A Better Alternative to Action Planning in Excel

Årshjul i Excel? Her er et bedre alternativ til årshjul i Excel. Det digitale årshjul fra plandisc.

Choosing Your Planning Tool: Is Excel Last Year?

What is it that makes us capable of achieving goals in our professional lives? What brings a sense of calm but also cranks up the productivity and happiness? You guessed it! A clear plan. What are the best alternatives to Excel?

In today’s increasingly busy times, the demand for structuring our work and meetings is growing.

Action plans and annual plans are being shared extensively. Excel sheets are being created and copied continuously on a daily basis. Today, where we have less time and place higher demands – not only in the private sector with KPI, OKR and Compliance but also in the public sector with quality assurance – we should ask ourselves whether the planning procedures support these wishes.

Luckily, even though these concepts sound heavy, it doesn’t require a lot of effort to provide transparency, efficient coordination and synchronization.

The interest in structure is, without a doubt, growing. The search volume for action planning and related search terms has never been higher than right now. The interest is wide-ranging where everything from Business Managers to School Administrators wish better insights into plans across the organization or the institution.

A plandisc can provide you with the necessary overview and transparency and visualises the year or a given time period as a cycle. Action plans and annual plans come in many shapes. Some try their luck with creating Excel sheets and others draw an annual structure on a board. Others download templates and show them in PowerPoint.

However, many tools aren’t flexible enough, and you end up with a plan that is neither executable nor easy to maintain.

Excel is brilliant for accounts... not action planning

Microsoft Excel is by far the best option when it comes to your accounting. But as for action planning and annual planning, it would appear static, and the time spent on creating and maintaining could be used more effectively. Sure, we have all done some planning in Excel, and to some extent, it is possible to provide a simple overview. But if you are looking to create THE plan that is supposed to visualize the overall strategic direction and at the same time provide insight into daily activities, then rows and columns aren’t the way forward.

It requires a high level of patience to provide transparency with hundreds of activities that appear in documents with a multitude of tabs. And then, we beat our heads against the wall when we try to grasp our heads around the smartest way to share and work with reminders.

It is due Thursday... right?

If you are using the wrong tools for planning, you’ll lose the motivation for planning at some point, and people would argue that they don’t have time to understand the structure that has been made. Maybe you end up hearing the question from a colleague: “It wasn’t until Thursday, was it?” or even worse you hear your boss saying: “Did you remember adjust the details both in your own plan and in the plan you sent to Andrew.. and send out mails about the changes?”.

On the other hand, if you find the right solution, you avoid having to make changes multiple places, and you avoid the static plan that’s difficult to tailor. In reality, you would want to be able to make changes to an event or meeting and have the changes visible across platforms.

Filter funktion i Plandisc årshjulet. Fra Excel årshjul til interaktivt årshjul. Til smartere planlægning.

What is it that makes us capable of achieving goals in our professional lives? What brings a sense of calm but also cranks up the productivity and happiness? You guessed it! A clear plan. What are the best alternatives to Excel?

In today’s increasingly busy times, the demand for structuring our work and meetings is growing.

Action plans and annual plans are being shared extensively. Excel sheets are being created and copied continuously on a daily basis. Today, where we have less time and place higher demands – not only in the private sector with KPI, OKR and Compliance but also in the public sector with quality assurance – we should ask ourselves whether the planning procedures support these wishes.

Luckily, even though these concepts sound heavy, it doesn’t require a lot of effort to provide transparency, efficient coordination and synchronization.

The interest in structure is, without a doubt, growing. The search volume for action planning and related search terms has never been higher than right now. The interest is wide-ranging where everything from Business Managers to School Administrators wish better insights into plans across the organization or the institution.

A plandisc can provide you with the necessary overview and transparency and visualises the year or a given time period as a cycle. Action plans and annual plans come in many shapes. Some try their luck with creating Excel sheets and others draw an annual structure on a board. Others download templates and show them in PowerPoint.

