Matthew Lang

For the last few weeks, I’ve been using Mike Rohde’s daily plan bar for my work notebook.

Initially, I started using a weekly plan bar over a year ago. Still, in the last few weeks, I’ve needed to tie my notes to that same day, so I’ve started using the daily plan bar again.

Nothing fancy, just a bar representing my day, split into 15-minute segments going from my usual hours of 8 to 5. If I am starting earlier in the day, it can go from 7 to 4 instead.

My daily plan bar is always on the left-hand side of the left-hand page of my notebook. The rest of the two-page spread is for notes and anything else that comes up that day.

It’s been a good change moving to the daily plan bar. Scoping out my day is much easier, and adding last-minute meetings and changes is easy.

In the future, I may reduce the bar to just eight hours and use the extra space for a single goal for the day.