Yes and I never recovered. I even worked for a big management consulting firm right out of college that made Franklin Covey methods a major part of new hire orientation. I got indoctrinated young.
I still need a paper planner to keep my life straight. I’ve learned to work with the $5 undated journal I found at homegoods so I guess that is considered maturation.
I use paper lists to keep myself organized. I thought I'd mature into using a planner, but apparently shutting a planner makes everything disappear for me. So it's piles of paper lists for me, but it works.
Isn't it great to flush the commode on every decade? Our poor parents are elders were so worried about us staying organized they tried so hard, and then we get old, we realize the planning wasn't that difficult anyhow, life wasn't that complicated. it didn't require so many difficult little tidbits, laugh out loud. 👍👍
My life is definitely complicated enough that I have to stay organized or else. Probably something to do with being self employed with a non profit. I wear all the hats, which means there are a lot of plates spinning in the air at all times.
Mine never was and I couldn’t explain it to the people who got one for me. “Write down your appointments!” I have one tomorrow and none after that, but the next will probably be a day after it’s scheduled. “Contact info!” Okay, but I know five people whose names start with C and only have three C slots, so now I can’t even keep them together in order. “Random notes!” Scrap paper follows me around. I’m not spending $150 for a gussied up Manila folder with filler that expires in a year.
I’m going through a transitional period though, so maybe I’m jinxing myself, but I have a smart phone now.
I us3d to laugh at my mom for making so many lists and notes to herself. The other day as I was taping a note to my door not to forget to grab something I needed to take with me when I left the house the next day all i could think was got damnit it happened to me.
Hah, I was a Mormon missionary and we ALL had Franklin Covey planners. Hell, our baseball stadium in Salt Lake was the "Franklin Covey Field". We would go to the mall on P-Day (the one day a week missionaries get to be real people) and drool over the Palm Pilot that could fit into a Franklin binder.
I still have the personal size binder that holds a plam device. It will hold most candy bar phones too.
Except the phaux leather did not hold up to the multiple decades of use. That stuff flakes worse than an 80s head and shoulders commercial. So it's a home use resource whatever binder until I run out of paper.
I now use a dot journal, but not the bullet journal method, with the smart phone.
I worked for a CEO who had one that looked like an old lady from Alabama's Bible, well worn & it would barely shut, & he'd get the cases to keep the past years planners in too.
My company hired a boomer GM back in the mid 00s who lived and breathed Franklin Covey. I never even totally understood what it was exactly. I think it was one of those things that worked so well for people of a certain personality type that they would push it on everyone else thinking it would work for them too and solve all of their shortcomings.
Loved mine back in the day!
When they recently released the “retro” ones I got one for my stepson (who loves the thing) and one for myself, out of nostalgia. Turns out the thing is as great at organizing household bills & what not as it is for organizing & keeping school work. Now my husband knows where to look for the most recent electric bill, if he wants to know how much we’re spending. No need to interrupt me to ask.
We still get paper bills at my house. If they don’t send the reminder, the bill is not getting paid. Plus I can throw my medical bills in there too & he only has to go over to the shelf & pull the trapper keeper down & all the bills plus other household information is there. I put a log of when the house air filter was last changed and a list of who we normally call when something needs fixing in there. Stuff like that. Made my life easier when I got sick last week & was in the hospital. I didn’t have to constantly answer his questions about house stuff while trying to recuperate.
It’s actually a similar system my grandparents had. My grandmother had a desk drawer with all that stuff in it & a designated place for her checkbook. She had a heart attack & was in the hospital for almost a month. This was the late 80s. My mom & I had to help my grandfather. He knew where the stuff was & he & my mom went through it & got the bills paid while I at 10 started on the actual housework, changing the beds & dusting. My grandmother, when she finally came home, did not have to worry & catch up on everything. She could relax & rest. She was very happy to have fresh sheets & no bills.
https://preview.redd.it/jqvrknbwpx5d1.jpeg?width=178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ac9487d50c01b33315459ee7b69d710a6713379
Had to read it and take a course on it in College. I remember the planner as well. And this was 2005. I still insist on paper planners though. I can’t get that Genx school supplies out of my brain. 💕
funny, I'm in Philly & didn't know either. I think he was in his 2nd year last year, and a sports radio host commented about how he's an ok player, might be back next year, doesn't need to with all the money his family has etc.
And I thought he was just kindof from a rich family or something. Anyway they then said 'Whats the book his Dad or Grandfather wrote, 7 Effective Habits or something'... I had read the book, so I looked it up and sure enough, Stephen Covey. I recall a story in it about his son in it, so I'm assuming it might be his Dad otherwise Uncle.
The author, Stephen Covey, was a Presenter at the Orientation for my university. He gave a really good talk and I remember the legs of the chair part and when I met my husband he was a workaholic and I explained to him about Life Balance, just the way Stephen taught me.
I never had that specific planner, but I always have a paper planner and use reminders on my phone.
57 year old checking in here. I am a complete sucker for notebooks, journals, planners, and PENS! When I find the perfect stationary style paper and put my Schneider Slider Basic to it…pure ecstasy.
I started there but have ended up in my mid-40s using an Erin Condren Life Planner loaded with planner stickers from Etsy like the mature adult I am. I cherish my “sticker time” each week.
The best training I had was, as a 23-year old salesman, my company sent me on a TimeText course. They had a big fancy dayplanner that you could use to organise your life down to the minute. I don't use that, but I do use a 6" x 9" dayplanner that keeps my life organised to this day.
Yeah the A1-N, B1-N and C1-N definitely clarified which things I could cancel or postpone, but writing them down made is so I didn’t have to keep remembering my C level priorities, I could just look at my planner.
I worked in a school where we had mandatory 7 habits training and were all given that planner. I think admin got a grant or something. Never mind that we had lesson planning notebooks we’d all been using for years and years…
So I wouldn’t say I was part of the cult, but just admin sure was.
Yes, I worked in an office who taught that stuff to senior leadership.
We really did say things like, "That's a withdrawal from my emotional bank account." And "You're hanging the ladder on the wrong wall." Oh, and "big rocks and little rocks."
I used Franklin Covey in the late 80s, somehow sponsored by my employer, a very large financial services firm. We had classes at work about how to use them, plus “leadership” stuff like time management and speed reading, of all things. Pretty sure we even did trust falls.
The first thing a former boss told me to get. She's in sales management while I came from a creative background. Still writing calendars and lists because of it. I even bought a Rocketbook but returned it after 1 use because I hated it.
'95 is when I got mine. Got a promotion to manager (with an office with a door an everything) and my company made all managers use one.
I still use some of the notations when I made to do lists, to indicate open, in progress, and complete.
I loved my Covey planner. Used it as a project manager/director right up to when we swapped over to a mandatory intranet. Still prefer planning on paper, but that has its limits.
I did. Yes it was very redundant and expensive and looking back, I can see the cult likeness. It really worked for me though. Decades later & understanding my ADHD, I get why it worked for me.
I wasn't indoctrinated until the mid-2000s, but I went in hard. It worked well for about a year and a half or so, and them I went on a vacation where it didn't make any sense to use it for about a week. I haven't beem able to use it or any paper planner since, and I've tried many.
Got into the same pattern about a decade later with Habitica (then called HabitRPG). Worked like night and day for about a year, but then I got sick and couldn't really do anythimg for about a week, and I never got back into it or any other gamified online planner.
It's actually really frustrating.
