The 7 Minute Life Daily Planner {Review}

Keeping track of the day to day has always come easily and naturally to me until recently.  Before the internet and smartphones (aka 'The Olden Days') life was simple and the need for a diary or regular planning didn't seem to feature in my life. 

Fast forward 15 years into my home school journey and it's a very different picture.  I keep missing important things!  Life constantly feels as though it's out of control and no matter what I do I do not seem able to catch up to all the stuff that keeps needing to be done. I have been losing my mojo.  My passion is waining and everything is begining to feel just too hard.  STOP the world I want to get off! Enter The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner.  I am so pleased with this planner from the The 7 Minute Life.

The 7 Minute Life is a time management company created by Allyson Lewis, a motivational speaker and author of The 7 Minute Solution, The 7 Minute Difference, and The 7 Minute Daily Planner. Through her products, she encourages everyone to prioritize, organize, and simplify.

What we received

• One physical copy of The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner. 
• Spiral bound 7.3" by 8.5" book
• 272 pages
• Paper back
• Plastic protective cover on the front and the back
• ISBN 978-0-9911123-4-0 

If you are a visual person you can watch a 12 minute YouTube clip explaining in depth how the planner works.

How we used it
Receiving my planner was the highlight of my week after surfing the company website and reading about the planner and seeing how others had been using it.    My first task was to read through the preface, introduction and finally  The 7 Minute Life .

While this took time it was a valuable experience as I gained a deeper understanding of the tools available to me in the planner along with an explanation behind each tool which gave them each a deeper value and inspired to use them better.

The heart of this planner is prioritize, organize and simplify.

While that sounds like all we've seen and heard before Alyson takes it to a deeper level and shares a little of her personal journey which led to her developing this tool for us. Prioritzing, organizing and simplifying are not new concepts to me.  My biggest struggle has been how to go from the clutter in my life to organized and simplified. The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner has given me the tools and necessary steps to do that.

The start of the planner is about you. It begins with a series of short exercises designed to help you define your priorities and re-discover your purpose along with your strengths. You use all this information to formulate your 90 day goals.  These are then broken down into bite sized achievable tasks with the aim of assisting you to achieve you goals in 90 days.

The pages helped me answer the questions: What is important to me ? What do I want to accomplish ? Which things are not important and can I let them go ?

You’ll also find pages other pages to help you sort out your life:

• mental clutter – pages where you can jot down the things bogging down your brain 
• 90 Day goals – for your work and personal life
• Unfinished work and home tasks
• Home repair
• Grocery List
• Connections – those people in work or life that you want to keep connected to
• Annual Calendar at a glance
• Annual Projects and Tasks
• 90-Day Calendar Worksheets
• Monthly Calendar at a Glance
• Meeting Planner

Learning about mental clutter and how it weighs us down was extremely liberating.  I am not a note a jotter.  I've always carried my to do list in my head.  I now realize that with all the extra in my life these days I NEED to WRITE it down in a book and let the book CARRY the weight which in turn will free up my mind to enjoy life again.

This page for me is the heart of The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner.  Each evening I take a cup of tea, sit with my planner and fill in this page.  7 minutes is all you need.  The top right list is worth it's weight in gold.  This is the key to unlocking that feeling of accomplishing your to do list.  Here is where I list my top FIVE things I want to get done before 11 am the next day.  Having this list in place and ready to tackle sets me up for SUCCESS.

In my heart I want to connect with people.  I really love the 7 Minute Life Connections spot.  Here I can keep track of those I want to connect with.  If I haven't connected I simply carry their names forward to the next day.

The unfinished tasks list is a great accountability tool.  Here is where I need to be honest with myself and keep this list where I can see it rather than sweeping it under the carpet and pretending it doesn't exist.  As I tick off my 5 before 11 I can transfer things from here into my 5 before 11 list.

Aiming to be healthy and actually being healthy are two different things.  At the bottom of the page there is a small area for me to keep personal track of what I actually do.

The final thing at the bottom of the page is the crux of The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner. Did I do what I said I would do today ? Yes or No. 

The second page contains a space for: appointments, Thank you notes, voice mail and notes.  If there are any sections in here that are not needed by you there are many ideas out there to tweak your planner and make it work for you.  Some of my crew mates are using these areas for

• List of "honey dos" or a section for items your children need to accomplish
• Prayer lists, particularly urgent, immediate items
• Meal plans and grocery lists
• Ongoing project lists - both short-term and long-term
• Menu ideas for the future
• Memory verses that you want to work on as a family or individually
• Bible study in depth

Cost of The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner

• One 90 day paperback with wire spine $24.95
• 90 day PRE-dated daily planner $9.97

Connect with The 7 Minute Life



Free Time Management Strategy Tools
On this page you will find 12 min clip on how to improve your daily productivity in just 7 minutes a day as well as the following free downloadable tools to help you implement what you learn.

• The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Progress Report
• Prioritize Worksheet Discovering Purpose
• 90 Day Personal Goals Worksheet
• 90 Day Work Goals Worksheet
• Unfinished Home Tasks
• Unfinished Work Tasks
• The Learning Worksheet
• 90 Day Calendar Worksheet
• Connections (Personal)
• Connections (Business)
• Your Highest and Best
• Goal/Project Worksheet
• The 7 Minute Solution Flowchart
• 15 Minute Increment Tracking Sheet
• Grocery List
• Travel Checklist
• Mental Clutter
• Annual Projects and Tasks
• The 7 Minute Life™ Written Assessment Worksheet

Read More

• 3 Ways to Conquer Homeschooler Chaos 
• 7 Steps to Homeschool Schedule Sanity  
• Time Management Tips for Homeschooling Families
• Watch 16 short YouTube clips where the author explains how to effectively use the  planner

I LOVE my 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner and the changes it has brought about in my life.  I'm loving the release of mental clutter and the sense of accomplishment I am having upon completing tasks that I never seemed to get to before.  This planner is helping me reconnect with my priorities.

Blessings
Chareen