More on Organizing

I love lists - to do lists, what I need to pack lists, don't forget lists, grocery lists... you name it! Last year my mom gave me a lovely planner by Dianna Overholt called Guiding the House. I loved it!

There were just a few problems with it. 1) It only lasted one year and, if you will recall, I don't like to spend money :) 2) I used less than half of it. There were about two or three sections that I really loved, the rest wasn't really that useful to me.

So, at the beginning of 2014, I took a $.15 notebook from our school supply stash and made it my "planner"! My favorite part of the boughten planner was the section marked Days. Each page had the date for the week at the top: April 7-13. Then the page was divided into 7 spaces with the day of the week and the date in each space. At the bottom was some extra space for misc things.

I decided I could take a notebook and make my own pages like that! I like to jot down things in the spaces on dates that I know ahead of time and need to remember. Every morning (or the evening before) I like to make a list of things I'd like to get done that day. I might jot down a note on the weather, just for interest, or something interesting that happened. At the bottom, in the misc space, I might list some things that should get done in the week.

I don't strictly abide by my lists, but it helps me to be motivated if I at least jot down a list! I'll be honest, sometimes I write things down after I do them just so I can cross them off :) Another reason I like it is because I write a weekly email to family and it's so much easier to write if I can glance back and see what we did each day! I also used tape to make tabs in the back of my notebook for 2 smaller sections for Things To Remember and Misc. These make great places to jot down ideas for birthday gifts, lists of who I sent Christmas cards to last year, recipes to try...you name it! It's nice to have one place to go to look for "that thing I wrote down the other day"!

My notebook is already looking raggedy, instead of sleek and clean like the boughten planner, and I didn't count to see if I'll have enough pages for the whole year, but I like it. If it falls apart or I run out of pages, what's another $.15 for another one? ;)