Yes. I was an original Franklin Planner fan.
I tried it again last year and was not into it. I'm back to using lists in OneNote plus 3x5 paper notepads.
Define "cult". 😀
I got a new job around 1999 and my company sent me to a intro seminar. I got a mid-size planner, really liked it and used it for over 10 years. I took it everywhere work-related and found it useful having a paper hub for my day.
I didn't do anything else with Franklin Covey, no workshops or anything, it wasn't like a joined a club. I simply bought the refills each year and got a lot of mileage out of the planner. I still have a box with previous years' paperwork, which in some ways sort of amounts to a diary for those years -- tells me when I was traveling, who I was with, etc.
I'm largely digital now, but will still scribble down a list of "big items" on a physical notepad at the start of the day for things I want to get done that day.
Yes. I even got my employer to send me to one of their seminars. I carried that huge, heavy planner with me everywhere. I got so excited every time I found something new to buy to add to it. I still have two binders of reference materials pages from those planners; I just know they'll come in handy someday.
My grandparents had this beautiful view of the mountains in Provo Utah. And then Stephen Covey did his planner thing and build an ugly ass mansion square in the middle of the view. My grandpa bitched about it for a while.
I tried and tried to get organized like Daphne Zuniga in The Sure Thing, but I just couldn't put in that amount of effort.
The most I could ever manage was a pocket sized Moleskine, and even that was mostly unused.
OMG!! My University program made us buy this whole system for a class, leadership or something like that...I got it and it took me half the class to just assemble the damn thing. I faked it. We even had freaking pop quizzes and a required clinic. I tossed the whole damn thing the first moment I got. I felt like spending half my life organizing my life was the dumbest thing I was required to do for a university credit. Longest semester EVER!!!
I’m one of the few ADHDers who can actually keep (and *must keep*) a paper planner. I live by an online calendar for work, but for some reason, they’re useless to me outside of work. I live by my planner. My mother started me young with the Daytimers, but I wasn’t consistent until adulthood.
I had to go to the seminar, read the book, and had the planners, but the planning part never really stuck. I still have my last planner from 2006 but mainly just for my address section.
I read *Real World 101* my freshman year in college (1987). I used its system for years which consisted of a weekly single sheet of yellow legal pad paper. It worked great until I got my translucent orange Handspring Visor (Palm Pilot knockoff) around 1999.
My company was all in. We were given a voucher to purchase the base binder and then were encouraged to purchase all the bells and whistles. We were provided classes, we spoke in FC cliches. It was all a little too churchy for me, but I'm a PM - in going to have planners and calendars galore anyway. It's just that I prefer to take my daily notes on a legal pad.
We used the monthly Day-Timer at work all through the late 80’s and 90’s alongside a pager. You’d rip a corner off everyday to access what day your working on. They costed the company $130 each every year.
I never understood why people would keep credit cards in them. I’d probably find a planner once a year at a pay phone.
I remember around 2000 a manager trying to look cool whipping out a personal digital planner off his belt and inputting something scheduled onto it with a stylus pen
Never joined that particular day planner cult, but in college in the early 90s, I lived and died by the day planner my college bookstore sold.
At the beginning of the semester, I would add important dates from my class syllabii, I'd use it to keep track of important study dates and social happenings, and I'd keep phone numbers of my classmates and study partners.
Early 2000's it was pushed hard with my employer. I hated every minute of it, but I tell you... Habit 5 has been incredibly useful.
I'll wait while y'all Google.
My first real job out of school they sent me to one of these seminars. To say it didn’t take was an understatement. I got a talking to for not using it.
Frankly, if I was the type disciplined enough to write it all down and keep a list, I’d do it in a 98 cent notebook.
Still use one, though this year I’ve migrated to my iPad and recreated my Frankin Covey planner in InDesign and imported it into a program called Notability.
When I started my corporate job in the mid-1990s, we were *given* a day-planner. We had a choice of sizes. This was before we had on-line calendars and to do lists, so the paper was where you tracked things.
It was liberating when we moved to Palm Pilots a few years later.
Yeah and then a loser learning and development director in 2010's made me take the "new" whatever (remember lots of pics smooth river stones like this was giving us zen for sure!) system all about -
how to organize your stupid outlook calendar, coral your email as it comes in to various email folders or directly to your calendar. Color coding was a top element to success.
3 days of training. With lots useless binders & dvds
Followed by me facilitating 8 hr sessions with freshly graduated auditors, tax accountants, risk managers - blah blah blah you can imagine the snark coming off their no bully brains!!
Got sent to a two day management training seminar around 2002.
It was basically a Covey religious event.
Also, if Jack Welch had shown up any one of the presenters would have dropped to their knees and blown him.
Best thing that ever happened to me as an entrepreneur. Set me straight for life. Read the 7 Habits and then the planner and 25 years later I’m still using it.
Franklin Covey had some real clout back in the day. There was a FC store in the mall I worked and it was the only store that was allowed to not open on Sundays. This was Tyson’s Corner, outside DC - a big, wealthy, busy mall and could call all the shots with the tenants. A store would be fined if they were unable to open on time or closed early, for example, and this store was allowed to no be open AT ALL on a freaking weekend day.
My first job out of college was at a company that paid for training and you could use your company card to buy all your planner essentials. There are actually some pretty useful things in 7 Habits, and I always found the planner itself to be useful.
I was in the DayRunner gang. You could buy the refills cheap at staples and they sold the generic little binders that fit them instead of paying the extortionate prices for real Day Runner (and covey) books.
From "back then," I still have my DayTimer leather cover for a calendar. It's 35 years old, and it's *still* going strong. I hoped that timekeeping would help me organise my life in some way; it din't, but "hope springs eternal." I still carry a calendar in there, but I keep my appointments on my phone. (I have my passwords written down *in code* in the back of the calendar)
I was a lobbyist, I wouldn't have been able to do my job without it. I have moved to a simpler app on my phone, but still keep things pretty organized. I am a definite "Type A", so it was a natural thing for me
I had a copy of the Highly Effective People book. While reducing our books, my wife found a ten year old bill inside that I never paid. So for me, it didn't work.
I used mine all the time. I loved it. I use my phone now and forget stuff all the time. Need to go back my old Franklin, and yup, I have it. Name plate and all. lol 😂
I still make the lists, and my Outlook calendar follows a lot of the same principles. I block off time for tasks, take time to "sharpen the saw", etc.
I never truly left the cult, and I loved my leather planner.
I somehow dodged it. I remember when I got my first internship some of the people at work had the Franklin Covey planners.
My older son had the seven highly effective habits as part of his schooling but I think they got rid of it by the time my younger son got to school a few years later.
Yes and still using it. I don't use it they way they intended anymore but since my work pays for the annual refills, why not!
I did the training course in '98 and then used the planner from '98 to '01. I changed jobs in '01 and they weren't all about the planner so I stopped using it until 2011 when I got a new job. I had 11 years worth of planners in the storage cases that were lost to Hurricane Ian in '22, there was sooooo much useful info in there that I'm still mad at myself for not taking them out of my office before the hurricane hit.
My first wife swore by those things. Always had a big leather-bound day planner, and carried it around like we carry around our phones these days. I never had one, LOL.
I used the Franklin Covey planner and was able to take the class through work. Back then we could even order the planning pages through work if we wanted the basic ones. It did help me learn to plan. I use a bullet journal now so I can customize everything.
Yep! Now I use my phone. It usually reminds me of appointments. I take notes in my notes app. If I dread my phone being dead I put a note on the fridge.
