PERSONAL ORGANIZATION IN YOUR PLANNER...DO I HEAR..."HELP?!"

Hey everyone!

www.mypurpleylife.com

I´m gonna start this post with lots of pretty things so we can put our brain caps on and start thinking, ok?

Take a look at these photos.

You did already?

Did you dream they were yours? 

Yeah, wel.... It´s a lot harder then it looks.

I thought I was gonna by my filo, or generic 6 ring binder and THIS (meaning the cuteness and strucutre in the photos), was gonna happen just like magic. Preferencially without my even being involved, actualy. Just a simple wand waving and WHAM! It doesn´t.

www.papercraftsandsprinkles.com

What you see in those pics takes time. And guess what? TIME is something I DON´T HAVE!

That´s when the dispair sinks in. We walk into this world with an ideal, thousandos of examples to drool on and choose from, but let´s get realistic here, shall we?

I don´t know if you´ve noticed, but I have counted a lot of housewives in this world.

Not that being a house wife will not take up all your life and even drain the life out of you - I know, I tried, I quit by the way. Would much rather work an 8 hour job. Monday is always the worst day for me because I get more tired working at home then I do on the job,

MEU CARRO É MAIS OU MENOS ASSIM, TODOS OS DIAS

But, gettnig back to the subject, I think it´s fair enough to say that if you are an organized person, you´re gonna find a lot more time, as a housewife, with your kids at school all day, then someone who has to work 8 hours, go to school at night, take care of 2 kids and a husband, drive them everywhere and still have time for the house. Oh! Let´s not forget time for the 2 dogs, 2 cats and the turtle. LOL Yes, my house is a zoo.

Just saying.

So finally, after lamenting, I gave up making it pretty in the name of functionality,

I work at 3 different schools, I teach 7 different classes per week, which is equivalent to 14 classes. Each planned and "unique" in that time frame. I pick up and drop off hubby and kids everyday from everwhere, so I loose a lot of time in traffic, besides living about 1 hour away (with no traffic) from my workplace. Enough bickering about life, let´s get down to what matters...

Today I am going to talk about:

PERSONAL ORGANIZATION IN YOUR PLANNER!

By personal organization, what I mean is your "scheduling" section. How do you organize it?

Not only that, but do you also keep important notes in this section? I have a few tips for you!

(If you feel a bit lost, don´t worry, as with almost everything, I´m great in theory, terrible in practice. I am still learning as well).

That little monster? That´s our fear!

If you go to PINTEREST and research"filofax inserts" or "filofax printables", tons of options will pop up on your screen, and they can easily be adapted to your preferences.

But that´s where the mess starts, isn´t it?

Thousands of options a clic away and all you really want to do is run away, petrified.

Too much information can do that to you. That is, when it doesn´t just take you straight to the looney house LOL.

Sorry to be frank, but if you´re a beginner and haven´t become like the lady in the pic below, you soon will.

IT´S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.

.

Believe it or not, it´s a crucial fase for all beginners.

We observe, get enchanted, try to copy, fail, figure it won´t work for us, go through our morning stage because we´re never gonna have a planner just like those (and that´s when you feel like giving up on the whole planning idea), and then you start to reflect on how to make a system of your own.

Whatever you do, and no matter how you feel, basic advice:

DON´T GIVE UP!!!

If I had given up, I wouldn´t have 1/2 of the good results I do right now.

Not that my system´s perfect, but last week I did a major makeover and guess what? I changed my status from "DESPERATE" to "THERE MAY BE HOPE", and that´s a lot for me.

I have said it to be a miracle, actually.

Nowing that it is possible gave me some super strength to keep going in the right direction.

Believe me, if I, the queen of disorganized can be salvaged, so can you, my friend.

Observing our filofaxian idols, it´s easy to catch on to the fact that many adopt a very simple system, the WEEK ON 2 PAGES, or WO2P.

This is the method I´m talking about:

Words speak more then words, so here it is:

On the left, blank pages. On the right, used pages as an example.

