Organize Your Year: Schedule Planning

In conclusion to my Organize Your Year Series, what would it be without a new planner? My mom and I are cut from the same cloth and she told me that she always loved to get a new planner for the year. It's all fresh and clean and ready to be tackled with new to-dos and plans. It's true, there is nothing like organizing your planner and getting it ready to fit to you. No matter what kind of planner you use, the only way it will work for you is if you use it! 

If you're like me, you have started many a planner at the beginning of the year and failed to continue it through the year. Over Thanksgiving, I was talking to some of my relatives and one woman was teasing another woman about how her van was broken into and everything was stolen. The one thing she was worried about? Her planner. She explained that her whole life was in it, if she didn't have her planner, things did not flow smoothly. After the teasing was over, I asked her how she made it all work and she said, "That's simple! It goes with me, everywhere!" and she pulled it out. 

I contemplated this idea and I decided to adopt it and began to take my planner everywhere with me. In my purse, in the car, to the doctor's office, even to church. And guess what! My mind is much more at ease! HUH? 

I know! I wasn't expecting that bi-product either! When I am able to immediately write down an appointment or a to-do, it doesn't have to swim around IN MY MIND until I get it done, it waits until the day it is written on! I purchased "The Time Keeper: Finding Joy in a Well-Kept Life" planner and I love it! It functions the way my mind works and it got me excited about the lists, the to-do lists for: the year, the month, the week, and the day! Not to mention the other places to put lists like clothing sizes, books I want to read, items I want to look for at thrift stores, ideas for birthday gifts and Christmas gifts that occur to me throughout the year, you name it! On our five-hour trip to Iowa for Christmas, my hubbie said, "We should make a list of mini vacations that we can do throughout the year!" And boom, pulled out the planner and made a list as we thought of them! Here are my guidelines for my planner that I know will help plan out the year and make my mind more at ease and a less-stressful year! 

• Bring my planner with me EVERYWHERE - just like my cell phone, if my cell goes, the planner goes! 
• Write everything in pencil - God's plans are not the same as my plans, therefore HE is the only one that can write in ink! 
• Call and make appointments in BULK - well child appointments, dentist appointments, eye doctor appointments, WHATEVER! 
• Whenever I commit to doing something, it gets written down in the planner, or I don't commit to doing it. This is a hard thing for me, because I don't like to say no to people, but if I don't have my planner and if I cannot commit to a time and a place in my schedule, I should not commit to it. 

That's it! These are my rules and I'm still working on carrying them out but this is my plan of attack for the year and we will see how it goes. 

Do you have any tips or tricks or lists that help you organize your year? Share them! I would love to hear them!

In HIS Grip,