Do you have a 5-year plan? I don’t. I find planning for 5 years from now a little daunting to think about. But as I’ve gotten older, time seems to pass by incredibly fast. Somehow when I entered into my mid-30s and early 40s, the months started to speed by and the years blurred together. This has motivated me to re-think my need for some long term goal planning structure, and address my challenges with it. And hopefully, to set my self up for some success.

The first thing to I had to think about is how I wanted to record my goals: on paper, or on the computer. I’ll be honest, I have a mix of both.

I’ve created some spreadsheets and calendars that I save on my computer, and only refer to occasionally. But for my day-to-day and month-a-glance planning I use a spiral paper daily planner. And lists. I have lots of lists. I’ve tried various online apps, even the very popular ones like Evernote and Trello, and for me, they just ended up being more work to manage than they were worth.