If you like the process of visualizing blocks of time, you might be interested in the program Achieve Planner. It’s like EssentialPIM [see our Review] on steroids.
Achieve Planner is more than a Personal Information Manager: it is a Life Planner. The program aims to help you sort out all areas of your life, to identify your dreams, goals and priorities, to plot your projects and tasks and to place at your fingertips information about all of your resources. And it emphasizes the results of your efforts and activities. It will certainly clarify where writing fits into your life. In fact, it may even trigger a major re-assessment of what you doing and where you are going.
At the core of Achieve Planner is the “ideal week†planner. One sets aside, in whatever level of detail one chooses, blocks of time for as many aspects of your life that one chooses to monitor: professional, spiritual, family, social, whatever.
Achieve Planner can lay out several different “ideal weeks†– one for a regular work week, for example, another for time spent at the vacation house, yet another for time when the spouse is away. All of these “ideal weeks†are available from a drop down menu, for instant recall. One can also choose to view the schedule blocks by single-day, 3-day, 5-day, 7-day, 10-day, 20-day or monthly views.
The blocks remind one of an overall weekly plan. Specific appointments and activities are superimposed on the underlying blocks. Work can spill over from one block into another. To help one focus, an expandible list of projects can be called up next to the schedule.
Achieve Planner wisely differenciates between projects and the tasks necessary to complete them. While lacking the raw power of project management programs, Achieve Planner offers all that a writer will need to track countless writing projects, as well as projects in other areas of life [such as finding a good spouse, perhaps the most challenging project of all]. To simplify things, projects are presented separately in collapsible lists. A click of the mouse expands a list and drills down through the layers.
Under the Contacts Tab, you can build separate collapsible contact lists, grouping people together, for example, by project, separating close friends from acquaintances. A double-click on a name in the list brings up a full tabbed screen for additional information about each contact. Alternatively, one can view all contacts in a single list.
If you examine the tabs on the screen, you will discover the Results Tab at the far left. This area of the program illustrates the breadth of its approach. Achieve Planner provides a default list of result areas, just to set you thinking. You can delete areas, add areas particular to your life and interests and rank them according to importance. Double-clicking on any area in the list brings up a screen with several tabs, encouraging you to describe the role of this area in your life and to expand your thoughts to its mission and your grand vision and wishes. You are also invited to analyze your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats this area presents.
If you are really serious about reviewing your life’s course, examine the tab at the far right: Goals. This tab is available only to those that purchase the Goals extension to the program [it is available separately also for those who don’t yet need the scheduling module].
For many writers, especially those who are firm in their commitment to writing and know precisely its place in their lives, Achieve Planner may be overkill. EssentialPIM may offer everything one needs.
For those writers who have complex lives and competing commitments, Achieve Planner may be a life-altering tool. If you can’t find time to write with the help of Achieve Planner, then perhaps writing is just a passing fancy for you, a sometime hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that – but to truly BECOME A WRITER, a strong commitment is required.
The creator of Achieve Planner, Rodger Constandse, has written a book about life planning, Master Your Time. Not only is it a valuable read, it is also a good case study in new avenues for the serious writer. It’s an e-Book, available online at the click of a few buttons.
While there, study Constandse’s copy writing skills. He knows how to promote and sell his book. He’s established a website dedicated to the book and presents easy methods of payment. Elsewhere in Becoming A Writer – Seriously, one will the tools and techniques of e-publishing.
For additional information about Achieve Planner, visit:
http://www.effexis.com/achieve/planner.htm
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Comment by
armando
3 Aug 2007
Hello,
Nice Review.
I’ve posted a link to your review at DonationCoder.com (http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=9417) where I talk a bit about AP. Writing a whole review myself would be challenging since I mainly speak French.
Thanks.
Comment by
Tom Colvin
3 Aug 2007
Armando, thanks for alerting me about your ongoing discussion at DonationCoder. Anyone who’s interested in time and task management software should check into this discussion — just follow the link provided by Armando.
I hope, Armando, that you will follow up with your own detailed review of Achieve Planner, as it sounds like you are exploring it even more deeply than I have.
Tom