Planning in 2022

Well, it’s a new year and even though I am trying not to plan too much, there is still a lot going on and I still need to have a planner of some sort. Going along with my new “be flexible” lifestyle (ha- that’s a bit of a joke) I decided to once again dip my toes in the bullet journaling world. 

Here’s the thing, my ideal planner would have a spot to sort of time block my day in a visual sense, but also a separate section for a bit of a rolling to do list. I want to have the space to write out what I actually need to accomplish, but also be able to visualize how I’m spending my day in a time sense. All of that in a weekly view spread. Every planner that I was finding then involved me needing a separate notebook for the to-do list/meeting notes, and then a separate journal space, and a separate reading space. That was just not something that I wanted. Less is best, right? So, I decided to go back into the bullet journaling world to see if I could find a way to make it work. 

The biggest change this year with the bullet journaling is twofold. The first is that I’m using stencils. The biggest turn off or reason I stopped in previous years is it IS a lot of work and most of the time, I prefer to read a book or do something other. I’m not NOT crafty, but it’s also not something that I really focus on. So, I ordered a pack of stencils to kind of cut my time spent setting up my planner in half. 

The second change I made is in how I set it up. A) all of my months are preset at the beginning of the bullet journal. I needed to be able to see all 12 months at one time, with school/appointments/breaks there is just too much going on for me not to be able to see several months pre outlined. I typically am planning and booking stuff almost a month out, so this was a necessary. I wanted to be able to see my month, but then customize my week as it happened. B) I don’t have a monthly view within each month. Since I did the full calendar year in the first 24 pages of the bullet journal (a month on two pages), I don’t feel the need to then duplicate the work each month. This actually cuts a lot of my “bullet journal work” time in half. Each month has a reading spread and a tracking spread prior to the actually weekly spreads. That’s it. One page to track my movement, mood, and journaling, and one page to track all the book things (I’m tracking both reading and purchasing this year). Then I have my weekly spread, with notes and meeting information as necessary. 

I have found that, so far, a few months in, this has really been working for me. I’ve always said that I want everything to be in one place. That’s something I’ve always liked about Bullet Journaling- it’s really one notebook that can encompass everything you need. I’m hopeful that this will actually work out for me this year and give me both the structure and flexibility I think that 2022 is going to need. 

And that’s the planner for 2022! I’ll do another check in with it about halfway through the year (this is what I tend to do when I do bullet journaling) and we’ll see where it’s at at that point. 

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Plan With Me – May 2019

May is upon us and with it Spring is coming. We’ve got some mighty travel plans in May, I’ve got a short readathon, and with the weather changing we are planning a couple of outdoor adventures. Since the month is turning out to be a busy one, and since my planning style has ever so slightly changed, I figured I would do a little Plan With Me.

I’ve talked about my own personal planning style before which is using a physical planner. I prefer to be able to write things out and see them in a physical format in front of me, rather than using an electronic calendar or notebook.

I always find it fun to see how others plan out their time, be it monthly or daily, and I find it gives me new ideas to apply to my own planning. The last time I did a planning post, I was using the Day Designer planner that had a monthly and daily layout. I still really like the Day Designer as a system, but I wanted something a little more “freestyle” for my planning. Somewhere that I could just write notes throughout the day without lines and such.

I did a little searching and found the Hobonichi planners. This is a Japanese company and they offer many different styles. The style that I used is the Hobonichi cousin and I have two notebooks, one for January to June and the second from July to December. I like that this planning system is similar to bullet journaling, but I don’t have to fill out any monthly/weekly/daily options.

So, on to my current planning set up…

Here’s the monthly view:

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Within the month I use colored highlighters (Mildliner) to highlight my posting schedule. I use Blue for A Cuppa Cosy and Orange for my other blog, The Cosy Book Shoppe. Then I use various highlighters to indicate when my husband is off of work or will be gone, or if we are planning an adventure. I like the highlighter look as it gives it a bit of a “cleaner” look to my monthly layout. As someone who wants to quickly look at a month and see what is going on on a specific day within seconds, the highlighters have been a lifesaver. Within the highlighted line I will write in black pen (Pentel EnerGel Needle Tip – .3) what specifically the post, or the trip, or the notation is. Below that I’ll write any appts, important dates, or things to note. I use the sidebar to track my reading through the month, and the bottom sections to track travel and spending.

