What is the LOT Planner, really?
The Life on Track Planner, or LOT for short, is meant to be an all-in-one planner for both your personal and professional needs. I developed the planner while in graduate school because I needed a comprehensive system that could track all of the priorities I was juggling as a graduate student. Starting in 2016 I created a series of bullet journals that slowly evolved into the LOT planner you see today. There are four main themes that inspired me to design my planner, all of which mesh together to help me be as productive as possible.
Plan and track goals on different timelines
I designed the LOT planner to allow me to plan and track goals on a variety of timelines. I needed to graduate, meaning, I needed to track goals over a 5-6 year timespan. However, the research projects that were necessary for writing my dissertation were on the timeline of 1-2 years and my tasks for classes spanned no more than a few months. In order to be successful, tracking all of these goals, and more, were a must. The LOT planner solved this need by providing spaces for me to map my entire PhD in the “Life Plan” section as well as break them down into smaller, more manageable chunks in the “Work Goals” page. I placed conference deadlines and project milestones in the “24 Months at a Glance” section to have a birds-eye view two years into the future. I could track up to 12 projects separately and always know the next task I needed to succeed on it using the “Project Next Steps” page. I separately tracked quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals, which allowed me to easily track projects on different timelines.
Iteration
There are a ton of places to track goals and tasks in the LOT Planner, which might feel a bit like overkill. However, I’ve found that the more times and places I write down my goals, the easier it is to remember them; therefore the more likely I am to complete them. By writing a sub-goal in my weekly goals I am reminded of where that sub-goal fits into the broader picture. By writing my high-level and more abstract goals, I can easily envision the smaller steps needed to achieve them. In other words, writing goals in multiple stages and places help keep everything clear. Furthermore, writing goals at different stages ensures that the smaller tasks done on a daily and/or weekly basis will serve your larger goal. It is very easy to get trapped in a cycle of doing work inefficiently for the sake of being busy. The LOT Planner is designed to minimize busywork.
Reflection
The LOT Planner encourages me not only to write my goals down but also to reflect on the journey to completing those goals. From spaces to write down what happened daily to writing a weekly review to reflecting on a monthly and quarterly basis, there are so many reminders to pause and reflect on the things that are going well and the things that could be improved. Similar to how you monitor the health of your body, usually healthy people build in routine doctors’ visits to focus on preventative care. They don’t wait to fix a problem when it’s dire. Likewise, by monitoring the health of your productivity system you can find and fix problems before they spiral out of control. Reflection and tracking shouldn’t be reserved only for professional goals either, which brings me to the final theme of the LOT Planner.
Removing tension between professional and personal
In the 1960s, second wave feminism used the phrase “the personal is the political” as a rallying cry for the movement. Among other things, they wanted to highlight that their personal experiences informed their understandings of the broader socio-political space and that the two were not as separable as people assumed. Like them, I believe that the “personal is the professional” and you can’t expect one to thrive when the other is in flux. The LOT Planner doesn’t separate the two, as there are spaces to focus on both professional and personal growth. In the “Habit Tracker”, I not only track my ability to write 30 minutes a day but also the amount of exercise I get and if I made my bed in the morning. Two of my project pages are dedicated to personal growth, things like learning how to play the guitar my sister bought me and working through various calligraphy books. My favorite page in the LOT planner is the “A Good Thing a Day” page. It encourages me to remember that there is always a silver lining to each day and to keep track of the things that make me happy whenever I need a pick-me up. I know that feeling good about my personal life makes me more productive professionally. With the LOT Planner, you do not have to choose because we know the importance of both.
That’s the LOT Planner! These themes can be built into any productivity and planning system; think about how you too can build in tracking goals, iterations, reflections, and supporting both personal and professional goals into your current organization plan. If you find you can’t make it work on your own, join our community (#LOTFlock) and get your own LOT Planner today! Enjoy!
