Tag: organization

Planner Talk Vol. 1

Even though 2020 is keeping me inside, I actually have several things to keep track of, so I got myself a planner. I’ve had a planner off and on for years, but actually haven’t really used one in the past year or so. My new one isn’t one of the popular ones – Erin Condren, Passion Planner, Hobonichi, or a bullet journal – it’s just a $17 planner from Target I got because I thought it was cute.

Beginning my blog again, owning a house, & trying to get more involved in the community means that I actually have things going on. We’re also trying to clear out the freezers (in case of hurricane power loss) through making dinners, so I’m planning menus out as well. I need a lot of space for lists, too, since that’s kind of my deal.

This is what I settled on. The entire week on one page, and I don’t know if you can see it well, but the days are set up in 3 columns with a very faint line between them. It’s an 8x11in planner, so there’s a lot of room to write. The other page is set up in convenient little boxes, but they also have titles which is annoying. I don’t love that.

I’m not a huge planner decorator, but the pineapple tape over the titles is a winner. I might even be a little extra next week and whiteout the titles as well. Living on the wild side. Anyway, I’m using the first column for personal stuff like days off, when Shane works, church, appointments, etc. Obviously, it’s a little sparse at the moment. Skipping around a bit, the third column is what blogs are being posted this week. Not sure why I put “write” in there.

The second column is housework. This is the first week I’m using this, so I’m not sure how the system will change over time. Every day I’ve put a room (or two) to tidy/clean, along with “laundry” every day. However, I won’t have laundry every day, it’s just to remind me to check to see if I do. Kitchen is cleaned daily. Saturdays/Sundays are for chores that will rotate. I haven’t decided what those will be this weekend. Cat duties means changing all the litter in the litter box, I clean it out every day.

That second page is super helpful for making lists. Things I need to do but not on a specific day, the week’s menu (well, the recipes that might get made this week), and I’m sure I’ll fill in the other parts.

I even like the habit tracker – I’ve been wanting to start morning & evening routines and it’s an easy way to track if I cleaned the kitchen every day.

I’m interested in how my system changes over time, or if I keep using the planner at all, so I’m going one of these Planner Talks every month. That’ll be cool, especially as more time goes by and I don’t have this planner anymore.

Sarah

Bullet Journal – 1 Month Update

I definitely bit off more than I could chew…again. It’s not super surprising, considering that’s kind of my thing, but I’ve changed it up for February so it should go a bit better.

What Worked

Almost nothing, honestly. That’s not entirely true – while I really only used one of the month-specific spreads (and only made a single weekly layout), I actually did use some of the longer-term Collections.

The monthly spread I did use was the Read/Watched spread that I used to make in my journal. It’s literally just a list of stuff I read and stuff I watched over the month. Books in the top, movies in the middle, and tv shows at the bottom.

January was a slow month in terms of things I needed to track, so the only spreads I really used were the lists of tv shows and movies to watch and the next books to read (aka a list of books I already own) to mark stuff off of.

The best use of my bullet journal was list making, which makes sense. It’s kind of soothing to write my lists in there, for whatever reason. I also looked at my Winter Bucket List and 2019 Resolutions spreads a few times as well.

What Didn’t

Roughly everything, obviously. Mostly the trackers, actually. I didn’t use my letter tracker or my library tracker at all and my Thankful For tracker and Spending Log fizzled out super quickly. Habit trackers didn’t catch on either. I have a planner, so the weekly spreads felt redundant – why am I redrawing something I already have?

I also had a rough month in real life, so that may have something to do with it. I know that’s why I didn’t do any meal planning in there, I didn’t eat in a way that made any sense for most of the month.

The Plan

So for February I’m going back to basics. I’m pretty much just going to do Read/Watch spread and weekly to-do lists without any daily separation. I’m also going to set up a meal planning spread, because that’s actually something I would really like to start doing.

Anyway, there’s the update. Hope your January went well!

~Sarah~

Bullet Journaling

I recently re-discovered Bullet Journaling {thanks YouTube!}. I’m not going to go into details about what Bullet Journaling is – I liked to the main BuJo source above, and there are some YouTube channels linked below if you’re interested. This time around I decided that I didn’t need to immediately jump into the whole situation, I really needed to learn a lot more about the whole thing. So I watched a billion YouTube videos from: AmandaRachLee, Sunshine & Stationery, Plant Based Bride, and so many more.

These ladies are so incredibly talented and I am amazed by them. I kind of wish I had held off on watching them, to be honest, because it’s hard to not feel insecure about my abilities. I cannot draw, letter, do faux calligraphy, draw a straight line even with a ruler, etc. so that’s not really something I can incorporate into my BuJo. I will forever watch their videos though – there’s something soothing about watching people create spreads.

The other downside to watching so many videos is wanting to start big, with all the spreads, trackers, collections, etc etc etc and that’s not sustainable when you’re just starting out. There are so many different custom Collections (which is what the spreads are called) out there, and I want to use all of them. ALL OF THEM. Not feasible, though. I’m not even sure about habit trackers – is it really reasonable to go from tracking literally nothing to tracking 10 habits, plus whatever else I want to keep track of {cleaning, exercise, etc}? I realize you can scale that down to just a few habits, but you get the point.

I started reading a book by the creator {founder?} of bullet journaling – Ryder Carroll – called The Bullet Journal Method {imaginative, eh?}. It’s a really good book if you’re looking into the whole bullet journal thing. He talks a lot about why he created the method and why. I identify with a lot of what he writes. It’s very much like a lot of other ‘how to improve your life’ books in that it’s advertised as a cure all – this method will not just change your life, it will fix your life. It’s different in that he freely admits that you can take or leave whatever you need; the entire method is not necessary for it to fix your life.

I have hopes for the system – I’m scheming and plotting and planning for 2019 and this is going to be a part of all that. I spent a lot of 2018 apologizing for letting things drop, and I’m hoping that this can help me out with that. I’ll talk more about 2019 in a blog post later this month. You can see my bullet journal Pinterest board if you’re interested. It’s mostly cleaning trackers and meal planning spreads, though.

~Sarah~