This planner does come with a weekly outlook, which I like to use for meal planning and as a good breakdown for our week. I mark out my days and times and track my walking and daily reading. This gives me a good chance to look at my week, see where my time is going, and fit in any adventures we want to take during the week. I continue my color coordination in my weekly layout as well using the Pigma Micron Pens.

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Then we get to the day layout. This is a day on one page and has a spot for a time breakdown, a small to do list, and a large area to write on. I do a time breakdown, a water/tea tracker, I extend the to do list a couple more boxes, and use the free space to mind map/brain dump throughout my day. I’ve included a glimpse at some of the past days that give a pretty good look at these spaces. Some days are filled up, others are still pretty empty. I don’t always need to use the daily page and some days I’ll use it as a memory device to remind myself of what we did for a later journal entry or blog post (this is very typical when we travel long weekends).

So, that is my planning set up currently! I’ve been really enjoying the Hobonichi and I think it is what I’ll continue on with for the rest of this year and maybe even next year. Do you use a paper planner? How do you plan?

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Planning and Writing in 2019

I’ve said it time and time before, I’m a paper and pen kinda girl. I really enjoy having a paper planner as well as a journal to write in. I feel much more “together” when I can physically write out exactly what I need to do, how I’m feeling, and future plans.

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This year I am, once again, using a Day Designer planner. These can get a bit pricey for a planner, but so far they are the only planner that I’ve found that has everything that I like. I’ve got a monthly overview, as well as daily sheets that are half page time, half page to do list. It was absolutely perfect last year and I have a feeling it will be this year as well. I like to see where my time is being spent and to kind of “plot” my days out in bits of time, so having both is a major help.

The only difference from last year to this year in terms of planning is the size. I am going down from the bigger flagship to the slightly smaller version of the flagship. I do not think I am going to need as much room this year, as I’m only blogging, homemaking and “wife-ing”/parenting (and traveling!) this year. I am not balancing a job along with everything else.

As far as journaling goes, I am doing something fun! I’ve decided to switch things up from last year. My big thing last year was to cut down on notebooks. I didn’t want to have everything spread across a million different notebooks and journals, but rather one central location for everything. It didn’t work out well for me. It’s hard to track everything in one notebook when you are doing such a variety of things and I found myself doing it less and less as the year went on. I found that if I had made notes about a blog post I wanted to write it was really annoying to have to wade past random things to find the one note I made who knows when.

So, this year I am going to go back to how it was. I am going to have my planner, and then a couple different notebooks. I’ve got one for reading and my book notes (which then comes into play for my book blog), I’ve got one for blogging (different topics, rough outlines, overall thoughts and goals), and then an actual journal. I want to try and lump everything that doesn’t fall into the book or blogging sphere into my actual journal, whether that be ideas for stories or personal entries. I don’t want to go back a few years ago when I literally had about 10 different notebooks I was using- that was a little too much. It sounds complicated, and it may be a little over complicated, I’ll find out as the year goes on. I’ve got a couple journals lined up for the first few months of the year and then I’ll purchase as needed. I plan on doing a lot more writing this year than I have in the past.

So that is my set up for 2019! Are you a pen and paper person or do you plan/write digitally?

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Time Management : My Daily Breakdown

I’ve been talking about Time Management for a couple of posts now and wanted to give an example of how I apply what I’ve been talking about to my own days/weeks/months. It may seem complicated, but it actually isn’t. I just treat most of my tasks as “jobs” that I have to complete everyday. I also do have a part time job that I work the same hours for everyday. I find that I need to have a bit of structure to my days as I work from home and so this is what I do.

To start with: I use a paper planner (insert gasp here). If you’ve been following along this past year, you will know that I am a pen and paper kinda girl and prefer to write things down. It’s a kink in my brain that I just remember and feel more organized when I can write something out. I personally use and love the Day Designer planner system. There is a spot for me to mark out my time during the day, along with a daily to do list, top three priority list, and a couple other little boxes. I’ve got the perfect amount of room. I’ve used the Flagship for 2018 and loved it, although I am thinking about getting a mini for 2019.

The first thing I do is write down my to do list. I color code everything based on what it is for. Each color represents something different, household chores, appts, blog, business, work, etc. I put EVERYTHING on my to do list. Not because I need reminded of it, not because I want to feel “busier” than I am, but simply for the satisfaction of having checked it off. I won’t forget to dust the Living room on Tuesday by any means, but I like to keep track of everything that I am doing. It’s also key when you are first trying to develop a habit, or get back into a habit. I will also mark down in the notes section when a package is supposed to be delivered as our post people don’t ring the doorbell when they deliver…we’ve had packages just sit in the rain all afternoon because of this.

