Ever have one of those days (or sprints … or quarters … or jobs ...) where work feels overwhelming and it’s impossible to keep track of everything you need to get done?

When things get hectic, daily planning can help. But if your team uses several tools to do work throughout the day, planning can often feel like an added layer of effort instead.

Rather than switch between dozens of tabs to track down what needs to get done, Range Check-ins help teams and individuals master daily planning in just a couple of clicks. With guided planning prompts and integrations that connect to the tools you use most, Check-ins bring focus to your day and help you create a clear plan of action every morning.

In this article, we’ll cover how to:

1. Customize your daily plan with prompts
2. Streamline your workflow with Range integrations
3. Keep it organized with tags

1. Customize your daily plan with prompts

Prompts give structure to the daily planning process. They make it lighter weight — it’s easy to share a plan each morning if you know exactly what to include — and more focused. It’s also easier for everyone on the team to adopt daily planning when there’s a little guidance.

Range comes with built-in prompts — they change each day and are meant to bring different things into focus at different times of the week. You’ll see the following prompts in your Check-ins throughout the week.

• Monday: #WeeklyFocus — What is your main focus for this week?
• Tuesday: [Blocked] — Are you blocked by anything today?
• Wednesday: #Gratitude — What's something or someone you are thankful for this week?
• Thursday: [FYI] — Is there anything your team needs to be aware of?
• Friday: [Celebrate] — What’s something to celebrate from this week?

You can also set custom prompts or create team-specific prompts depending on your daily planning needs.

To edit the existing prompts or add a custom one, go to Settings > Check-in schedules. Then select Default schedule and Customize Check-in prompts.

We recommend no more than two prompts per day to keep planning focused and lightweight.

2. Streamline your workflow with integrations

Range connects to your team’s project management tools, CRMs, and messaging and productivity apps to make it easy to plan your day without jumping between dozens of apps. You can pull in tasks from Asana, GitHub, Google Docs, and more to see an all-up view of everything you need to get done in one place.

To set up integrations go to Settings > Integrations and select the tools and apps you use. You can also connect tools directly from the side panel of your Check-in screen.

Once connected, you’ll start to see activity from those tools in your Check-in side panel. You might see a Google Doc you recently edited, a meeting that was added to your calendar, or a pull request you were assigned. You can drag and drop these suggested items into your Check-in to incorporate them into your daily plan. You’ll spend less time searching, copying, and pasting documents into status update emails and more time actually accomplishing the work you set out to do.

3. Keep it manageable and organized

To be most effective, your daily plan should be manageable and organized.

When it’s manageable, it’s easier to make progress and you’ll naturally feel more motivated to tackle the work. When it’s organized, you can see how projects were completed over time, assess blockers, and understand how day-to-day tasks ladder up to the bigger picture.

To create a manageable daily plan for yourself, try to break down bigger projects (e.g, Launching a new feature) into smaller tasks you can achieve in one day (e.g., Spec out the new feature).  If you’re not going to get to a task today, you can save it in the backlog for later so you’ll remember to come back to it.

To keep everything organized, you can also use #tags to group projects and workstreams. #Tags make it easy to track progress over time, reference things later on, and follow along with work that’s relevant to you. This can also help you see how the work in your daily plan ladders up to long-term goals and OKRs.

Try it out

When work gets too overwhelming, Range Check-ins can restore your sense of calm.

Check-ins make it easy to connect all your tasks in one place, set a clear plan for the day, and achieve what you set out to do. You’ll spend less time copy-pasting updates from tool to tool and more time actually accomplishing your goals.

To get started, head to My Check-in and use the prompts provided to set a plan for today. You can try connecting a few tools using the right-side panel on the same screen too.

You’ll be getting tasks done in no time, and planning will help you feel calmer and more in control of your day.