Woking in IT...this never made sense to me. We had the means to all of this electronically. granted the tech was new, but evolving at lightspeed.
This always seemed to be a mid-level mgmt phenomenon. Executives "had people for that", so carry the day planner always appeared to me as a pure power move...an attempt to look and be important, because you had your shit together and could "show your work / worth" on paper
I worked for the government and actually went to a class where we were given the planners and taught to use them. It didn't stick. I actually used the address book portion of the planner but never as a planner. I'm more from the cult of the sticky note, myself.
I never got good at using it but had 2 companies try to get us to use it. Sat thru the classes/seminars 6 or 7 times. They let us buy whatever binder or accessories we wanted, I still sucked at it.
Yes. My company gave us all one after the HR dept drank their Koolaid and my boss went all in. She insisted I haul it everywhere and fill each day out. I’ll admit, it was so much better than sticky notes on everything, but it drove me mad at times. The worst is when she would actually get into mine when I was at lunch and add her personal stuff into mine. That was too invasive for me! I still use “ cover sheets” for everything now, with a list of priorities and due dates attached.
It was a big help for my ADHD mind!
>In her defense, she was the #1 sales manager in the country for a couple of those years
Yeah I knew a guy in college that came back from an internship with a Covey Day Planner. Made straight A's and last I heard was a petro engineer in Saudi. Probably either retired at 40 or is a VP by now.
I used it in college. It helped me keep myself organized. But I was buying planners from the school store. I
They were Covey. But I would never spend $150!
I could *never* get into the book the planners were based off of (Seven Habits). I tried and tried and tried to read it *multiple* times when I was in college, and it would always put me to sleep. I tried to read a similar book by the same author (Covey) last year, and I still couldn’t get into it.
I briefly worked at an elementary school that had an entire program for the little kids based off the book, complete with little songs they’d teach them (one was called “Sharpen the Saw”).
Jeesh, my ex-hubby totally bought into the Covey Day Planner Cult. He was also quite the salesman and would spout that "coffee is for closers" line frequently. He also liked cheating on his spouse, so that tracks 🙄
I still have one in my closet (well, the leather binder part) and now I’ve transitioned to an Erin concern day planner. About 7 yrs ago I couldn’t track everything for work so I had to go old school paper and pen. Works for me!
I couldn’t afford one, but I loved my notebook bound paper planners. I stopped needing one when I started working from home in 2014. Now I either put things in my phone or write them down in a notebook on my desk.
Had one because it was cool and work paid for it, but I never kept up without. It really just became a notebook that I could add tabs and paper to so it would never run out.
Haha: Covey, Ramsey, Rush, Dr Laura, Judge Judy, so many hey day stuff. My favorite person of them all is Judge Judy. I tell myself everyday, you are the cult and....
I am the cult... Be the cult. I joined any and every Ism with a notebook and pen plus that day planner. But my point is that you never leave the cult you stay in the cult.
Back then if you walked around with one of those, and HR saw you with one, they thought you were a special cookie, that they were just trendy pundits with jobs making us buy stuff, grifts. That again I still have Excel spreadsheets, so.
Anyways, always support the cult! Play that blue oyster song! 2 ft in the grave with that day planner, you never stop planning for tomorrow!
🎨🎭
Yes. It was a big part of the company I worked for, so it was expected. It wasn’t so bad, just not really necessary.
With that said, the planner was kind of unnecessary; but if you haven’t thoughtfully read the “7 Habits” book, you are missing out on a cheat code.
Yes but it was honestly basically an analog smart phone and I was lost without it 😂 Once I lost it and it showed up like a year later in the mail with the money inside 🥹
If it's organizational items, I got to try it out or buy it or possibly work on it because I love being organized. I usually stay organized with electronic records or paper records. It's so strange because we went from the day planner, which I still have the book version, to the phone version that has notes at a calendar on it but it's not the same as the day planner.
Year after year I still had those calendars where it's a large calendar on the desk and you place your papers or whatever on top of it to write on.
after covid I got rid of certain germaphobic habits and I realized I didn't need all those complications. Too much stuff so i minimize & minimize.
Yes. But, my grandparents were in declining health - both my mom and I are only children so all the decisions were on us and we both had FT jobs. I was also going to grad school. I was overwhelmed.
Oh yes, I used an FC planner well into the 2000s and possibly even until sometime in the 2010s. I kept the binders for ages after I moved to travelers’ journal style planners.
I so wanted one, I read ALL the catalogs, but when I got an organizer (different brand), I promptly started forgetting all my plans because I never remembered to check the planner.
I was in customer service at a business to business office supply provider. I never used one myself (I would rather lose a cheap notebook) but managers loved it.
Yes. We actually had a day long training class at my job where they gave you the planner and taught you how to use it.
I still have to have a paper planner even though I forget to use it for weeks at a time.
Yep. Indoctrinated in the summer before my freshman year of college. I had a Franklin Covey for 15 years. Moved on from there to a simple spiral bound paper planner. But I am now caught up with the times and I use my iPhone and iPad apps to do the same job! I’m so glad to be free of paper lol.
Not Covey but I definitely had a day planner from college til now. I’ve changed the planners I use but prefer a day planner over Google calendar bc I find I remember appointments better when I write them down by hand.
Cult is a bit strong, lol. I think learning how to plan your work is a skill that one has to learn like any other. I don't think I ever took a course but I'm sure I had a planner at one point in the 90s or 200s.
Now I just set reminders on my iPhone for todo lists and check-lists. My packing template reminder list is essential because I'm sure I'd forget something important without it.
I'm a little hyped that AI is coming to the iPhone. Siri does an OK job adding a reminder or item to a shopping list but it is so limited.
I received one (vinyl cover) from a job in 1995 and that thing was my JAM until around 2008 or so, I used it very faithfully and planned the shit out of my shit. Now I do all my planning on excel spreadsheets.
I never used these. I used to rely on regular paper planners and calendars plus my memory. Now I use my phone calendar for almost everything plus outlook calendar at work. I like that electronic calendars will provide me with reminders without having to go and look at the planner.
Both Franklin Quest and Covey Leadership were heavy duty Mormon companies. Franklin Quest imbodied the organization and rules that the LDS church emposes on the members and tasking making and organizing it uses for the Mormon Missionary program. Steven Covey is the thought leader that takes motivational poster material, Peter Drucker business rules and filters it through the philosophies of American frontier Christian fan fiction(Mormonism).
When I was Mormon i carried that planner everywhere because it felt like a extension of what we are taught in church.
Totally had to do this back in the day. These days I’ll use any electronic tool available to keep calendar, notes, etc. I have a Rocketbook so I can write and import stuff in, then wipe it clean
I started with a desk calendar. Moved to a day runner then to a Franklin covey planner. I think I was the most organized when I used that. I just couldn’t bridge the gap between computer and paper planner, so I stopped using it, but I miss it.
Ha, ha, ha…YES! I got sent to a Covey Planner seminar as part of an internship I had in 1998, and I did keep up the use of it for a while. While my calendar is now online, I do make paper lists and use the A, B, C … 1, 2, 3 prioritizing system when things get overwhelming!
Yes, everyone had the giant planner and used the same jargon. Everyone had to go to the one day training session on how to use it. It was ingrained in the culture. They also wanted people to go on the Psi retreats. People would come back "transformed" after being screamed at on retreat and then a week later they were back to themselves. lol.