The next thing I’ll do is block out my times every day. I may be a little crazy about my time, but my days are usually planned to a T. I work weekdays in the afternoon for my job, so my mornings are spent with my children, writing, doing household chores, at appointments, whatever else. I’ll notate if I have a blog post or video going up that day, what time it will be at, as well as any appointments. This gives me a pretty good sign of what my actual day is going to look like and helps me narrow down my top three.

The final step is determining what my “Top Three” are for the day. I don’t always do this, but if I’ve got a lot going on, and am not sure if I will realistically get to everything on my to do list, I”ll mark down what I think I need to prioritize. Some days my to-do list becomes a list of other things (such as future posts I want to do, different things to order), things that don’t need to necessarily need to be handled that day, but that I want to remember for a future day. So, having the Top 3 can focus my mind when I do get a chance to work on items.

Once those three steps are complete I’ll briefly look at my day again and mentally block times out to accomplish what I need to accomplish. For example, I typically write my blog posts mid morning (like 10ish), while drinking my second cup, so I’ll try and make sure any cleaning I need to do is done between breakfast and mid morning. Since I work all afternoon on weekdays, any top 3 items that are non work related have to be done before 1pm and I’ll take that into account (as I don’t necessarily write everyday).

Most days I am able to cross everything off my to do list by using this system and most days I feel really productive! Of course, there are days that it doesn’t happen. I am living life and some days we just chuck the to do list and play all morning instead or I’ll spend a morning reading. That is ok and because of my time management, I know that I can make up anything missed on another day.

How do you do your Time Management? Do you have any tips or tricks?

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Real Talk : Time Management

Earlier in the month I said that you do not have to be a morning person to be successful, you just have to be good at Time Management. I stand by that statement and today we are going to jump into a brief (ish) rundown of Time Management. If you think, “Mia, the year is almost over, why are we just now talking about this?”. Well, a)it’s never a bad time to start something new, and b)if you are wanting to feel more organized or productive in the new year, this is the perfect time/place to start.

Time Management is not some crazy, complicated, scary concept. It is just simply knowing how best to use your time. Knowing when you work the best and how to use that knowledge to your advantage. You don’t have to go any further than that. In fact, I’ll bet that you already do some sort of time management already and don’t even realize it.

Do you know that you write best in the morning, therefore spending your morning responding to emails, writing posts, or writing in your journal? Do you know that your brain functions better in the afternoon/late evening, therefore spending your morning doing the more aimless tasks (cleaning, laundry, etc) and then concentrating on work related items in the morning? That’s basic Time Management. Not so complicated, huh?

Time Management can also be taken a step further by setting limits on things that you need to accomplish for the day. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds and it is actually what I do for my weekdays to ensure that I can accomplish everything that I want to throughout the day without feeling overwhelmed, overworked, or like I’m spinning my wheels and going no where.  I usually set a limit, for example respond to emails/write posts for an hour and a half mid morning. This allows me to have a set time limit, gives my brain a chance to focus on what I am doing, and I find that I get quite a bit done in this time period.

I’ll give a brief run down of what I do in a separate post (stay tuned!) but first I want to touch on the easiest, simplest form of this and how you can apply it to whatever you are doing, from being a stay at home mom to the workplace.

There are two key ingredients to Time Management, the first is what we’ve already talked about. Knowing when your brain functions the best. Morning or Afternoon, it doesn’t matter. If you know when you feel at your best, then you can work around everything else.

If you are someone who just works better in the afternoon, that is fine! You’ll simply want to adjust your task list to be a little afternoon heavier, focusing the items that will take the most of your attention to the afternoon, rather than the morning. If you are someone who is bright eyed and bushy tailed first thing in the morning, then you’ll want to put any tasks that will take a good amount of your focus to the morning.

The second key ingredient to Time Management is going to be your priorities. Knowing what is at the top of your list on each day is key to success. I’ve talked about Priorities HERE. Within those priorities, you’ll want to have a general idea of what is going to take the longest, what will be the hardest, and what will require the most of your attention and focus. You’ll want to look at your first ingredient, when you work best, and lay out your priorities for that time.

