Want to Build Your Own Successful soap Biz?

The new year is right around the corner, and it’s that time of year again: highlighting my favorite productivity & planning picks for 2016!

This year, I found a planner that I think would be sheer perfection for most of the soapmakers I have worked with that gives lots of focus on the biz as well as normal planner tasks. But I know that picking a planner is super personal, so I rounded up a HUGE list of other planners, workbooks, and tools, too!

Here’s to hoping you find your match made in planning heaven!

This Year’s Top Planner Pick

Managing a biz and your personal life in one-go is hard, and this is the best planner I have ever found for small biz owners.

Paper & Prosper’s The Briefcase Business Planner* includes tons of biz savvy tools to help you build a better business, including:

• Budgeting
• Brand guidance
• Monthly objectives tracking
• Advertising schedules
• Social media schedules
• Social media growth tracking
• Goal planning + management
• Creative planning
• Priority task lists

And of course, it still has monthly and weekly planner spreads, areas for notes, tabs to navigate the planner effectively, and an area to review the year.

I love that it’s not hard-dated, and you can start using it whenever you want. Right now, the printed and bound version is sold out, but they’ve made a digital download available, too. I’m swooning over that, because then I can customize it even further for my biz.

*Update December 2017: Although The Briefcase Planner is no longer available, you can snag the latest (printable download) planner from its creator, Stacie Jensen, on her current website. Check out the video walk through here.

Other Planners & Workbooks

Every year, I come across even more planners I love, and narrowing it down to that special one is hard. If The Briefcase isn’t right for you, maybe one of these badass productivity & planning picks will help launch you into a successful and well-organized 2016:

• ActionDay’s Planners
• Briana Borten’s Rituals for Living Dreambook
• Lara Casey’s Powersheets
• inkWELL Press’ liveWELL Planner
• Plum Paper Planners
• Girlboss Planner
• Blissed Happiness Journal
• iBloom Planner
• ShePlans Planners
• Design Love Planner
• Leonie Dawson’s Shining Year Workbooks 
• Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map Planner
• Whitney English’s Day Designer
• Emily Ley’s Simplified Planner
• Savor the Success Daily Action Planner
• Erin Condren Life Planner 
• Passion Planner
• Daily Greatness Planners 
• Positively Present’s Every Day Matters Journal 
• Strange & Charmed Printable Pages
• Britney Garner’s Get Shit Done Printables
• Crossbow Printables Planner Pages & Notepads
• Mama CEO Planner
• Mandy Jean Printable Pages

What am I rocking in 2016?

I’m still largely sticking to the same system I used this last year!

This month, I’ve shimmied down with creating an Integrity Report a la James Clear. I love the focus on values and honestly reviewing how you are performing, and then setting yourself up to approach a higher standard.

I still use David Seah’s Emergent Task Planners on the daily, with a mix of ToDoist and Google Calendar. I keep myself limited to three tasks a day so I can focus, and (usually) get more done than that. When I don’t, I don’t feel like a crappy unproductive person anymore.

I use my Leuchtturm1917 Large Hard Cover Notebook (with dot ruling) as a modified form of a Bullet Journal. I have loved my teal Leuchtturm1917 to death, and highly recommend it for other Bullet Journal fanatics.

I’m pretty happy that I’ve found a system that works for me. I love that it can change when I need it to, instead of starring at empty planner pages for those times when I need to change it up!

Have you snagged a planner for 2016? Share which one in the comments below, inquiring minds want to know!