This would never work for me, to much to write down, so I had to search for something else,

Some people use monthly calendar in synchrony with the week on 2 pages, or alone.

www.mypurpleylife.com

Onde more to the left blank pages, to the right used pages as an example.

You can find these calendars with horizontal design as well.

Besides these, there are also daily pages, which are more variable then anything you could imagine. Some people use them solely for fitness, others for finances, homeschooling, work, kids, the sky is the limit.

Due to the very personal nature of these pages, the perfect ones for you will only be known by....well, you of course.

How do you get there? BABY STEPS everyone, baby steps.

This may or may not work for you, but this is how I did it, bare with me:

1st STEP: write down every activity involved in yout life. Personal, work, kids, pets, etc. etc. etc. Make a giant brainstorm. This means it will be mixed up, but that doesn´t matter at the moment..

2nd STEP:

Look at everything you´ve written down and slowly categorize. Children under on column with the activities, blogging, homeschooling, and so forth. 

3rd STEP:

Now, looking at the categories, pick 2 for emergency repare. The ones that are in the biggest distress.

4th STEP:

Imagine what would be necessary to jot down about this category, repeatedly and methodically so that your organizational needs were met.

5th STEP:

Research layouts that fit your needs or DIY,

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TIP: If you don´t know how to make your own, there are plenty of people who take custom orders,  that could help you with it. If you can´t print, you can have it done by someone else too.

If you don´t want to spend the money just yet, I suggest GRID paper. You can make your designs with a pen for the time being and have them done later.

You can use grid for anything, actually, so just fill up your planner with grid paper and get started cause there´s no time like NOW!

After you notice you have an estabilished "ritual", you can have your sheets done cause you´ll know exactly what u want.

Getting back to my own experience, I tried to adapt to the models I saw online, even bought a few. To NO avail.

That´s when I met my saviour!

DIY FISH LIFE MAPPING SYSTEM

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DIY FISH LIFE MAPPING SYSTEM 

Here´s something that gets everyone confused. But in the end it made a HUGE difference for me.


I do want to get into the detail of it´s use, but there´s a lot to be put into a post about that, so I´m going to do it in a future entry.

This is what my filofax life looks like now. So much better! 1 for personal and one for my work life. Before I had all in one, but I´ll tell you about the makeover in another post




Below, I´m going to leave you with some recomendations of different systems, ok? Hope I was of some help to you.

1. Miz Lebowe

2. POLKADOT POSIE

3. PRETTY PLANNR

4. PEMBROKE PAPERS

5. PHILOFAXY (these are free, yippie!!!).

xoxo

FILOFAX AND ME....WE´RE FAMILY!

So, several months after I officially bought my first filofax, I finally got her in the mail.

MY ORIGINAL PATENT FUCHSIA!!!!

Can´t even believe when I look at her that she´s actually here.

SO HAPPY!!!

Anyhow, it was lost by the post office for a looooooooooooong time, and I had really just given up on her. Then, out of the blue, she was at my door step! Yippie!!!

So, now that I have her....guess what?

I´m completely blank. HELP!

I´m all like: "what did I want this for really?" 

Truth is, I´m not much of a planner. Everything in my life is more intuition driven then anything else.

But, I recognize I need to change my ways, specially if I want my finances in order. 

I did get DIY FISH inserts, but I don´t really know what to do with them. 

I see a lot of people meal planning - but I don´t cook during the week, I see others writing down all these kids activities - which mine don´t have, appointments with doctors and whatnot - which we rarely go to, only 1 or 2x a year, so basically I´m thinkin I got it for nothing and feeling really over whelmed.

I´m a teacher, and I´ve been searching for ways to use it for that, but it´s still really confusing for me. I´m being led to think my life isn´t active enought for her system maybe? I don´t know. I´m not loosing hope though.

I did set it up o hold everything together, but then I noticed I was only using the daily inserts 2x a week: monday and wednesday, the 2 days where I have to give homework and stuff.

The one thing I am loving are the dividers I made! UNICORNS!!!!

Matched perfectly with the lovely color.

Anyway, if anyone wants to comment, please feel free to, I´m SO open to sugestions.

Thanks for following, talk to you later!