If you work a 9-5 job, in an office, you may not be able to re arrange things completely (for example if you are a Night Owl, that probably will not work with your job), but you can still apply the same principles to allow yourself the most success in getting everything done.

If you are a Stay at Home Parent, you can still apply the principles of Time Management to your every day tasks and chores. Spending your “most productive” hours starting any tasks that need handled and playing/being with your children.

For example, let’s say you have a to do list of 5 items, 3 of them involve your immediate attention (aka due today or tomorrow) and 2 will take a good amount of focus and time. Those 3 assignments are your priorities and the 2 that will take the most focus and time are the ones that you will want to do when you are at the height of your brain function.

Not so complicated huh? Time Management at it’s simplest is just laying out what you need to do, figuring out when you work best, and then implementing both of those items together.

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What If You’re Not A Morning Person

You hear it all the time, the most productive people are morning people. You will succeed in life if you are a morning person. Get up earlier, get more done. If you’re not a morning person, here is how to become a morning person (oh Hi- I’m guilty of doing that one too, here’s my post if you want to read it).

I’ve been guilty of being that person too. I PERSONALLY feel that I get more done, feel more together, and just feel better, when I get up early and have an earlier start to my day. Part of this comes from having two very young children, close together in age, that are always exploring and needing attention. Once they are up, and until they go down for naps, most of my attention is on them. I also work and run two blogs, so this means if I want to workout, do my hair and makeup, etc, I have to be up before them doing that. I have found that FOR ME this are essential to my overall well being.

Here’s the thing though, in all of our hurriedness to get everything done, get to the top of the chain the fastest, and to be viewed as a success, we have forgotten that we are not all the same. We are not the same person, we do not share the same interests, we do not work the same way, we do not all thrive under the same instances.

So, I am here to tell you to forget everything that I have ever said about being a morning person. Actually, if we want to be a Morning Person (because you want to try it, or feel like you would be better getting up earlier), then go back and read that blog post and give it a shot. Don’t feel like you have to though because, honestly being a morning person is not a necessity to being successful. Let me repeat: BEING A MORNING PERSON IS NOT A NECESSITY TO BEING SUCCESSFUL.

 Did you catch that? Maybe go re read it? Got it? Ok. Now, let’s talk about what is a necessity to being successful. TIME MANAGEMENT. If you know how to use your time properly and appropriately to be at your most productive, it doesn’t matter what time you get up or what time you go to bed. Time Management is your best friend. It is what allows you to be productive, to feel like you’ve got your “life together” and what allows you to be successful in what you are doing.

I’ve touched on Time Management before…kind of. I don’t have a full post devoted just to Time Management (but stay tuned, it’s coming!), but I’ve talked about Routines (HERE), Priorities and Prioritizing (HERE), as well as my own planning (HERE). However, that being said, I do have a post coming this next month talking all about Time Management and putting my thoughts from those three separate posts into one easy post for you!

 

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Hitting a Road Block

Like any other person, I have my moments. I have my days, sometimes even my weeks. No one’s life is always perfect and I DO NOT want to even begin to portray that. I have always said that the biggest thing that I strive for (in all aspects of my life) is honesty. Always authentic and always 100% honest in what I share. This is my real life and when I have a hard time I don’t want to sugarcoat that or fake those very real bits of life. Sharing those moments is hard, but I feel like it is so so important so that we don’t get caught up in the wave that can be portrayed everywhere you look of perfection.

Life is a roller coaster ride. Some points are really low. Sometimes you have quite a hill to climb to get out of those low moments. This past week was that low point. 

I am a person who thrives on organization almost across the board (fun fact, the only exception to this is when we go on vacation). I can “go with the flow” at times, but mostly I thrive on having a general/rough outline of what is going on. I thrive on writing down my to do list every morning and checking off each thing as I go along. I thrive when I have a plan of action and when I can move forward with that plan of action. It is something that can be such a positive and something that I have really worked to my benefit over my life. 

Now, you may be wondering how this can be a downfall. Being organized, able to create a plan of action and get s*** done is a positive, right?

Not always.

For me, I struggle when I get a wrench thrown into things. When my rough outline of a day gets messed up due to whatever happened. And sometimes, that wrench that can really just mess with my head. Depending on what happens and how much it effects (what I have in my head as) my rough outline will depend on what my reaction level is. 

