I decided that it was time to actually put a plan to my life. After a number of hours of searching the web trying to find that perfect application, I think I found something that will work well for putting together a life plan. I found this program called “Life Plan Writer”, which is currently at Version 5. Note, that no, I do not work for these people, I just thought I would write down my experience with their software.
Lately I’ve been thinking I want to know where I am now, and where I want to be in 5 years, along with my super cool girlfriend too. I wanted something a little more sophisticated than this software (multiple users, the ability to compare and contrast goals so we can plan things as a couple), but this software has the best bang for the buck and at 69$ USD, it’s pretty affordable.
So, here’s the story of aquiring the software, installing and using it.
First I went to the website and cliked on the buy link, and then I received an email about 10 minutes later (mostly due to my anal spam filtering comprised of amavais, clam, spamassassin, dspam, domainkeys, greylisting and rbl) that included a download link for the software. There wasn’t a KEY or anything included, so I assume this software either phones home, or is totally un-protected.
Being the cautious windows user I am, I’m running under a limited user account. After downloading the software, I went to my downloads directory and double clicked the executable. Then I accepted their license terms after briefly scanning over them.
Next, because I am a limited user, I changed the installation path to something I have permission to use. In my case I chose.
E:\Apps\LifePlan5
The program installed without any problems and I was presented with a nice little completed box, with the option to run the program now. I chose to run it.
I went through the software and input some basic values and then took a screenshot of all the dialogue boxes to see what we can do with this program. You’ll notice that we can export to outlook to import all our tasks and organize everything completely which is a nice bonus.
Well, As one can plainly see from all of the screenshots this program pretty much has anything anyone would want for managing their future plans for up to 5 years.
The one drawback, as I mentioned previously is no support for multiple users and combining plans as a “couple”. But other than that, I think considering all the math this thing does for you, and the pretty reports it generates it’s worth the 70$ if you’re serious about planning your life and where you want to go. I would recommend it for anyone interested in this type of personal development.