In the “Stick to One System or Don’t” episode, I talked about how some distracted entrepreneurs (specifically me) need to change up their planning system, despite the common and usually brilliant advice to choose one system and stick to it.
Changing systems does present some challenges but if you just can not stick to one system then you need to make changing systems work for you like I did.
There are a number of things that do stay the same however, in order to make that changing systems stick.

My calendar is probably the single most important thing that stays the same.
I am a Mac user and I have an iPhone, so my calendar of choice is the native Apple Calendar. I do have it synced to some Google Calendars.
Google Calendars are great for sharing with other people. When I made the switch to having all my documents and spreadsheets in Google, I tried making a Google Calendar my default, but that never stuck. It’s not nearly as convenient as my Apple Calendar and so things wouldn’t get scheduled right away and sometimes, they never made it on the calendar at all. And we all know what happens when that happens. Missed appointments and deadlines.

I only schedule appointments, meetings and absolute deadlines on my calendar. I do not use it to “plan” but I use it as a reference when I am planning. Some people plan out their launches, Lives, social media, and everything else on their calendars. If that works for you, go for it.

I have tried doing that, because on the surface it makes sense. Everything in one place. Ideal! But in reality it overwhelmed and stressed me out .

So, I do plan some of those things out elsewhere (Launches, lives, social media, etc), but my main calendar only has scheduled events: events I need to show up for and almost always events involving other people, whether in my business or in my personal life.

My calendar sends me notifications when I need to be somewhere (virtual or in real life). Otherwise, it sits quietly, waiting for me to consult it when I am planning my day, my week, my month or my quarter.

I am not constantly overwhelmed and stressed by notifications of deadlines looming or even worse, those that have already passed.

While I appreciate whooshing sounds as much as the next entrepreneur, when they are made by a deadline going by, I am not like Douglas Adams. That whooshing sound just stresses me out.

Side note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with Douglas Adams, he was the brilliant and delightfully quirky author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (A Trilogy in Four Parts) and many other humorous works. He would almost definitely have fit the description of a distracted entrepreneur, and he famously said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”

You may be like him and enjoy the sound of deadlines whooshing by, or you may find that particular whooshing sound to be stressful like I do. If that is the case, the fewer things you have on your main calendar, the fewer imaginary whooshing sounds you may hear. Though I am certain it would be fairly easy to make your devices actually “whoosh” when deadlines pass by.

So, even if you have changing planning systems, it is important to have one calendar that is super easy and convenient to use, and populate it with all of your scheduled events, appointments and deadlines.