However, many tools aren’t flexible enough, and you end up with a plan that is neither executable nor easy to maintain.

Excel is brilliant for accounts... not action planning

Microsoft Excel is by far the best option when it comes to your accounting. But as for action planning and annual planning, it would appear static, and the time spent on creating and maintaining could be used more effectively. Sure, we have all done some planning in Excel, and to some extent, it is possible to provide a simple overview. But if you are looking to create THE plan that is supposed to visualize the overall strategic direction and at the same time provide insight into daily activities, then rows and columns aren’t the way forward.

It requires a high level of patience to provide transparency with hundreds of activities that appear in documents with a multitude of tabs. And then, we beat our heads against the wall when we try to grasp our heads around the smartest way to share and work with reminders.

It is due Thursday... right?

If you are using the wrong tools for planning, you’ll lose the motivation for planning at some point, and people would argue that they don’t have time to understand the structure that has been made. Maybe you end up hearing the question from a colleague: “It wasn’t due until Thursday, was it?” or even worse you hear your boss saying: “Did you remember to adjust the details both in your own plan and in the plan you sent to Andrew.. and send out mails about the changes?”

Do you, on the other hand, find the right solution, you avoid having to make changes multiple places, and you avoid the static plan which can’t be easily tailored. In practice, you would want to be able to quickly move an activity or meeting back and as a result changes should appear across platforms.

Filter funktion i Plandisc årshjulet. Fra Excel årshjul til interaktivt årshjul. Til smartere planlægning. årshjul

A free trial of plandisc will put you "on a roll"

A plandisc is a planning tool that provides the flexibility needed to create a plan that suits your specific need. At the same time, it is possible to ease the planning process by using a template.

An overall challenge in planning is to make a comprehensive structure when tasks and meetings keep ticking in. For that reason, plandisc is developed to visualize plans from different areas of work and categorizing activities in the so-called calendar rings.

Do you have ambitions that aim for the moon? Then make your plans easier to execute by mapping your activities in a plandisc. We call it “mapping you rhythm of business”.
As a results, it is easier to get a clear overview of busy periods as well as slots in your plan where you can initiate new exciting projects.

Users of Plandisc has tripled the last three years. This, of course, is partly a result of an increasing interest in structure and productivity.

The interest in Plandisc is also connected to the option in Plandisc to have a plan that is easily accessible, that shows plans at a glance, and when changed notifies the people involved.

In a time where we are more ambitious and where we try to avoid double work, Plandisc offers a flexible tool that can be synchronized with relevant tools. You can already share plans between your plandisc and Microsoft Outlook, Teams and Planner. We believe that Plandisc can bring more joy into planning, while paving the way for future success.

A free trial of plandisc will put you "on a roll"

A plandisc is a planning tool that provides the flexibility needed to create a plan that suits your specific need. At the same time, it is possible to ease the planning process by using a template.

An overall challenge in planning is to make a comprehensive structure when tasks and meetings keep ticking in. For that reason, plandisc is developed to visualize plans from different areas of work and categorizing activities in the so-called calendar rings.

Do you have ambitions that aim for the moon? Then make your plans easier to execute by mapping your activities in a plandisc. We call it “mapping you rhythm of business”.
As a results, it is easier to get a clear overview of busy periods as well as slots in your plan where you can initiate new exciting projects.

Users of Plandisc has tripled the last three years. This, of course, is partly a result of an increasing interest in structure and productivity.

the interest in Plandisc is also connected to the option in Plandisc to have a plan that is easily accessible, that shows plans at a glance, and when changed notifies involved people about it.

In a time where we are more ambitious and where we try to avoid double work, Plandisc offers a flexible tool that can be synchronized with relevant tools. You can already share plans between your plandisc and Microsoft Outlook, Teams and Planner. We believe that Plandisc can bring more joy into planning, while paving the way for future success.

Haven’t you tried Plandisc yet?

plandisc free trial