As shared in the January, 2014, Dirt Newsletter by the fabulous ladies of Gauche Alchemy, here’s my Project Planner available for download and personal use.

[button link=”https://scrapsoflife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/projectplanner_v2.pdf” style=”download” color=”purple”]Download Project Planner[/button]

(You’ll need a program like Acrobat Reader to view this file. Click here to download.)

How meta! The planning of the planner and the finished (for now) Project Planner.

It’s designed to be a 4-page booklet, printed on US legal-sized paper, landscape orientation, double sided. If your printer doesn’t have an automatic duplex setting, just follow the prompts in the print dialog box for making it work.

I designed this Project Planner to help corral my thoughts on any given creative thing and have included places for list-making, sketching, and even mind-mapping for those times when we just get stuck.

On the outside of the planner, starting with page 1 on the right, here are the features included:

1. Important dates: both the date that the idea first occurred as well as any deadline we might have. Sometimes the deadline comes first and sometimes it’s self-imposed, but both are important in their own ways.
2. Inspiration. This is one of those things that I wish I wrote down more often, especially for those “someday” projects that I might not get to for a year or so, having what sparked it can also help on stalled projects.
3. Title. Great for blog posts, videos, or Pinterest-worthy projects, the right title is crucial but isn’t always easy to come up with (hence more than one line).
4. Who it’s for. If you’re shooting for publication or you’re on a Design Team or two, keeping who gets what straight  is pretty important.
5. Supply List. How many times have you chopped up a piece of scrapbook paper and forgotten to write down who made it? Publications what that kind of info, as will you if you ever want to find that pattern or embellishment again to reorder. Writing it down is the best way to keep it straight.
6. And speaking of supplies, if there’s a particular product or brand you’re showcasing, this is a good place to write it down and keep it in the front of your mind.
7. If you used a technique from a certain book, video, or website,  jotting it down here will save you combing through bookmarks or searches to better cite your sources, same goes for hard-to-find distributors.On the back page (or the left side of the outside image)
8. Stuck? Try a mind map! Great for assignments that we just can’t get started on, this brainstorming style starts with a central word or idea and spokes out from there. See if you can get your creative juices flowing.
9. Have you ever been working on a project and discovered something that you could have done better or realized that everyone might not know? I know I have, so I included a place to write down those tips so I don’t forget to share them later on.
   Inside there are only two sections, but they are both incredibly important:
10. A gridded sketch-zone to draw out ideas, doodle, or pre-design your work.
11. A place to write down the steps you took to get from idea to reality, or maybe just the steps you think you’re going to take. I spend a lot of time pre-thinking a project to save on mistakes, this is a good place to plan and revise–plenty of room.
    

I  hope you’ll give it a try and let me know if it helps your process and what you’d include that I might not have.

Cheers to productivity!

~Scraps