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It’s an old adage – Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail. It’s absolutely true.

I freely admit that I am somewhat obsessive about planning but that is because I have found it works. When I don’t plan, I twiddle about at this and that and feed the time thieves a positive banquet. I’ve been dashing round all day and achieved nothing at the end of it. Not good. I make lists, I have lists of my lists, I have books of my lists – need I go on. I have for some time been preoccupied with finding a system I could use on the pc which would take care of all these piles of paper on my desk, keep my notes on projects and ideas in one place rather than having a forest of Post-It notes stuck to the monitor – after all, it’s supposed to be the era of the paperless office (Ha!). I have tried many systems both on and offline, free or paid but have never found anything suitable until now. I almost feel like running down the street shouting Eureka! Instead I should be shouting Effexis!

I came across the Effexis Achieve Planner, liked the look of it and decided to give it a go – you can download a thirty day free trial so I had nothing to lose. Granted, it took quite a while to set it up but I did that gradually, as each piece of paper rose to the surface of my desk it went onto the planner, as a new idea surfaced it went on to the planner. In a very short space of time I was becoming properly organised – despite my own best efforts. So impressed was I at the end of a week that I deliberately set to and put all my projects on it (personal and work), albeit in outline form and cleared my desk of every scribbled scrap which coincidentally cleared my mind of all the mental To Do’s as they went on the list as well. The result – I am transformed! I am crashing through the work with a clear mind, uncluttered by thoughts such as ‘what was it that I was going to do…’, ‘I know I’ve forgotten something…’, ‘Where did I save that file…’ Bliss.

The principles are simple. You set up projects which contain tasks – you can set up a template for repeated projects such as setting up a new website etc. You timetable and prioritise those tasks. On the task card you can add your notes, links to files, time spent (if it’s a chargeable project) etc – just as you can with any project planner. What I really like though is the Weekly planner wizard – you can allocate your time just by dropping ‘blocks’, you can move, shuffle play with them as you will. You can use the Task chooser to show the most urgent tasks according to the criteria YOU have set. No more wasting time thinking ‘what should I do next’, it’s there in front of me. It’s all easily presented in grid form, items can be dragged and dropped in more ways than I care to think about. Just fantastic.

To be fair it does take some getting used to initially and some things appear a little complicated at first but there are good help files and once you get yourself sorted, it flows beautifully. Set aside a few hours to learn how to use it and you will find it time well spent. The system is extremely flexible in that you can add items as they come up – even put follow up items into your tasks if you have to break off – a sort of ‘where am I note’. At this point it might sound as if you spend all the time you have saved filling out bits and pieces in the Planner, but not so. I spend about an hour at the end of the week planning the next week. It runs gently in the background all day, throwing up reminders when required and it only takes a second or two to update or add something once you get used to it. It also makes you very aware of those ‘time thieves’ I spoke of before – do you KNOW how much time you spend messing around with email or just surfing aimlessly rather than being focussed? It came as something of a shock to me, and remember I thought I was organised! Even Resources, Goals, SWOT’s and Wish Lists are catered for if you want to go that far, though the choice is yours.

There are two versions – Basic and Pro, personally if you work online don’t mess round with the basic – go for the Pro. It’s more flexible in terms of time planning and management and a lot quicker to manipulate your data, the Weekly Planner Wizard alone is worth the extra few dollars. I have more than made back the cost in productivity and mental clarity, and that is priceless. Relatively speaking it’s not that expensive either when you think what folks pay for some of those fool ‘Get rich in the next thirty seconds’ packages’. This will actually help you to achieve your goals – and for less than $90! If I had to recommend one thing to help you on your way after good and reliable hosting - this would be it

As with all these things, the proof of the pudding is in the eating but so far this one tastes pretty good, you can taste it for free! Download It Here