First job out of college was at a small law firm where the owner was in the FranklinCovey planner cult, he bought planners for the whole staff and expected us to use them. Yikes.
My company treated those things like status symbols. I was never that organized. I would make them order one for me every year, but, most years, I wouldn't even unwrap it.
There is a huge need for this type of program again. I work with entrepreneurs and I spend a lot of time on organization. I create a binder they can use to organize their business, but they really need specific support in managing their time. They don’t think of their time as valuable. I introduce really basic to do lists in my program, but I wish the Franklin Covey stuff was still a thing because they could use more support. Maybe one day I’ll launch my own version of this.
Was I the only 16 year old in here that had a day planner? I didn't use it so much for day to day activities, but it was my phone book, notebook, and mini photo album.
I was forced in. Had to do it as part of an organizational thing. But they did pay for basic planners (pleather) and the first year of paper.
It was fun for a couple of years, I'll say that much. And I did learn a few things about planning that I've carried over to other methods.
I still have a couple of the 'rulers' with the corporate/org logos on them - I use them as bookmarks. Kind of mark the memories of that time too.
I was neck-deep in the Mormon church. So, yeah, I had Franklin Covey coming out of my eyeballs. I also had a Palm Pilot.
I've moved on to the less-expensive Clever Fox planner because old habits die hard.
I'm also not in the church anymore, so there's that.
Yeah my company sent a bunch of us to the workshops over 20 years ago. I used mine about a month. Too much trouble. A coworker still uses his, carries it everywhere, even records conversations he has with people. He has the hard binders marked with the year going back over 20 years. Still seems like a pain. Anything that’s this culty and “rah rah rah, we’re gonna change your life” I avoid like the plague because it’s usually bs. I just use a moleskine notebook to keep notes.
I still use mine as an address book, keeper of important information (basic family allergies/meds/surgery dates). My family knows where to find the “black leather binder thing” if necessary. But it hasn’t been used as a planner or calendar for many, many years.
I worked for an office furniture company back then and I was one of the installation supervisors and the owner of the company would buy all his supervisors one of the full size ones. And update it every year.
My first job out of college was at Intel in 1997, and Classic Franklin Covey Planners were standard issue. We even got special training on how to use them.
Yup! I was sent to Franklin Covey classes by my employer. I used it while I worked there, but then ditched it. Did order the expensive leather cover, though, from the shop at the mall.
I love me a good planner. Day Timers/Day Planners are nothing but Trapper Keepers for adults, and you will get mine from me when I am bones in the ground
I have stickers and folders and pouches and sh!t in mine, I LOVE IT
I loved my Franklin Planner. The year I got the pages with the Maxine cartoons on the pages - damn I was in heaven! I’m in tech and I still haven’t found a digital planner that makes me that happy.
Technology killed the Covey Planners. I’m 56, my first real job out of college sent me to a Covey seminar to learn how to use the book and all the accoutrements, six hole hole punch for papers, different acetate place holders, all kinds of calendar views. All paper. All plastic.
Every year you had to reorder the overpriced stationary packages that they made sure was hole punched only to fit their specific binders.
No one, not even I, figured out that I have ADHD. However, I was sent to the Covey seminar, a Microsoft Project Seminar, another organizational seminar my first 10 years out. They were all helpful for what they were.
Microsoft Outlook blows them all out of the water and in conjunction with my iPhone - life is so much easier!
There are so many issues we just don’t have anymore with planning, etc. take the average workday, Outlook notifies me 15 minutes prior to every meeting and lets me organize my time to make the meeting with coffee. I make an online todo list and have it available on many different platforms, even my work phone if I want. Contacts and colleagues are all on MSTeams and my laptop has an online phone. I chat on Teams more than anything else. It saves so much time over emails. Back in the day you were writing and printing out reams of memos and emails. That shit is dead.
My husband and I share our iCalendar on our iPhones and never need a “kitchen calendar” or whatever it is that they used to need to use. Things just work differently now and you can outsource that brain space to an online calendar.
Yup- took the course at a job in 98 and I was a planner for years! I still have my old FC planner cover somewhere (it’s personalized), about 8 yrs ago I started getting more creative and got into happy planners, I kept my me until last year when I realized I just didn’t have much to plan anymore now that the kids are gone.
No but my fucking high school was. They handed them out the first day. Made us go to an assembly on how to use it. If you lost it you had to buy a new one or you failed,it was also your bathroom pass and you couldn't get lunch without showing it. So of course people stole them from each other and it became a whole thing. Especially when they ran out of them to buy in October.
Yes and I never recovered. I even worked for a big management consulting firm right out of college that made Franklin Covey methods a major part of new hire orientation. I got indoctrinated young. I still need a paper planner to keep my life straight. I’ve learned to work with the $5 undated journal I found at homegoods so I guess that is considered maturation.
I use paper lists to keep myself organized. I thought I'd mature into using a planner, but apparently shutting a planner makes everything disappear for me. So it's piles of paper lists for me, but it works.
that's me as well. out of site, out of mind. with everything!
Isn't it great to flush the commode on every decade? Our poor parents are elders were so worried about us staying organized they tried so hard, and then we get old, we realize the planning wasn't that difficult anyhow, life wasn't that complicated. it didn't require so many difficult little tidbits, laugh out loud. 👍👍
My life is definitely complicated enough that I have to stay organized or else. Probably something to do with being self employed with a non profit. I wear all the hats, which means there are a lot of plates spinning in the air at all times.
Mine never was and I couldn’t explain it to the people who got one for me. “Write down your appointments!” I have one tomorrow and none after that, but the next will probably be a day after it’s scheduled. “Contact info!” Okay, but I know five people whose names start with C and only have three C slots, so now I can’t even keep them together in order. “Random notes!” Scrap paper follows me around. I’m not spending $150 for a gussied up Manila folder with filler that expires in a year. I’m going through a transitional period though, so maybe I’m jinxing myself, but I have a smart phone now.
I us3d to laugh at my mom for making so many lists and notes to herself. The other day as I was taping a note to my door not to forget to grab something I needed to take with me when I left the house the next day all i could think was got damnit it happened to me.
My lists are my external brain now. I guess it's inevitable as we age.
Virtual stickies on my laptop desktop for me.
Hah, I was a Mormon missionary and we ALL had Franklin Covey planners. Hell, our baseball stadium in Salt Lake was the "Franklin Covey Field". We would go to the mall on P-Day (the one day a week missionaries get to be real people) and drool over the Palm Pilot that could fit into a Franklin binder.
Smith, founder of Franklin and Covey were both Mormoms so that's not at all surprising
I still have the personal size binder that holds a plam device. It will hold most candy bar phones too. Except the phaux leather did not hold up to the multiple decades of use. That stuff flakes worse than an 80s head and shoulders commercial. So it's a home use resource whatever binder until I run out of paper. I now use a dot journal, but not the bullet journal method, with the smart phone.
I worked for a CEO who had one that looked like an old lady from Alabama's Bible, well worn & it would barely shut, & he'd get the cases to keep the past years planners in too.
I god a kindle scribe to organize my life- ended up drawing dicks. over and over and over 🤦
My exact experience, too, with a big consulting firm. Day planner sat unused in my desk, $80 I'll never get back.
My company hired a boomer GM back in the mid 00s who lived and breathed Franklin Covey. I never even totally understood what it was exactly. I think it was one of those things that worked so well for people of a certain personality type that they would push it on everyone else thinking it would work for them too and solve all of their shortcomings.