This is so hard for me to admit because I work really hard to balance so many different things in my life. To balance them perfectly so that every part of my life, and myself, gets what it needs. I’ve touched before about how hard, almost impossible, it is and how at some points things are going to go to the wayside. I didn’t take my own advice this past week to just let one thing go so I could be successful all around. 

So, what happened to make this a low point? It almost seemed like just everything was set against the week. Computer issues, Internet issues, getting caught up after a vacation, getting sick, and then the kids getting sick. I think around Wednesday, my positive attitude started really slipping and then by Thursday it was completely gone. I had pretty much given up on the week come Thursday afternoon. 

Giving up that positive attitude and that attempt to get all the things handled may have been a really hard decision (for me personally), but it is what saved my weekend. I wallowed and just sat in that misery for all of Thursday. Sometimes that is exactly what is needed in order to get to the climb to get out of the low point. And honestly, I did feel a little bit better when Friday morning came around. 

I took the weekend to just relax and just be in the moment. Since I had “given up” on the week, I took all that extra time to snuggle with the kids, obsess over the Royal Wedding (although I was going to that regardless), and just enjoy the sensation of “letting go”. To remember the advice that I’ve said time and time again about taking time to not have to do everything. 

I’ve learned some hard lessons this past week. I’ve had some lessons re affirmed, some new lessons learned, and have just had a chance to remember what I really want from my everyday.

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The Great Clean: Spring Cleaning Part 2

On Monday we talked about the first process of spring cleaning, purging. Out with the old, the unused, the pushed aside. Before new things can come into a space and a big part of spring cleaning is the actual cleaning. This isn’t necessarily just for spring cleaning, anytime I purge any amount of items, I always like to follow it up with a thorough deep cleaning. It just really helps me set that fresh light feeling.

For me, any cleaning ALWAYS starts in my kitchen. This whole space is the hub of our home and, when combined with our Living Room, is the spot where we spend the most amount of time. If I have a clean kitchen, I feel like the world is set right. I typically like to work in a top to bottom, forward to backyard type process and for normal cleaning I go room by room. I complete all of the cleaning tasks for each room before moving on.

The biggest tip I can give when it comes to doing a deep spring cleaning is to break your work down. Determine what are all the tasks that need to be done for cleaning. Then, decide how you want to handle the tasks. Do you want to go room by room or task by task. These are fairly straight forward, room by room would be doing everything in one room before moving on, where as task by task would be doing one task in every room before moving on. Each of these have pros and cons and ultimately you have to decide what works best for you and the time that you have. If you only have a short amount of time, it may be better to narrow down just a couple of tasks that you can do in your entire home, rather than just focus on one room.

Unlike purging, where I’ll spend a few days going through everything, I like to get the deep cleaning done over two days (at the most). The biggest reason for this is due to the fact that some of the tasks needs to have time to dry (like shampooing and steaming the carpets) and little feet need to be kept out of the house. For this reason, I will be waiting to clean the carpets until we have a nice, warm day, so I can just send the boys outside for a little right before nap time. The second reason I like to move quickly through the cleaning is because there is a lot to do and the tasks that need done are not always the most fun tasks. I find that if I can just get in, do the tasks, get everything done, it’s done and then all that is left is to incorporate any new fresh items.

Are you doing any Spring Cleaning? Share any tips that you have or what works for you!

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The Great Purge: Spring Cleaning Part 1

Ah, spring cleaning- oh how I love thee… This post is going to be part of a 3 post series that I am going to be doing all about prepping, cleaning, and revitalizing your space and yourself for spring! I have to say, maybe I am weird about this, but I actually do love spring cleaning. I love the idea of purging, stripping everything down, cleaning like crazy and bringing in some small fresh elements. It does wonders not only for your mental health, but also to just help bring in the idea of resetting, refreshing, and restarting.

Over the past couple of months I have really been feeling quite cluttered in our home. Part of it is just due to the sheer amount of boxes that have accumulated in our home, but I also knew that there was just a lot of stuff that we had in our home and just weren’t using. I decided that the time was now to go through our entire home and do a purge.

IMG_0733I went through room by room and cleared out: clothes that didn’t fit or weren’t worn in the past 6-12 months, accessories that weren’t being used, items that just no longer fit with our family, as well as anything that I just didn’t feel would get used again. All of these things will be getting donated. I feel like I got rid of quite a bit (I don’t think the picture really does it justice) and already, even before the cleaning portion, I just feel a lot lighter.

