Where Are the 2023 Momentum Planners?
In case you weren’t with us then – or weren’t getting our emails prior to our switch to ConvertKit – we moved out of beta for Momentum in June. Momentum is the browser-based planner app based on the Momentum Planning Method that undergirds our Momentum Planners. Since then, nearly 800 of you have signed up and are using the app to do your planning. (And if you aren’t yet, why not give it a try? You can get a 30-day free trial to give it a test run risk-free.)
What This Means for the Digital Momentum Planner
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the reasons we decided to build the app is because we reached the technology limits of what the PDF could do. As I said in the post announcing the app and explaining our decision to build it — despite many years of resisting that call — the planners are a database that keeps the stuff that’s most important to you front and center and PDFs just don’t get the job done anymore.
Many people find writing and re-writing their goals, action steps, and appointments, as well as manually working the Momentum Planning Method, to be helpful in remembering and thinking through what’s on deck for them. I totally get that because hand-writing helps me think deeper and feel my way towards a plan.
But there’s also a very vocal amount of people who find writing and re-writing tedious and frustrating to the degree that they stopped using the digital planners because of it. They’ve asked us to “fix” the planners so that they didn’t have to do that … and, while we’re at it, could we integrate some of our other tools into them, too?
The “fix” – and much more – for these users is Momentum.
We’re now at a point with Momentum where we can either say “Done!,” “Working on it!”, or “we’ll see how and where this fits in our roadmap.” And we also have a lot more in the works that automates insights from positive psychology, behavioral economics, habit formation science, and productivity.
Because re-building, supporting, and marketing the digital Momentum Planners every year costs us at least $35-40k per year and two months of team time, we’ve decided to invest those resources in Momentum instead.
We’re not abandoning the digital Momentum Planners and the folks who love them, though: we’ve made undated, unbundled versions that you can download at no cost from the Free Planners page.
What About the Paper Planners, Though?
Our stance on planners is that we don’t have to pick between #TeamDigital or #TeamPaper. There’s room and reason for #TeamBoth.
That’s why the (physical) Momentum Planners are still available, at least while we have stock. We’re about to run out of the Momentum Planner Cards, though, and don’t currently have plans to reprint them. That could change if we garner enough interest! Please let us know if you’d like to see the Momentum Planner Cards again here!
And remember you can download and print the planners from the Free Planners page too.
That said, many current Momentum customers reported that they were surprised how much it replaced a lot of their paper planning practices because you can print any planner view from Momentum. Needing to see and engage with your plan on paper is different than needing to create the plan on paper.
Our intent here is to provide you with an array of options that fit how you work, and, par for the course for PF, that can lead to the paradox of choice: more options can make it harder to figure out where to start.
Here’s a quick decision tree in case you need it:
If you’re new and more on #TeamDigital than #TeamBoth, give Momentum a try.
If you’re #TeamBoth, give Momentum a try. Remember that you can still use the PDF version of the planners and our other tools if, on any given day, you just need to unplug and hand-write your way to clarity, focus, and a plan of action.
If you’re #TeamDigital and find that using the PDF version of the planners just works for you, download the planners from the free planners page.
If you’re #TeamPaper, download the free planners and print them out or buy the physical Momentum Planner or Momentum Planner cards.
What we’re seeing is that, with Momentum on deck, more people are becoming #TeamBoth. People can do their thinking and planning on the free planner pages (particularly yearly and quarterly, and maybe monthly) to get their projects and goals out of their head and organized, and then add them to Momentum to manage, take action, and revise them as needed.
With the free planners and Momentum, we’re in the process of creating the best of both worlds.
I say creating because we’re exploring even better #TeamBoth options such as:
In addition to improvements to Momentum’s printing functionality, adding scanning and OCR as well, so the integration between the app and paper goes both ways. Take a snapshot of your physical planner page and upload it into Momentum. Print out the current page and use it just like you would the PDF/physical planners.
Integrating with electronic note-taking software and devices like reMarkable.
These features are a ways out yet — but we’ll keep you posted on them (and other updates and enhancements as well). Your support of Momentum today helps us develop these kinds of new features and functions that serve you, no matter how you plan best.