I usually get planners as Christmas present but I seldom use them. What I do is I hand the stuff to friends so they may put them in good use, like in making plans for the coming year. Until the Starbucks planner mania hit me.It all started when my boyfriend (yes, even breadwinners have boyfriends) and I decided to have coffee at Starbucks-SM Manila. Upon ordering our beverages of choice, they gave me a promo card. The card says I must collect 24 stickers to get a copy of Starbucks planner 2008 edition. Cool.
The remaining weeks before the cutoff saw me persuading friends to get our caffeine fix from Starbucks so I get to acquire more stickers for my promo card. Luckily, during a night out a bunch of friends took notice of my efforts (or I should say I let them know of my efforts) and before midnight I already got my very own Starbucks planner. I was so grateful to them.
In this digital age, planners are now considered a thing of the past. Today, people can just buy a PDA, a mobile phone or a laptop and plan the day ahead. It’s that simple. However, planners give a different feel as they:
- require careful attention (you think before you put something on those precious pages)
- ask people to write down plans and daily activities on paper
- match each type of personality with a different color or label
- are more personal than any digital assistants around
- serve as a powerful time management tool
You can touch everything that you’ve written on your planner and feel the connection between you and the paper itself. It’s like they are there to remind you every time you browse through each page of how you want to live your life and when you should act to realize your goals.
Planners are really for people, particularly those who are proactive and productive. To provide a timeline, to remind about plans and daily activities and to point us in the right direction as we deal with life and everything that comes with it.
As a breadwinner, I now realize that I should have used the planners given to me in the past. My Starbucks planner presently plays a big role in my time management efforts. It helps me in more ways than one in fulfilling my duties and responsibilities at work, to my family, to my friends and to myself.
