In a previous post, we talked about how to make your dreams a reality, focusing on breaking down your goals into actionable steps.
However, even with the best intentions, staying on track can feel overwhelming without the right tools to help you organize your thoughts and plans.
You don’t need complicated systems to make progress. Simple, effective planning tools can help you stay focused, productive, and motivated.
In this post, we’ll highlight two essential planning tools to bridge the gap between dreaming and doing.
I’m sharing just these two because they are my everyday go-to tools—and they’ve been game-changers for me!
Tool #1 – Pen and Paper
Using pen and paper is a powerful and straightforward first step in breaking down your dreams into actionable plans. There’s something uniquely grounding about physically writing things down—it engages your brain differently than typing, making your goals feel more tangible and real.
How to Use It:
- Start by writing out your dream at the top of a page.
- Then brainstorm all the steps required to achieve it.
- From there, break those steps into smaller tasks, writing them down in order of priority or feasibility.
The simplicity of pen and paper allows you to focus on the process without distractions, fostering clarity and creativity.
Tool #2 – The Calendar (Digital)
Now that you’ve written as much as you can, on paper, you’ll likely need to break your goals into smaller daily tasks, but if you’re jotting everything down across multiple sheets of paper, the clutter can quickly feel overwhelming. Instead of motivating you, all those scattered notes might become the very thing that derails your progress.
This is why the second tool is the calendar, where you take all of those scribbles on the paper and plug them into specific dates. This is where things get real!
The calendar is not just a tool for tracking dates or remembering appointments—it’s a powerful resource for organizing your goals, managing your time, and staying accountable to your vision.
I chose to talk about the digital calendar, because this is my personal preference and it works!
How to Use it:
- Take your first priority item that you have written on paper.
- Create it on your preferred calendar app (my personal favorite is Google Calendar) by adding it to a specific date e.g. Run 5km on Monday 3pm. Do you see how specific you are forced to get? This is a REALLY powerful step to actualizing your dreams.
- Set a notification alert for the item, so that you get reminded without thinking too hard about it
- Repeat all steps for the rest of the items you have scribbled down on paper
- You can choose to then discard the paper for clarity, or keep it for reference sake
Next Steps For You
Deliberately find some free time to do the following:
- Grab a pen and paper and break down that dream into smaller chunks.
- Plot those items into your google calendar or any preferred calendar.
- Start doing them, as you receive those notifications!