I am a huge stationery and planner addict, and I spent a lot of time searching for the perfect planner, organiser and notebooks. I use them to record my thoughts, my insights, to track my exercise, fitness and eating habits and to record how every month is for me and whether I have achieved my goals or not. Whenever I walk past shops like Paperchase and W H Smith, I can’t help but pop in to see if there is a planner, organiser or notebook in there that takes my fancy. Recently I have also got into the concept of bullet journaling which is the concept of “tracking the past, organising the present and planning for the future.”

I have been looking for a planner that combines monthly, weekly and daily planning together with sections for gratitude and affirmations to help keep me focused on achieving my goals, but struggled to find one. Then I came across Mal Paper’s Daily Goal Setter’s journal.

What is the Daily Goal Setter’s Journal?

Mal Paper’s Daily Goal Setter’s journal is a gratitude journal and productivity planner combined. The idea of it is to make your goals clearer and help you to become more productive, while giving you the tools to identify your goals and give you clear structure to your days, weeks and months. A key feature of this planner compared to other ones is that it helps you to start your day happier, keeps you focused on the positive things in your life and helps you to become more mindful. As someone who is always rushing from one thing to the next at a million mile an hour, practising mindfulness is something I want to do, but it seems like a distant dream to me.

I ordered the pink version of the Daily Goal Setter journal. When it arrived, I loved the look and feel of it. It is sturdy, robust and has thick ivory pages in it, so you won’t get any bleed-through from the ink in whatever pens you use to write in it. The journal is set up with instructions at the beginning of it and how to use it followed by monthly planning, weekly planning and daily planning covering a 6-month period. Throughout the journal there are lots of positive and motivational quotes.

Using the Daily Goal Setter’s Journal

I began by listing out my long-term goals, medium-term goals and short-term goals. The journal gives some great advice on setting goals and breaking them down including how to identify them and their importance/value.  It also recommends using the S.M.A.R.T. method to achieve your goals which is:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

Goal setting complete, I then moved on to planning out what I would do throughout the month of August in the monthly planning section. I had things that I knew I was doing on certain days, so I filed those in first and then wrote in things that I would like to do by key dates in the month. There is also a section to note your “must-do” tasks in the month.

Then I moved onto the weekly planning section and started with w/c 12 August 2019.  Each weekly plan has the following sections in it:

  • 5 most important tasks of the week
  • Tasks of secondary importance
  • Additional tasks
  • Review my week
  • Rate my week from 1 (awful) to 10 (amazing)

I love this layout as I can often get side-tracked onto different things during the week, so this helped to keep me focused on the most important tasks that I needed to get done – the ones that MUST happen and were non-negotiable for me.  I was then able to write down any tasks of secondary importance and any additional tasks.

I found planning my week in this way was hugely beneficial and helped me to decide what tasks I absolutely must do and the ones that wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t complete them. Reviewing my week was also very helpful as I could see how much I had got done and allowed me to look back over the week with a sense of accomplishment.

But it was the daily planning section that I found the most useful and helpful. Every day I had to start by writing down 3 things to be grateful for, along with some daily affirmations. I must admit I’ve never used affirmations much in the past, and over the years I have been subjected to the most horrific bullying, so my self-confidence and self-esteem are very low as a result of this. I have also been betrayed by people, some of whom were very close friends, so I find it hard to trust people and I am quite a “closed” person. The affirmations helped me to remove some of the bad thoughts I have about myself in my head and replace them with good ones.

Then I would write down the tasks I had to complete in order of importance, and at the end of the day I wrote down the great things that happened and also rated my day from 1 (awful) to 10 (amazing).



 

The Daily Goal Setter Journal is the King of Planners

Overall I love my daily goal setter journal. It has transformed my life and helped me to overcome all the negative thoughts I was having about myself as a result of bullying and betrayal. Unlike other planners that focus on tasks completed, the daily goal setter journal gives you the opportunity to be grateful for everything you have in your life and set affirmations to help keep you motivated. I would definitely recommend it and will be purchasing one every 6 months to help keep me focused on my goals.

Buy the Mal Paper Daily Goal Setter Journal

The Mail Paper Daily Goal Setter journal is available here – https://malpaper.com/products/daily-goal-setter-planner-black. It comes in 3 colours – black, grey and light pink – and costs £20.95 for six months’ worth of planning.

More information can be found on www.malpaper.com.