Ahhh.

Though it is Monday, the beginning of the week, I am excited. One, because this is Week 4 in my 5 Week Series covering Franklin Covey's life-changing products.

And two, it's President's Day in the States and Family Day in Canada, so almost everyone is off and able to enjoy a short work week.

Woo woo!

Read Week 1 - Her Point of View Planners and Binders

Read Week 2 - The Chantel Dome Laptop Bag

Read Week 3 - Jean Chatzky's Making Money Make Sense Planner

So since you've got the day off and all, maybe you want to consider a new way to organize yourself, to get on top of everything. And it was Chinese/Korean/Tibetan New Year yesterday, so you can always use that as an excuse to start anew.

Of course you certainly don't need an excuse to get started, but sometimes this can help move you along.

I am loving PlanPlus for Windows (you can also get it PlanPlus for Outlook and PlanPlus for Online). It uses all of Franklin Covey's planning principles, but it's all on your computer where you are all the time anyway. It's right at your fingertips and you can change things easily and conveniently, all without having to write a single thing down on paper.

Maybe you can have a paperless office after all!

The new version offers compatibility with the new Windows Vista and Windows XP operating systems and includes a new Gadget for the Vista Desktop.

I love that you can be super detailed with this system, all with the click of a button. You can easily add a check mark to denote a task has been completed or a big blue dot to indicate that it's been delegated.

No need to switch markers or highlighters - just click and it's recorded!

And that's what fantastic about this system - there's no need to carrying around bulging binders with everything that you might need. It's a complete planner that includes your schedule, project information, meeting notes, contacts, tasks, goals and well, the whole shebang. And that's the true genius of PlanPlus - once you're in the system, you can stay there and really organize and plan instead of having to go into your calendar and then get out and go to one program on your computer for one thing and then have to go to something else...

It's the way it should be. It's the way to really succeed, I think.

The layout is unbelievably intuitive. Coloured tabs along the top allow you quick and easy access to your Calendar, Contacts, Missions/Values, Goals, Weekly Planning and notes (and you can customize these with your own wording and needs, which makes it completely yours and yours alone).

It is incredibly nicely done, which is important, because you know that if it looked like most other software calendar programs, you'd never use it. Those clunky things are why online planners never took off, I think. They weren't beauties like PlanPlus.

The main page is divided into 3 sections - Daily/Master Tasks, Your Day's (or Week's, Month's) Schedule and a huge place for Notes - so you can plan out what you want to do, when you're going to do it and then capture notes along the way.

Brilliant.

And get this - every time you open the program, the first thing you see is the current date with your calendar in the view of your choice. No having to click on anything, just boom - here's your day so far.

Ahh, that's how it should be, shouldn't it?

Franklin Covey also makes it so that you can customize how it looks, which is incredibly important. I mean, you want it to be pretty, right?

If you use a tablet as my fella does, you can take notes with your digital pen and organize them into the projects and/or categories of your choice. I've never seen another planning software offer that before. And whatever notes, PowerPoint presentations, etc., you need to support your projects and work, you can organize it all right here, instead of having to wander around your Word documents looking for them. They are all indexed for you so you can retrieve them in a single swoop.

Do you know how much time this will save?!

And the new gadget for Vista comes with a Tasks List Gadget that allows you to manage your tasks right from your desktop so that if you're updating your blog, emailing your colleagues and doing whatever else on your computer, you can still keep on top of everything without having to open the program itself.

And lemme tell you, this task list is phenomenal. You can organize things by priority (why is this so much easier on the computer than on paper?), mark all your tasks with completed, delegated, etc., as well as auto-forward unfinished tasks (unlike with paper planners where you have to write it over and over again) and attach notes to specific tasks (this is the way you'll get your books back after you've loaned them out).

Taking it to another level, PlanPlus gives you a place to list both your Daily Tasks and Master Tasks. This means that you can you actually follow through with your daily tasks, as they come with both a start and end date that is displayed on each day they are scheduled. And Master Tasks are easily tracked so nothing fall off your list, unlike all those systems you've been using up until now.

And two last revolutionary things that will have you jumping up and down, as I did, when I found out:

1. You never have to press "save," which means you can work away and then walk away when you need to.

2. Nothing is shipped to you. You print your order confirmation to obtain the unlock key. It's all on your computer in a matter of minutes.

No shipping, no handling, no hassle.

Holy !@#?!

All this for under $80? What are you waiting for?

Get PlanPlus for Windows and get organized for once and for all!