The Origins of the LOT Planner

Welcome to the LOT Planner, the planner to help you get your Life On Track. This planner was born while I was in graduate school. As a graduate student, I struggled to find a planner that could handle all of the things I needed to keep track of, especially as I tried to practice self-care in a system designed to make you doubt your capabilities. Other planners on the market worked well for some people, but my life changed so rapidly I never used the appointment features, wasting most of the space in the planner. Creating a custom bullet journal was a godsend to my productivity, as I was able to plan, dream, journal, track research, and create to do lists in one centralized location.

However, there came a time where I no longer had the bandwidth to constantly create my bullet journal, but I desperately needed it for my life. As I fell behind creating my journal, I became distracted and unproductive. So, in the summer of 2018 I sat down, taught myself inDesign, and created a printed version of everything I outlined in my bullet journal. It was an absolute surprise that so many people were interested in what I created.

The LOT Planner was born!

Please use this planner as a way of staying on track with your short-term and long-term goals, both professionally and personally. In this planner you will see many different kinds of pages that will help you focus on planning out your goals in the various projects in your life. You will notice that the planner encourages you to write your to-do lists and plans in multiple places, ensuring that your daily to-do lists line up with your weekly goals, which match your monthly goals, which match your yearly goals. The planner utilizes a sticky note system to increase your flexibility to change goals and timelines with ease. One of the hardest things I faced was how to adequately plan, and adjust, for the marathon that was graduate school. I have found that tracking my goals in this detailed manner made me more likely to achieve them. I combined goal-tracking with scheduled reflection time to ensure that I was on track to becoming my best self academically and personally.

I truly hope you enjoy the planner and get as much out of it as I do. I wish you a year’s worth of productivity and planning!

Sa-kiera Hudson, PhD

LOT Planner Creator

Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University