A couple of things to keep in mind if you are getting ready to do “The Great Purge”:

  1. Set a time limit on yourself. A lot of times we can get such a strong desire to just purge and get rid of stuff and jump right in to all of it. This can lead to a very early burnout which then leads to only about a third of it being done. By saying I am going to go through things for this long, or this time to this time, you are able to approach it with a clear start and finish. It isn’t so open ended and it makes the whole home and idea become smaller more manageable tasks. It also helps you from getting that early burnout. I devoted about 45 minutes a day for around a week and found that this was “just” enough time to get through almost an entire space and feel good about what I cleared out. I just wasn’t able to fit more time into our schedules.
  2. Purge space by space. Only tackle what you know you can finish in the time that you have to do it. You don’t want to start a space and not be able to finish it by the end of your time limit.  This will help you keep that clear start and finish. When you look at a space, have a clear objective of what is the worst in that space. For example, I knew that the biggest task in our youngest’s room would be his closest/clothes. For the most part I knew where the items were that were being purged and how easiest to handle that. I set aside a 45 minute window where I pulled all of them out, went through to verify that they were in fact the correct clothes to purge and then packed them away for the donation run.
  3. When it comes to what to purge, it’s completely up to you. Start by determining what level of “purging” you want to do, do you want a thorough get rid of almost all of it or do you just want a light get rid of what isn’t working and then do more later on. Do you fall somewhere in between? This time I around I went for a complete overhaul. I got rid of anything and everything that was not working for our family anymore. If it wasn’t worn or used frequently in the past 6-12 months, it was going. I didn’t realize how much we had really accumulated over time, until I had started doing our purge and after the first space, I decided I was full in with a complete overhaul.

Honestly, when it comes to purging the biggest things to remember is that it is not going to be done in one setting. This will take time and work, but it will end up being so good once it has ended. I feel such a lightness now when I walk throughout our home. I find that we just had a lot of “stuff” that really wasn’t being used and just collected dust wherever it was.

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Plan With Me : April

I’ve always said that I am a paper and pen person. I may overcomplicate the process, but to be honest, my brain works better when I am able to look at things on paper. To be able to not only look at an overview of what the next bit of time looks like for me, but then to break it down into manageable actions really helps me to not feel overwhelmed when I am trying to juggle everything.

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Since we are starting “fresh” with a new quarter, a new season and a new month, I figured I would break it down and share I organize my brain with you! If that interests you, continue on!

So, for my blog and business, I like to look at things on a quarterly basis. I like to list out my goals and priorities, as well as the action steps to complete those. I do this in Moleskine Notebooks (one for business, one for blog) and have a separate sheet of paper that lives in my planner with an overall look at the four quarters in the year. I have one page dedicated to each quarter and I’ll write out (typically in pencil until about a week before the month starts) what blog posts I am thinking of for the month and where they should fall. This helps give me an overview of the entire quarter and if I have an idea of a tips blog post or have found another topic I want to touch on, I can quickly look and see where it will fall into place. I typically have 4 scheduled blog posts a month and the rest are just as they happen.

Screen Shot 2018-03-27 at 5.09.16 PMOnce I have my overview handled, I look at the first month of the quarter. I have switched planners, sort of. I am still in a Day Designer, but I am using their full on planner, rather than the weekly only. As things started to get busier, I found that I needed a little bit more space in my day to day to keep track of everything.

In the month view, I will write out everything that is planned for that month, whether it is blog posts, videos, appointments, birthdays, days off, whatever it is. This gives me a little bit more of an in depth look at what that specific month holds in our schedules. A lot of times this will change as we go through the month, but it’s good at least have a good starting point.

The final thing I do is plan out the first week of the month. I will mark down the times that I am working as time blocks and then mark in the times that blog posts or videos are going live. I also mark down any appointments that I may have. Once the time is blocked out, I will fill in a couple of the to-do boxes. I have a couple of days that are set aside for specific things for my job, or for cleaning purposes, so I will “auto-fill” those tasks in on the relevant days. The final thing I’ll do is look at my previous week, the new month, and the upcoming week to see if there are any tasks that I have not done, or things that I need to get done. This could be anything from making sure the scheduled blog posts are all uploaded and scheduled, to checking on different supplies in our home.

So, that is my April Plan With Me! I hope that you enjoyed getting a little insight into how I organize my brain to start a new month off. Let me know what you do! Are you an electronic planner type of person? A paper and pen person? Or maybe just a fly by the seat of your pants? Let me know!

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