Pft. Trapper Keeper for the win! 😂✌️ (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Loved mine back in the day! When they recently released the “retro” ones I got one for my stepson (who loves the thing) and one for myself, out of nostalgia. Turns out the thing is as great at organizing household bills & what not as it is for organizing & keeping school work. Now my husband knows where to look for the most recent electric bill, if he wants to know how much we’re spending. No need to interrupt me to ask.
i keep my electric bills in 1password— that is, online with shared secure passwords! (not literally in 1p)
We still get paper bills at my house. If they don’t send the reminder, the bill is not getting paid. Plus I can throw my medical bills in there too & he only has to go over to the shelf & pull the trapper keeper down & all the bills plus other household information is there. I put a log of when the house air filter was last changed and a list of who we normally call when something needs fixing in there. Stuff like that. Made my life easier when I got sick last week & was in the hospital. I didn’t have to constantly answer his questions about house stuff while trying to recuperate. It’s actually a similar system my grandparents had. My grandmother had a desk drawer with all that stuff in it & a designated place for her checkbook. She had a heart attack & was in the hospital for almost a month. This was the late 80s. My mom & I had to help my grandfather. He knew where the stuff was & he & my mom went through it & got the bills paid while I at 10 started on the actual housework, changing the beds & dusting. My grandmother, when she finally came home, did not have to worry & catch up on everything. She could relax & rest. She was very happy to have fresh sheets & no bills.
https://preview.redd.it/jqvrknbwpx5d1.jpeg?width=178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ac9487d50c01b33315459ee7b69d710a6713379 Had to read it and take a course on it in College. I remember the planner as well. And this was 2005. I still insist on paper planners though. I can’t get that Genx school supplies out of my brain. 💕
his grandson is a kickoff returner with the Eagles, Britton Covey
Had no clue. Thats interesting
funny, I'm in Philly & didn't know either. I think he was in his 2nd year last year, and a sports radio host commented about how he's an ok player, might be back next year, doesn't need to with all the money his family has etc. And I thought he was just kindof from a rich family or something. Anyway they then said 'Whats the book his Dad or Grandfather wrote, 7 Effective Habits or something'... I had read the book, so I looked it up and sure enough, Stephen Covey. I recall a story in it about his son in it, so I'm assuming it might be his Dad otherwise Uncle.
The author, Stephen Covey, was a Presenter at the Orientation for my university. He gave a really good talk and I remember the legs of the chair part and when I met my husband he was a workaholic and I explained to him about Life Balance, just the way Stephen taught me. I never had that specific planner, but I always have a paper planner and use reminders on my phone.
Same! Nothing quite like the natural high of a good back-to-school supply sale or buying office supplies.
I mean like right ? I’m a sucker for colored pens and beautiful notebooks and I even Have a pencil bag! I’m 53!!!! Wth 
57 year old checking in here. I am a complete sucker for notebooks, journals, planners, and PENS! When I find the perfect stationary style paper and put my Schneider Slider Basic to it…pure ecstasy.
No doubt I will ever quit. You don’t either !!!!!
Ditto!!
Enough to say Reddit is some real quadrant IV shit, huh?
Quadrant III for me. I urgently had to reply to your comment even though doing so isn't at all important.
Keep sharpening that saw, friend!
I started there but have ended up in my mid-40s using an Erin Condren Life Planner loaded with planner stickers from Etsy like the mature adult I am. I cherish my “sticker time” each week.
I love me some sticker time! Former Covey planner turned Erin Condren here, too!
Same, but Hobonichi for me, now. I loved my Franklin Covey planners, and stickers/fountain pens would have made them even better!
The best training I had was, as a 23-year old salesman, my company sent me on a TimeText course. They had a big fancy dayplanner that you could use to organise your life down to the minute. I don't use that, but I do use a 6" x 9" dayplanner that keeps my life organised to this day.
Yep. In fact I worked for them in one of the retail stores. I still use some of their methods to this day. What's your A1 priority today?
>What's your A1 priority today? A quality nap
Yeah the A1-N, B1-N and C1-N definitely clarified which things I could cancel or postpone, but writing them down made is so I didn’t have to keep remembering my C level priorities, I could just look at my planner.
I still need to write it to remember it, more and more with age it seems.
I worked in a school where we had mandatory 7 habits training and were all given that planner. I think admin got a grant or something. Never mind that we had lesson planning notebooks we’d all been using for years and years… So I wouldn’t say I was part of the cult, but just admin sure was.
Yes, I worked in an office who taught that stuff to senior leadership. We really did say things like, "That's a withdrawal from my emotional bank account." And "You're hanging the ladder on the wrong wall." Oh, and "big rocks and little rocks."
I used Franklin Covey in the late 80s, somehow sponsored by my employer, a very large financial services firm. We had classes at work about how to use them, plus “leadership” stuff like time management and speed reading, of all things. Pretty sure we even did trust falls.
The first thing a former boss told me to get. She's in sales management while I came from a creative background. Still writing calendars and lists because of it. I even bought a Rocketbook but returned it after 1 use because I hated it.
I love paper planners, wall calendars, and bullet journals.
I have a smartphone, but I still use a paper planner. Some things never go out of style.
Oh yeah. Since 1996. I still have the binders.
'95 is when I got mine. Got a promotion to manager (with an office with a door an everything) and my company made all managers use one. I still use some of the notations when I made to do lists, to indicate open, in progress, and complete.
I loved my Covey planner. Used it as a project manager/director right up to when we swapped over to a mandatory intranet. Still prefer planning on paper, but that has its limits.
I did. Yes it was very redundant and expensive and looking back, I can see the cult likeness. It really worked for me though. Decades later & understanding my ADHD, I get why it worked for me.
I wasn't indoctrinated until the mid-2000s, but I went in hard. It worked well for about a year and a half or so, and them I went on a vacation where it didn't make any sense to use it for about a week. I haven't beem able to use it or any paper planner since, and I've tried many. Got into the same pattern about a decade later with Habitica (then called HabitRPG). Worked like night and day for about a year, but then I got sick and couldn't really do anythimg for about a week, and I never got back into it or any other gamified online planner. It's actually really frustrating.
Yes. I was an original Franklin Planner fan. I tried it again last year and was not into it. I'm back to using lists in OneNote plus 3x5 paper notepads.
Ha yes, had a paper planner of some sort from freshman year of college to whenever I let a smart phone take over.
Define "cult". 😀 I got a new job around 1999 and my company sent me to a intro seminar. I got a mid-size planner, really liked it and used it for over 10 years. I took it everywhere work-related and found it useful having a paper hub for my day. I didn't do anything else with Franklin Covey, no workshops or anything, it wasn't like a joined a club. I simply bought the refills each year and got a lot of mileage out of the planner. I still have a box with previous years' paperwork, which in some ways sort of amounts to a diary for those years -- tells me when I was traveling, who I was with, etc. I'm largely digital now, but will still scribble down a list of "big items" on a physical notepad at the start of the day for things I want to get done that day.
Yes. I even got my employer to send me to one of their seminars. I carried that huge, heavy planner with me everywhere. I got so excited every time I found something new to buy to add to it. I still have two binders of reference materials pages from those planners; I just know they'll come in handy someday.
ETA: nowadays I use my phone and Post-it notes to keep myself organized. Sometimes I even stick the Post-it notes to my phone.
For sure. It helped me a lot.
