Self-experiment “High Performance Planning”

Before I moved to Bamberg, I had time to celebrate my birthday with my friends and my dear Sarah gave me a very special birthday present – the so-called High Performance Planner by Brendon Burchard.

And it is yellow, I love this colour! It is even called “Happy Yellow”. And I was really happy about this birthday present. I have the version for two months and by now I spent about one here at Bamberg and in my new life far away (okay, not that far away, but, you know, in another country). 😉  So, what are the good and the bad things with this planner? I try to give you my first impression and even a proper feedback about using this planner daily – next to my all beloved bullet journal.

And yes, bullet journaling is one of my great tricks in life to keep my bits and pieces together and to actually collect my ideas and all the important dates and stuff. And there are a lot of these things… So, I am used to plan ahead and I am a planner nerd, I have to admid it right away.

If you are interested about more background information about the planner and Brendon Burchard, visit the official website here.

The HPP is a really good tool to keep your focus, to structure your plans and to collect all the necessary data in your very busy life. I really like the journaling part in the morning and the evening, but I have to say that it costs a lot of time, so the best way will be, to adjust the planner – by leaving out those days I am spending with family and friends (and not alone). Leaving out days is eays, because of the undated sections. But the weekly stuff and the monthly features will be a small problem, because my week will be about 4 to 5 days now, but weekly features are impemented in the planner every 7 days. This shows me that the planner is thought to be used every day, even on weekends. And I must say, the journaling sessions at my Sundays are rather non-existant, because nobody needs me on my A-game this day and I don’t need to think about situations that can stress me out or otherwise. Of course, there are busy Sundays, but there are few of them.

The structure and layout works not that well for me and my needs. I think the planner is a really useful help to organize my life – abroad, far from home, confronted with new people, new work etc., and Sarah was right, it helped me to focus on the important things. But I won’t get on with it after the next month is finished. Rather, I will adjust my BuJo.

While using the HPP, I learned about myself – about how to influence my mindset, that it is actually important to have and keep somehow a positive thought through the day, but I, too, learned that my system with my BuJo and my starting the morning with thinking about the day to come do the same job as the questions in the HPP.

Therefore, there is a negative answer – I will not use the HPP any further, but I can still recommend it. It helps a lot, maybe especially during the weeks and months of getting steady with a new step in life. And I think, I will even give the book “High Performance Habits” a try. After all, the methods and observations Burchard speaks of are considerable and there is actually a high number of people getting better in their job and life by following his advices.

So, I will give it a try. But sorry, no to the High Performance Planer – this just isn’t for me. It is a great tool, though, I admit that. But a great tool won’t work for you, of you are not a 100% sure about it and happy with it. And this is a very important thought in the questions of planners.

All the best, dear fighters of academia.

Yours, Astrid <3