I am full of excitement for the new year even if I barely crawled to the end of last year. 2013 was filled with exciting changes, wonderful accomplishments, and as per the norm, some difficult times! I am facing 2014 with new ideas, new plans in place, and high hopes that I am more organized, more productive, and more in line with what I want and need in my life.
First a confession, I almost didn't have Christmas. The day would have arrived and my children, husband, and grandchildren would have found nothing, nada, zilch under the tree. I failed to plan and you know that cliche, when you fail to plan, plan on failing. I somehow let Christmas sneak up on me and when Thanksgiving rolled around I couldn't believe it! I sat down with the calendar and realized that between work (two jobs), flights, and sleep I had a total of three whole days to prepare for Christmas. I made a master to do list, vowed to not waste a single second, and hubby and I got busy tackling the master plan I plotted out. We rocked it! We shopped, we crafted, we wrapped, we stuffed stockings, we sewed, we routered, we packed, and we shipped. Every package was delivered safely to the doors of our children and their families not only on time, but early! We got our outside orders done and shipped, we had Christmas for each other. And after that panic, I vowed never again!
I am a list maker, a planner but I am also terrible at time management and another confession, I have trouble following through with the best laid plans! I start each year with a goal to be better organized and a new planner and by April...well, the same thing every year. Planners seem to be designed with a cookie cutter person in mind. The mother of young children, the 9-5'er, the office worker, the soccer mom. I am none of the above. I don't work a regular schedule, I have an outside business, I also am writing a novel (or two or seven), I am a blogger, and I am a runner. I don't need a calendar, I love the one I have, but it doesn't work as a planner for me.
I use my calendar as, umm, a calendar and it works! HA!
And the this entered my life. Its the ARC system that I bought at Staples. I have finally found a planner that will work for me because it was designed by me for MY lifestyle.
The planner is totally customizable and I can make it fit me instead of a cookie cutter person! As you can see, I have divider tabs that I created and some other tabs within some sections.
Sorry for the side ways pictures, I'm not sure why they don't post like they are saved! Anyway, back to my super duper planner. I have a clear pocket that holds some tabs and my favorite pen. I also have a set of post its that clip right onto the discs.
The first page is my dashboard. A place to brain dump, jot a quick note to myself. I like it, not everything fits in a section so it goes here. If I find something consistently gets placed on this page, I'll add a divider, this can so grow with me and I can tweak it as I need to!
The master to do list. It's a running list, I cross off and high light as I complete something and it makes the undone more visible to me. As I review my plan for the upcoming week, I can move tasks to my weekly section as I see fit. I have monthly section, a calendar just so I know when I work or have plans so I can plot my business tasks or training around work.
I made a list of 14 goals for the year. All very general in nature because I will have a more step oriented page for each goal as needed. This next picture is a list of races I want to do in the next few months and a current list will allow me to register when the cost is lowest and to schedule my work without problems.
I'm excited to have a plan in place for the year. I will update as I go along. What works, what doesn't. I feel confident my new super duper planner will help me achieve the goals I set forth for myself this year!
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