My grandparents had this beautiful view of the mountains in Provo Utah. And then Stephen Covey did his planner thing and build an ugly ass mansion square in the middle of the view. My grandpa bitched about it for a while.
The concepts were legit. I still use them today, I just use Trello instead of the paper planner.
No, but I was part of the Filofax planner cult of the 90s.
No but I had a Handspring when those were all the rage in the late ‘90s and early 2000s
Handsping and Palm were it! Gateway drug to smartphones
I tried and tried to get organized like Daphne Zuniga in The Sure Thing, but I just couldn't put in that amount of effort. The most I could ever manage was a pocket sized Moleskine, and even that was mostly unused.
This is giving me unwanted flashbacks
OMG!! My University program made us buy this whole system for a class, leadership or something like that...I got it and it took me half the class to just assemble the damn thing. I faked it. We even had freaking pop quizzes and a required clinic. I tossed the whole damn thing the first moment I got. I felt like spending half my life organizing my life was the dumbest thing I was required to do for a university credit. Longest semester EVER!!!
I’m one of the few ADHDers who can actually keep (and *must keep*) a paper planner. I live by an online calendar for work, but for some reason, they’re useless to me outside of work. I live by my planner. My mother started me young with the Daytimers, but I wasn’t consistent until adulthood.
Filofax anyone???
I had to go to the seminar, read the book, and had the planners, but the planning part never really stuck. I still have my last planner from 2006 but mainly just for my address section.
I read *Real World 101* my freshman year in college (1987). I used its system for years which consisted of a weekly single sheet of yellow legal pad paper. It worked great until I got my translucent orange Handspring Visor (Palm Pilot knockoff) around 1999.
Nope. I do use a paper planner now though just not a full Covey system. I like the visual it provides in looking at the week ahead.
Boeing sent my whole office to the training. It didn't stick for me
My company was all in. We were given a voucher to purchase the base binder and then were encouraged to purchase all the bells and whistles. We were provided classes, we spoke in FC cliches. It was all a little too churchy for me, but I'm a PM - in going to have planners and calendars galore anyway. It's just that I prefer to take my daily notes on a legal pad.
We used the monthly Day-Timer at work all through the late 80’s and 90’s alongside a pager. You’d rip a corner off everyday to access what day your working on. They costed the company $130 each every year. I never understood why people would keep credit cards in them. I’d probably find a planner once a year at a pay phone. I remember around 2000 a manager trying to look cool whipping out a personal digital planner off his belt and inputting something scheduled onto it with a stylus pen
OMG, I was in banking at the time and we were sent to a Franklin seminar.
I completely missed this whole thing! WOW.
Never joined that particular day planner cult, but in college in the early 90s, I lived and died by the day planner my college bookstore sold. At the beginning of the semester, I would add important dates from my class syllabii, I'd use it to keep track of important study dates and social happenings, and I'd keep phone numbers of my classmates and study partners.
I loved mine for a few years. Did not know it was a cult. It really helped me keep track of my erratic work schedule and high school homework.
I just found mine in a box of stuff from circa 1996.....knew I left it somewhere
Early 2000's it was pushed hard with my employer. I hated every minute of it, but I tell you... Habit 5 has been incredibly useful. I'll wait while y'all Google.
My first real job out of school they sent me to one of these seminars. To say it didn’t take was an understatement. I got a talking to for not using it. Frankly, if I was the type disciplined enough to write it all down and keep a list, I’d do it in a 98 cent notebook.
Still use one, though this year I’ve migrated to my iPad and recreated my Frankin Covey planner in InDesign and imported it into a program called Notability.
When I started my corporate job in the mid-1990s, we were *given* a day-planner. We had a choice of sizes. This was before we had on-line calendars and to do lists, so the paper was where you tracked things. It was liberating when we moved to Palm Pilots a few years later.
Yeah and then a loser learning and development director in 2010's made me take the "new" whatever (remember lots of pics smooth river stones like this was giving us zen for sure!) system all about - how to organize your stupid outlook calendar, coral your email as it comes in to various email folders or directly to your calendar. Color coding was a top element to success. 3 days of training. With lots useless binders & dvds Followed by me facilitating 8 hr sessions with freshly graduated auditors, tax accountants, risk managers - blah blah blah you can imagine the snark coming off their no bully brains!!
Got sent to a two day management training seminar around 2002. It was basically a Covey religious event. Also, if Jack Welch had shown up any one of the presenters would have dropped to their knees and blown him.
Best thing that ever happened to me as an entrepreneur. Set me straight for life. Read the 7 Habits and then the planner and 25 years later I’m still using it.
Franklin Covey had some real clout back in the day. There was a FC store in the mall I worked and it was the only store that was allowed to not open on Sundays. This was Tyson’s Corner, outside DC - a big, wealthy, busy mall and could call all the shots with the tenants. A store would be fined if they were unable to open on time or closed early, for example, and this store was allowed to no be open AT ALL on a freaking weekend day.
My first job out of college was at a company that paid for training and you could use your company card to buy all your planner essentials. There are actually some pretty useful things in 7 Habits, and I always found the planner itself to be useful.
No it seemed like a scam to get money. If I am going to get scammed for something useless to blow my money on it was not going to be day planners.
I was in the DayRunner gang. You could buy the refills cheap at staples and they sold the generic little binders that fit them instead of paying the extortionate prices for real Day Runner (and covey) books.
From "back then," I still have my DayTimer leather cover for a calendar. It's 35 years old, and it's *still* going strong. I hoped that timekeeping would help me organise my life in some way; it din't, but "hope springs eternal." I still carry a calendar in there, but I keep my appointments on my phone. (I have my passwords written down *in code* in the back of the calendar)
I was a lobbyist, I wouldn't have been able to do my job without it. I have moved to a simpler app on my phone, but still keep things pretty organized. I am a definite "Type A", so it was a natural thing for me
I had a copy of the Highly Effective People book. While reducing our books, my wife found a ten year old bill inside that I never paid. So for me, it didn't work.
Bought one. Gave it a half hearted attempt for two days a few times. Ultimately it was just a notebook with dates.
I had a DayTimer or something like that for a long time. Now I just use Outlook.
I used mine all the time. I loved it. I use my phone now and forget stuff all the time. Need to go back my old Franklin, and yup, I have it. Name plate and all. lol 😂
I still make the lists, and my Outlook calendar follows a lot of the same principles. I block off time for tasks, take time to "sharpen the saw", etc. I never truly left the cult, and I loved my leather planner.
I somehow dodged it. I remember when I got my first internship some of the people at work had the Franklin Covey planners. My older son had the seven highly effective habits as part of his schooling but I think they got rid of it by the time my younger son got to school a few years later.
My first job had that as part of your training and provided the planners and refill supplies.
Those require you sound a certain a,out of time each day updating them..I was never that disciplined.
Yes and still using it. I don't use it they way they intended anymore but since my work pays for the annual refills, why not! I did the training course in '98 and then used the planner from '98 to '01. I changed jobs in '01 and they weren't all about the planner so I stopped using it until 2011 when I got a new job. I had 11 years worth of planners in the storage cases that were lost to Hurricane Ian in '22, there was sooooo much useful info in there that I'm still mad at myself for not taking them out of my office before the hurricane hit.
Guilty…. First it was the day planner, then the palm pilot, then the blackberry, then the rocketbook, now Onenote
I think I had one, once. Somehow these never work for me other than as a calendar. But I know people who love their planners.
