The 2013 version of our planners are available for purchase. If you’re one of the many people who have been eagerly awaiting these, then, as much as I’d want to send you to the page to pick them up, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read about what’s new. We did a lot different this year.
Just like last year, the rest of 2012′s planners come with your purchase of the 2013 planners.
Design Updates
We went through and updated our planners to make them fresher, cleaner, and more professional. I designed these years ago, and, while I knew what needed to be on them, they weren’t as polished as I would’ve liked to be.
As I mentioned earlier this year, we’ve been hard at work making everything we do better. The redesign that we unveiled a few weeks ago is dramatically better in all categories than our prior design. After knocking that one out of the park, we moved to our planners.
And they’re just as gorgeous. Consistent lines and spaces. Sharper connections. Better.
As an example, take a look at the new Annual Strategic Planner compared to last year’s.
Here is last year’s:
Here is this year’s:
Smooth. You’ll see why I’m so braggy about these at the end.
Fillable (For Real)
A common request we’ve had over the last few years was to make the planners fillable and saveable.
Done and done.
From years of teaching about planning and showing people how to use these, we still believe that there’s something about planning on physical paper that’s powerful. But there’s no reason you couldn’t plan on paper, input the plan, save it, and then print out a pretty working copy. (Why yes, we do listen.)
There’s one thing we’re still working through: fields in duplicated planners transfer the contents of those fields to the rest of the duplicated planners. For instance, if you fill in a field the Daily Action Planner for Monday in a weekly pack, that field is transferred to the rest of the Daily Action Planners for the week. We suggest only filling out the singles if you choose to do use the fillable forms; in most uses, it’s more effective anyway. We will continue to work on this and if you have any smooth ways to fix this, we’d love the help.
Enjoy the fillable planners, but remember: efficiency ≠ effectiveness. Experiment with fillable vs. printed and see which is a more effective process for you.
A Long Overdue Name Change for the Freelancer Workweek
When I first designed the Freelancer Workweek, I was thinking about how creatives have to create and drive deliverables, and the freelancer was the iconic use case I had in mind. I called it the Freelancer Workweek, put it out, and people loved it.
Over the years, though, many people who don’t consider themselves freelancers would half-apologetically say they were using the Freelancer Workweek. The truth is that it worked for all types of project-minded people because it focuses on project management versus time management, which is what the Action Planners are more focused on.
So, to be clearer about what the product is for, as well as opening it up to a broader audience for consideration, I decided it was time to change the name from “The Freelancer Workweek” to “The Weekly Project Planner.” It feels a lot better … as well as opens the door for our new planner.
New Planner Alert: The Individual Project Planner
When I introduced the Freelancer Workweek a few years ago, it was always meant to have a companion. I drew a prototype and filed it away. As sometimes happens, I forgot that I hadn’t actually created it. (It’s about like when you mean to email or call a friend and forget that you didn’t actually do it, even though you had.)
Every few months, someone would remind me about it and I’d pull it out of the graveyard, only to forget about it again. Thank you for all the reminders, and sorry that it’s taken so long.
But we got it included in this year’s planner release! I’ll talk about that planner individually in an upcoming post, but here’s a sneaky peaky:
And, yes, it’s fillable, too.
This completes the Project Planner Set. You might notice that there’s nice symmetry between the Action Planners and the Project Planners now. The Weekly Action Planner is the analogue of the Weekly Project Planner, and the Daily Action Planner is the analogue of the Individual Project Planner. The concerns at the monthly level are the same, so now they truly are interchangeable. (More on this to come!)
The Magic Is What You Don’t See
One of the reasons I’m so ecstatic about the new planners is because they’re better because of the way we created them this year. It has been a team effort, with Lisa doing a lot more of the design work and Dusti and Angela doing a lot more of the soundboarding. They’re no longer my planners – they are ours.
And that makes a huge difference to me.
As you might imagine, letting go of so much of it has been a practice – we always want to keep our babies close to us. But I’m so much more proud and excited about what we’ve created together, especially since I love celebrating everyone else’s contributions more than I enjoy talking about mine. Great work, team.
And thank you for your continued support. These are the best, most complete, most polished planners we’ve ever released, and we wouldn’t be able to put such great work out in the world without your support.
Go pick ‘em up, already. 
Related Posts
- The Free Planners for January 2013 Are Available
- The Free Planners for November 2012 Are Available
- The Free Planners for October 2012 Are Available
- The Free Planners for December 2012 Are Available
- The Free Planners for September 2012 Are Available
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks good, team. I like the improvements and I think the individual project planner is a nice addition. One recommendation I had made awhile ago was for you guys to create helpful videos showing how to use the planners – is that in the works?
Also, FYI, the chart at the bottom of the sales page continues to refer to the (since renamed) “freelancer planner.”
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Yes, the video series is in the works, John! Thanks for the reminder. Also, we’ve fix the page to remove references to Freelancer Workweek – I appreciate the eagle eye.
The demo planners on the sales page look like the old forms to me. I’d like to see what the changes are, especially since I can’t decide between the two types and would like to see how the freelancer ones have changed.
Great eye, Ann! I’ve updated the page. So.Many.Details.
I’ve been looking for a way to focus my thoughts and actions, and I may be interested in buying one of these.
I’m kind of new to making a website, and I’m having trouble trying to learn too many things at once. Do you think the planner would be beneficial?
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I do, Zach. You’d want to make learning a specific project or objective. We’ve got a piece about self-directed learning programs that may be a good starting off place, too.
Awesome thanks a bunch. I’ll check it out.
Zach @TruthInMarketing´s last post ..How I Generated Tons Of Traffic With One Comment
Hey check my daily planners for 2013. Visit my website: papercal.wordpress.com
Feel free to contact me. Thanks!
I’m new to your site, and your planners. Like many others, I have been trying most anything available to try to put some semblance of order in life. I do like the narrowing of focus that the series of planners provides – year-month-week-day. I noticed the 2012 daily planners had colored squares for each task to tie it into “heatmap.” The 2013 seems to have lost those in favor of having fillable forms. Sad.
I find that if I punch holes on the right edge of the workweek planner, I can have the daily planner across from the week. I must need more reminding of the bigger picture, but I find it works wonderfully. If I finish a day’s work and have extra energy, I know where to look for more!
I love your planner sets and have been using the Daily Action Planners as well as the weekly and monthly ones for the past couple of months. In addition, I expect to be using some of the project planners and quarterly ones starting in January. One slight tweak for those of us who work very long days would be to add more hours on to the Daily Schedule. Maybe 10 or 12 hours instead of 8? It would help to be able to plan one’s day rather than have to add info in Notes or somewhere else about what else was done / planned late in the day.
Nice Planners . I looking for them for a while . thanks a lot
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