planner.

We’ve talked a lot about time management tips and tricks, but what about actual skills that you can start using today? Are you ready to start managing your time more efficiently?

ONE = Time-Wasting Tasks to Avoid in the Mornings (also known as anti time management skills)

It’s a well-known fact that we all have responsibilities in life. If you find yourself doing any of the things listed below, make a concerted effort to stop. Sometimes the best time management skills are the things we stop doing.

You are allowing yourself to waste precious time. If any of these are something you need to do regularly for work or to get important information you need to run your life more efficiently, limit the time you spend on them. When you limit the time, you may be amazed at how much “extra” time you have at the end of the day. Plus, you’ll notice how much more productive you were.

1. Checking social media networks – Stop checking social media networks first thing in the morning. It is important to stop yourself before you waste your time because checking these sites first can be a habit that will drain your productivity for the rest of the day.
2. Listening to the news – Stop squandering your time by checking on breaking news, unless there is a local event you need to know about. You only get the overnight news, weather, and some fluff in the morning. To stay informed, watch the evening news to get the full stories.
3. Over-analyzing – It is not a time management skill to overanalyze things when you need to make an important decision. It will prevent you from being productive and waste your time. Likewise, when you have a good experience, don’t overanalyze or question why it happened.
4. Anticipating bad news – If you check for negative news before doing anything else, you set yourself up to focus on negative events for the day. You want to start every day on a positive note. You will waste even more time when you invite intrusive thoughts into your mind.
5. Lying in bed – Stop waiting to fall back asleep or thinking about the day. Go ahead and get up. You can use your time more wisely by taking care of a short, simple task. Many people have difficulty falling asleep. Sometimes, doing a short task is enough to relax you.
6. Getting ready for the day – If you’re perplexed about what to wear every morning, you’re wasting your time. You can eliminate this problem by laying out the clothes you will wear on the night before. Consider making this a nightly routine before you go to bed.
7. Procrastination – This is the opposite of time management skills. To prevent yourself from procrastinating, figure out what you tend to put off doing the most and why you keep delaying the task. Figure out what you find a rewarding about putting the task off.
8. Food – Stop wasting your time if you are still thinking about breakfast in bed. Instead, get up and eat right away to stop delaying. Planning your meals will help you avoid any time-wasting problems around food in the morning.
9. Watching too much TV – Stop wasting your time watching too much TV. It’s easy to get involved in a storyline but you need to limit how many shows you watch. If you are home, work on personal projects or opt to read during this time, instead of sitting in front of the television.
10. Multitasking – People cannot multitask effectively. If you’re trying to do multiple things each morning, you’re probably not focusing sufficiently on what you’re doing. Instead, look at your schedule and stick to your plans by focusing on one thing at a time.

Avoiding morning time wasters is essential to your overall daily productivity. You’ll be more productive if you are more self-aware and stop wasting time during your morning routines at home and at work.

TWO = Tiny Decluttering Steps You Can Take Today

Sometimes clutter can actually detract from your time management skills. If you’ve been procrastinating on a home decluttering project, chances are the reason behind your hesitation not knowing where to start. When you find yourself stuck in a pattern of avoidance, the best method to change that pattern is to start with small tasks. To help you along your way, consider one of these tiny decluttering steps you can take today.

THREE = How Small Steps Lead to Big Results

Time management skills are ultimately about having the time to achieve the goals you set for yourself. To make things more manageable and consistent, break complex tasks into small steps. As you take these small steps, you learn what works best and what doesn’t work at all. When you learn from your experiences and apply the lessons learned, you begin to understand how small steps can lead you to the big, positive results you want.

If you aren’t familiar with SMART goals, SMART is an acronym for the elements you will use in each of your goals to help you get the results you want to achieve. Below, you can see what goes into writing and creating a SMART goal.

Once you set the goals, add the action steps into your calendar and schedule. Ultimately, you want to make it easier to develop daily habits that lead you to achieve your goal. Use consistency every day to make it easier for you, don’t expect BIG results immediately. Keep in mind that slow and steady wins this race.

To be more consistent so that your small steps lead to big results in your life, use SMART goals and be sure to schedule consistency for yourself. Write your action plan into your schedule realistically.