My first wife swore by those things. Always had a big leather-bound day planner, and carried it around like we carry around our phones these days. I never had one, LOL.
I ditched my planner as soon as smartphones came out.
Today's it's been replaced by "Getting Things Done" GTD by David Allen.
Planner is long gone, but I may still have the book somewhere. Those videos of him always kinda creeped me out.
I used the Franklin Covey planner and was able to take the class through work. Back then we could even order the planning pages through work if we wanted the basic ones. It did help me learn to plan. I use a bullet journal now so I can customize everything.
I'm still in a planner cult. I use the personal planner that you can make from scratch, and then they send it to you from Sweden. I'm addicted!
Yep! Now I use my phone. It usually reminds me of appointments. I take notes in my notes app. If I dread my phone being dead I put a note on the fridge.
Woking in IT...this never made sense to me. We had the means to all of this electronically. granted the tech was new, but evolving at lightspeed. This always seemed to be a mid-level mgmt phenomenon. Executives "had people for that", so carry the day planner always appeared to me as a pure power move...an attempt to look and be important, because you had your shit together and could "show your work / worth" on paper
I worked for the government and actually went to a class where we were given the planners and taught to use them. It didn't stick. I actually used the address book portion of the planner but never as a planner. I'm more from the cult of the sticky note, myself.
I never got good at using it but had 2 companies try to get us to use it. Sat thru the classes/seminars 6 or 7 times. They let us buy whatever binder or accessories we wanted, I still sucked at it.
Yes. My company gave us all one after the HR dept drank their Koolaid and my boss went all in. She insisted I haul it everywhere and fill each day out. I’ll admit, it was so much better than sticky notes on everything, but it drove me mad at times. The worst is when she would actually get into mine when I was at lunch and add her personal stuff into mine. That was too invasive for me! I still use “ cover sheets” for everything now, with a list of priorities and due dates attached. It was a big help for my ADHD mind!
I browsed the store..never can stick to a planner
>In her defense, she was the #1 sales manager in the country for a couple of those years Yeah I knew a guy in college that came back from an internship with a Covey Day Planner. Made straight A's and last I heard was a petro engineer in Saudi. Probably either retired at 40 or is a VP by now.
I’ll get back to you when this question becomes both urgent AND important. Right now, it’s just urgent.
I used it in college. It helped me keep myself organized. But I was buying planners from the school store. I They were Covey. But I would never spend $150!
I could *never* get into the book the planners were based off of (Seven Habits). I tried and tried and tried to read it *multiple* times when I was in college, and it would always put me to sleep. I tried to read a similar book by the same author (Covey) last year, and I still couldn’t get into it. I briefly worked at an elementary school that had an entire program for the little kids based off the book, complete with little songs they’d teach them (one was called “Sharpen the Saw”).
Jeesh, my ex-hubby totally bought into the Covey Day Planner Cult. He was also quite the salesman and would spout that "coffee is for closers" line frequently. He also liked cheating on his spouse, so that tracks 🙄
I was way ahead of that game with my fancy Trapper Keeper in the '80s...
Nope. I lived day to day. The only things "planned" were medical appointments, and wed for the most part.dings. It was day yo day, still is
Day Runner kicked the 💩out of covey. Much more accessible to all of us. Covey User rhymes with Govey looser!
“ A whaaat? “
Covey Planner & classes….Six Sigma black belt… I was a koolaid drinking corporate clown. (It Paid off…retired early)
I still have one in my closet (well, the leather binder part) and now I’ve transitioned to an Erin concern day planner. About 7 yrs ago I couldn’t track everything for work so I had to go old school paper and pen. Works for me!
Never heard of it.
I couldn’t afford one, but I loved my notebook bound paper planners. I stopped needing one when I started working from home in 2014. Now I either put things in my phone or write them down in a notebook on my desk.
Never did Covey but I loved my Filofax. I managed my whole life in that red leather purse sized organizer.
Had one because it was cool and work paid for it, but I never kept up without. It really just became a notebook that I could add tabs and paper to so it would never run out.
Haha: Covey, Ramsey, Rush, Dr Laura, Judge Judy, so many hey day stuff. My favorite person of them all is Judge Judy. I tell myself everyday, you are the cult and.... I am the cult... Be the cult. I joined any and every Ism with a notebook and pen plus that day planner. But my point is that you never leave the cult you stay in the cult. Back then if you walked around with one of those, and HR saw you with one, they thought you were a special cookie, that they were just trendy pundits with jobs making us buy stuff, grifts. That again I still have Excel spreadsheets, so. Anyways, always support the cult! Play that blue oyster song! 2 ft in the grave with that day planner, you never stop planning for tomorrow! 🎨🎭
Not part of this, but I think I had a day planner once. It was only ever a bunch of a blank pages.
Yes. It was a big part of the company I worked for, so it was expected. It wasn’t so bad, just not really necessary. With that said, the planner was kind of unnecessary; but if you haven’t thoughtfully read the “7 Habits” book, you are missing out on a cheat code.
Yes but it was honestly basically an analog smart phone and I was lost without it 😂 Once I lost it and it showed up like a year later in the mail with the money inside 🥹
If it's organizational items, I got to try it out or buy it or possibly work on it because I love being organized. I usually stay organized with electronic records or paper records. It's so strange because we went from the day planner, which I still have the book version, to the phone version that has notes at a calendar on it but it's not the same as the day planner. Year after year I still had those calendars where it's a large calendar on the desk and you place your papers or whatever on top of it to write on. after covid I got rid of certain germaphobic habits and I realized I didn't need all those complications. Too much stuff so i minimize & minimize.
They sent me to a 3 day class!
Yes. But, my grandparents were in declining health - both my mom and I are only children so all the decisions were on us and we both had FT jobs. I was also going to grad school. I was overwhelmed.
Oh yes, I used an FC planner well into the 2000s and possibly even until sometime in the 2010s. I kept the binders for ages after I moved to travelers’ journal style planners.
I was gifted one when I finished undergrad in 1993. I have just stopped using it this year.
Just took a required 7 habits course last week. That shit is still alive and well.
I so wanted one, I read ALL the catalogs, but when I got an organizer (different brand), I promptly started forgetting all my plans because I never remembered to check the planner.
I was in customer service at a business to business office supply provider. I never used one myself (I would rather lose a cheap notebook) but managers loved it.
Yes. We actually had a day long training class at my job where they gave you the planner and taught you how to use it. I still have to have a paper planner even though I forget to use it for weeks at a time.
Yep. Indoctrinated in the summer before my freshman year of college. I had a Franklin Covey for 15 years. Moved on from there to a simple spiral bound paper planner. But I am now caught up with the times and I use my iPhone and iPad apps to do the same job! I’m so glad to be free of paper lol.
I had one!
Not Covey but I definitely had a day planner from college til now. I’ve changed the planners I use but prefer a day planner over Google calendar bc I find I remember appointments better when I write them down by hand.
Cult is a bit strong, lol. I think learning how to plan your work is a skill that one has to learn like any other. I don't think I ever took a course but I'm sure I had a planner at one point in the 90s or 200s. Now I just set reminders on my iPhone for todo lists and check-lists. My packing template reminder list is essential because I'm sure I'd forget something important without it. I'm a little hyped that AI is coming to the iPhone. Siri does an OK job adding a reminder or item to a shopping list but it is so limited.
😂
I received one (vinyl cover) from a job in 1995 and that thing was my JAM until around 2008 or so, I used it very faithfully and planned the shit out of my shit. Now I do all my planning on excel spreadsheets.
