Finding the Best Planner When Recovering from Persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome/mild TBI (abridged version)

Previously, I wrote about how a good planning and organizational system is crucial for recovery from Persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS)/mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI), and then later suggested how you might create a good organizational and planning system for yourself.

As I mentioned, a high-quality planner provides the foundation for successful planning and organization.

In this post, I am going to get into the specifics of what to look for in a planner when you are an individual with persistent PCS/mTBI. At the bottom, I’ll have a link to my list of the best persistent PCS-/mTBI-friendly planners currently on the market (with product links to make your life easier).

The goal of a good planner

As a reminder, what we want with our planner is a single, centralized place for both our weekly schedule and our to-do list. That means having our appointments, deadlines, and breaks— as well as our prioritized to-do’s for the week— all laid out on a single 1- or 2-page spread.

Like a well-designed worksheet, a great planner provides us with the structure to get the best and most user-friendly 1-2-page weekly spread for each week.

What goes into creating this great worksheet? Roughly speaking, you want something that enables you to: a) capture all the appointments, obligations, and tasks you have for the week; b) prioritize your to-do’s within the limitations of your appointments and other obligations.

So, with those goals in mind, what are the components of a great planner?

Components of a good planner for individuals with persistent PCS/mTBI

Here’s what to look for in a new planner when you have persistent PCS/mTBI:

The Must-haves:

A) Monthly and weekly time views— with an easy way to go back and forth between these.

B) Space for appointments and to-do list items to appear on the same 2-page spread (or single-page spread) for the week.

C) A time grid in your weekly view.

D) A to-do list that: a) has enough space to write tasks down on each line; and b) is broken out into 2-4 categories with at least 10 spaces for items in at least 3 of the categories (or 15 spaces for 2 categories).

The Strongly Preferred-to-haves:

E) Next to the to-do list, on the left: spaces to write in numbers, words or other notations for prioritizing to-do list items. (Ideally, those spaces will be bubbles, squares, or mini-lines.)

F) 5-10 spaces to write down priority to-do’s and tasks for each day.

G) A place to jot down notes, without having to write them down in your schedule or on your to-do list.

The Other Nice-to-haves:

H) Dedicated space for reflection.

I) A place to do longer-term planning for yourself, if you so choose— such as 3-month planning, 6-month planning, or 12-month planning.

If you would like to see the rationales for these recommendations, click here to see the unabridged version of this post.

How to use your planner

So, how can you use your planner effectively in your PCS/mTBI recovery?

I propose a way to do just that in my post, Creating an Effective Organizational System When Recovering from Concussion/mTBI.

A Caveat: no planner is perfect… so adapt it to your needs

I have yet to find a planner that is the perfect one either for my clients or for myself. However, you can modify planners to suit your own needs. If your planner lacks a feature you’d like, then modify it to give it to yourself. If filling in every category of your planner feels overwhelming… then just don’t do it: it’s more important to use it imperfectly on a regular basis than it is to use it perfectly on an irregular basis.

As a coach, one of the things I really enjoy is partnering with each client to create their optimal organizing and planning system, according to how their mind works. If you’d like to explore doing that, click here.

I do have a list of top planners for individuals with persistent PCS/mTBI, as of early 2024. Click here to see it.