If you write down an action, make sure you study the action to ensure the impact and that you have the time and resources to do it. Then take the steps daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the action and your schedule. Finally, measure the results to keep doing what works and less of what isn’t working.

FOUR = The 2-Minute Rule for your Time Management Skills

Talk about time management skills! Something that only takes two minutes? This is the 2-minute rule you need to finally end your procrastination or other bad habits and achieve more out of life. Procrastination and other lousy time management habits lead to many missed opportunities and chances for personal growth to build up your business. It encourages laziness and lacks accountability, in turn stalling your momentum, focus, and consistency needed for success.

What Exactly Is The 2-Minute Rule?
It’s a stress-free approach to starting new habits and kicking bad ones. It’s a rule designed to help you achieve more goals without feeling overwhelmed and keeps you from delaying action any longer than you should.

The two main concepts for the rule include:

• If it only takes two minutes, then get it out of the way right now.
• Establishing new habits or routines should only take two minutes to begin with.

As with most methods, if they are misused, they provide the opposite results than you intend.

Here’s how to use the 2-minute rule effectively to kick your bad habits and achieve max productivity:

Keep It Relevant and Realistic

Only use the rule if it is relevant to whatever you are doing at that time. In other words, don’t just do whatever task comes to mind if it doesn’t relate to what you are actively doing.

For example, if you are trying to finish your next content package for your client, it’s not a good idea to go ahead and get that email notification about your next business meeting out of the way. It is unrelated and will ultimately get you off track and prevent you from finishing your course. Instead, think, “what can I do in two minutes to finish this course?”

Don’t Make It Hard

You don’t need to gain success or be the best overnight. Don’t make adopting new habits challenging and overwhelming by speeding up the process. Small gradual changes make it easier to accomplish and stick around long term. For example, science proves that those who lose weight over a more extended period of time maintain the weight longer than those who lose it very quickly.

Meaning you shouldn’t focus on what you can’t do; rather, what you can do instead. For just two minutes, what can you do towards changing one bad habit? Then the next day, add two more minutes and keep repeating the process.

It’s All About Perspective

The main goal of the 2-minute rule is to change your perspective on how you see a challenge or annoying tasks. You can trick your brain into believing a task is simple and easy, even though it can be hard. Anyone can deal with something for just two minutes, and sometimes the most challenging part is just starting.

Give this 2-minute rule a try the next time you feel that you need to push off your work to Monday. You won’t regret giving it a try.

FIVE = BONUS Tips for Time Management Skills

This is another article meant to help those whose productivity guilt stems from a lack of effective time management, but these tips will help anyone who cares to implement them. Try these out for yourself to see how they improve your life (and your productivity and productivity guilt).

Make A Time Log

Keep track of what you do at work in a journal or log for two weeks. Break it down into quarter or half-hour increments. This is a pain to do but it will show you exactly where you are spending (and not spending) your time and where you need to make some changes.

Create And Keep A Daily Schedule

Kids are not the only ones who benefit from having a routine and sticking to it as much as possible. Adults benefit from it at least as much. Routines are also vital for anyone who is neurodivergent.

Stop Trying To Multitask

Just stop. Humans are not meant to multitask. We are terrible at it. This has been proven over and over again, yet people keep trying to do it. Stop it for good. Focus on one task at a time and you will improve your life and your work output tremendously.

Batch Tasks Together

When you create a schedule and prioritize your to-do list, put tasks that are similar together. Print all of your reports at once. Do all the bookkeeping for your clients on the same day. This reduces task switching, which causes fatigue and interrupts your focus, and helps you get things done faster.

Use Time Management Skills and Tools

There is no shame in needing help and there are enough tools on the market today that anyone can find the right tool to act as their own personal assistant. Many of them are even free. A few examples include Alexa, Asana, Trello, Google Suite, and Hubstaff, but there are dozens more. Try out a few different ones until you find the best one for you and your needs. And sometimes proactive time management skills can be a huge help.

Create Time Limits For Every Task

Do not let the open-ended tasks on your to-do list eat your time! They will if you give them a chance. That is the nature of such tasks. You have more than one thing to do every day. So set a hard time limit for each such task. When the time is up, put it aside and go on to the next thing. Set alarms or times if you need them to remind you.