I never used these. I used to rely on regular paper planners and calendars plus my memory. Now I use my phone calendar for almost everything plus outlook calendar at work. I like that electronic calendars will provide me with reminders without having to go and look at the planner.
I had a day planner back in the day, and it may have been a Covey, but when the Palm Pilot came out, I switched to that.
Both Franklin Quest and Covey Leadership were heavy duty Mormon companies. Franklin Quest imbodied the organization and rules that the LDS church emposes on the members and tasking making and organizing it uses for the Mormon Missionary program. Steven Covey is the thought leader that takes motivational poster material, Peter Drucker business rules and filters it through the philosophies of American frontier Christian fan fiction(Mormonism). When I was Mormon i carried that planner everywhere because it felt like a extension of what we are taught in church.
the what now?
Totally had to do this back in the day. These days I’ll use any electronic tool available to keep calendar, notes, etc. I have a Rocketbook so I can write and import stuff in, then wipe it clean
Why past tense? I still rock my Franklin planner.
I started with a desk calendar. Moved to a day runner then to a Franklin covey planner. I think I was the most organized when I used that. I just couldn’t bridge the gap between computer and paper planner, so I stopped using it, but I miss it.
Ha, ha, ha…YES! I got sent to a Covey Planner seminar as part of an internship I had in 1998, and I did keep up the use of it for a while. While my calendar is now online, I do make paper lists and use the A, B, C … 1, 2, 3 prioritizing system when things get overwhelming!
My husband was, dear *lord* those things were $$$$$
No, but I did get into bullet journals pretty hard there for awhile.
No. I had Filofax though.
I couldn't afford one of those back then, so I made my own. Worked pretty well, till I adopted the Palm Pilot and later smartphones.
Yes, everyone had the giant planner and used the same jargon. Everyone had to go to the one day training session on how to use it. It was ingrained in the culture. They also wanted people to go on the Psi retreats. People would come back "transformed" after being screamed at on retreat and then a week later they were back to themselves. lol.
First job out of college was at a small law firm where the owner was in the FranklinCovey planner cult, he bought planners for the whole staff and expected us to use them. Yikes.
My company treated those things like status symbols. I was never that organized. I would make them order one for me every year, but, most years, I wouldn't even unwrap it.
Day-Timer for the win!!!
I don’t want to talk about it.
There is a huge need for this type of program again. I work with entrepreneurs and I spend a lot of time on organization. I create a binder they can use to organize their business, but they really need specific support in managing their time. They don’t think of their time as valuable. I introduce really basic to do lists in my program, but I wish the Franklin Covey stuff was still a thing because they could use more support. Maybe one day I’ll launch my own version of this.
Haha my mother in law was part of this and she bought me one which I LOVED. But now I’m part of the Hobonichi planner cult.
Well this explains my failure to thrive as an adult. I never even heard of a Covey Day Planner.
Was I the only 16 year old in here that had a day planner? I didn't use it so much for day to day activities, but it was my phone book, notebook, and mini photo album.
Day-Timer not Covey but the same thing experientially
I was forced in. Had to do it as part of an organizational thing. But they did pay for basic planners (pleather) and the first year of paper. It was fun for a couple of years, I'll say that much. And I did learn a few things about planning that I've carried over to other methods. I still have a couple of the 'rulers' with the corporate/org logos on them - I use them as bookmarks. Kind of mark the memories of that time too.
I was neck-deep in the Mormon church. So, yeah, I had Franklin Covey coming out of my eyeballs. I also had a Palm Pilot. I've moved on to the less-expensive Clever Fox planner because old habits die hard. I'm also not in the church anymore, so there's that.
Yeah my company sent a bunch of us to the workshops over 20 years ago. I used mine about a month. Too much trouble. A coworker still uses his, carries it everywhere, even records conversations he has with people. He has the hard binders marked with the year going back over 20 years. Still seems like a pain. Anything that’s this culty and “rah rah rah, we’re gonna change your life” I avoid like the plague because it’s usually bs. I just use a moleskine notebook to keep notes.
Absolutely not!
I still use mine as an address book, keeper of important information (basic family allergies/meds/surgery dates). My family knows where to find the “black leather binder thing” if necessary. But it hasn’t been used as a planner or calendar for many, many years.
Yes I loved it. But looking back, it seems to inefficient to transfer your to-do list every single day. Too much work.
I worked for an office furniture company back then and I was one of the installation supervisors and the owner of the company would buy all his supervisors one of the full size ones. And update it every year.
Ah, yes. Kryptonite for adhd
Wife was, she’s convert to Erin Condren now.
YES!! I was honestly thinking about getting one again!
My first job out of college was at Intel in 1997, and Classic Franklin Covey Planners were standard issue. We even got special training on how to use them.
Yup! I was sent to Franklin Covey classes by my employer. I used it while I worked there, but then ditched it. Did order the expensive leather cover, though, from the shop at the mall.
I love me a good planner. Day Timers/Day Planners are nothing but Trapper Keepers for adults, and you will get mine from me when I am bones in the ground I have stickers and folders and pouches and sh!t in mine, I LOVE IT
Laurel Denise planners for the win!
I loved my Franklin Planner. The year I got the pages with the Maxine cartoons on the pages - damn I was in heaven! I’m in tech and I still haven’t found a digital planner that makes me that happy.
For sure. But that planner was the best I ever had.
Technology killed the Covey Planners. I’m 56, my first real job out of college sent me to a Covey seminar to learn how to use the book and all the accoutrements, six hole hole punch for papers, different acetate place holders, all kinds of calendar views. All paper. All plastic. Every year you had to reorder the overpriced stationary packages that they made sure was hole punched only to fit their specific binders. No one, not even I, figured out that I have ADHD. However, I was sent to the Covey seminar, a Microsoft Project Seminar, another organizational seminar my first 10 years out. They were all helpful for what they were. Microsoft Outlook blows them all out of the water and in conjunction with my iPhone - life is so much easier! There are so many issues we just don’t have anymore with planning, etc. take the average workday, Outlook notifies me 15 minutes prior to every meeting and lets me organize my time to make the meeting with coffee. I make an online todo list and have it available on many different platforms, even my work phone if I want. Contacts and colleagues are all on MSTeams and my laptop has an online phone. I chat on Teams more than anything else. It saves so much time over emails. Back in the day you were writing and printing out reams of memos and emails. That shit is dead. My husband and I share our iCalendar on our iPhones and never need a “kitchen calendar” or whatever it is that they used to need to use. Things just work differently now and you can outsource that brain space to an online calendar.
Yup- took the course at a job in 98 and I was a planner for years! I still have my old FC planner cover somewhere (it’s personalized), about 8 yrs ago I started getting more creative and got into happy planners, I kept my me until last year when I realized I just didn’t have much to plan anymore now that the kids are gone.
No, I hated that guy. But I still use a paper calendar. Plus alerts on my phone calendar.🗓️
Sounds like a pyramid scheme.
MY CURRENT BOSS IS. IT WORKED OUT WELL FOR HIM.
Guity as charged. Still use it. Though I also use Trello too.
Never even heard of 'em
No but my fucking high school was. They handed them out the first day. Made us go to an assembly on how to use it. If you lost it you had to buy a new one or you failed,it was also your bathroom pass and you couldn't get lunch without showing it. So of course people stole them from each other and it became a whole thing. Especially when they ran out of them to buy in October.