After the success of The Five Minute Journal, Alex & UJ wanted to create a daily planner that helped you actually get shit done rather than merely organizing your week. They brought me on board to refine the overall product direction, write and edit, and launch the product.

Once they had a rough concept for the daily format, we began by talking about their vision for the planner, its purpose, audience, intended use, and overall feel. At first, it began with a heavy emphasis on the Pomodoro Technique, a time management method in which you work in 25 minute chunks followed by a 5 minute break. Without wanting the planner to become merely a time management tool like other planners, I helped them refine the concept to emphasize focusing on a limited number of tasks, with one “most important” task really making your day.

Through multiple edits, we finally set on a daily design template we were happy with. This included four sections, The Most Important Task (the one task that would really make your day), secondary tasks, additional tasks, and notes. From there we asked our friends for feedback.

Based off feedback, we also included weekly planning and decided to include a weekly review. Both us and our friends liked having a rough idea of the to-do items of the week ahead which we could reference. What was novel was the inclusion of the weekly review, causing you to sit down for 5-10 minutes and actually reflect on what went well and what didn’t to adjust for the week ahead.

After some refinement from Alex and UJ, I edited and cut down the introduction, chose all the quotes for the daily pages, and ensured the tone was consistent throughout.

From here, now was the time to see if our audience actually wanted the planner. Eeek! I was tasked with creating the overall layout and setup of our Kickstarter, copy, as well as promotional emails to our list, individual influencer emails, and setup a productivity giveaway.

Our initial goal was $10,000 and after 30 days we wound up doing over $120,000. The planner continues to be a top-seller on Amazon and has sold over 160,000 copies and led to retail partnerships with Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Chapters Indigo, and Paper Source.

:: SERVICES ::
Leadership
Content Design
Research
Strategy
Writing and Editing