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,

...................................................................................................................................................................

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

...................................................................................................................................................................

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!

BECOMING A HACKING PRO... (PART 2 - VIDEO...GUEST STARING MY DAUGHTER SAM)

And now the great reveal of the video!

Finally it´s up after taking the entire night to upload. So here, in case you had any questions after PART 1, hoepefully the video will help ;)

SEE YOU SOON! 

XOXOXOXOXO

BECOMING A HACKING PRO... (PART 1 - PICS)

Sorry CIA, not the brainiac kind. I can be creative, but computer hacking is a whole other level that´s just not for me.

The hack I´m refering to is in China (no, not the country, silly!). For those who don´t remeber, China is my very first faux filofax. She´s Chinese, therefore the name (see, told you I was creative! - not!).

But, for the most part, i´ts fun having to be Inspector Gadget.

I know I´m always on a rant about things here in Brazil, but believe me, there´s a reason. EVERYTHING IS SO HARD TO FIND!!!! The things I used today for my remodeling have been out of stock for at least 3 months.

How do I know? I´ve been going to the same paper store EVERY WEEK for the last 3 MONTHS asking for them....that´s how.

Anyway, let´s get back to the subject. Today´s post is going to be a sort of tutorial for anyone who would like to adapt materials in the same way I have.

I´m no expert, I just got lucky on a first try, and decided to share my lucky hunches with other needing souls. Because from what I´ve heard, I don´t think I´m the only one that´s not in the US or UK that has a hard time finding things.

Ok, so here we go. Today I made 4 things, and I´m about to tell you how, so listen up! Or read till the end :)

1. to do / to buy list
2. pouch for pens
3. dashboard
4. flags that fit neat and tidely into China´s credit card holder

WHAT I USED:

• ruler
• razor blade
• liquidpaper
• needle
• line
• scisors
• double sided tape
• flags
• post it notes
• hole puncher

1.  TO DO / TO BUY LIST

MATERIALS NEEDED:
Any post its you can find - in my case I used one from Postit that has checkboxes

STEP BY STEP

Because of the size of this particular note pad, I decided to cut it in half. That way I´d have something that would fit into my agenda, and I´d have twice as many ;)

My note pad, as I said, is from Post It. Homeline, I think. It was R$33,90 at a local paper store.

Knowing only half would have the glue on the back, I decided to leave the looseleaf parts inside the cover (pic).

You know the steps: I measure and used a ruler and a razor for a straight cut.

Next, I punched some holes in.

Originally, I only punched holes in the superior part, but they were wobly when I inserted them, so I used to the 2nd and 3rd hole from the top part and the 1st hole from the inferior rings.

That makes it stable and it even looks nicer, ´cause it´s placed in the middle.


Now I needed a place to put the other half that had a sticky part.



2. POUCH FOR PENS

MATERIALS NEEDED
Pvc baggie, small or medium size, I guess. Depends on whether you have a personal size or an A5.

STEP BY STEP

Measure the pouch against your pages.

Mine would be too big, so instead of just punching in the holes, I had to get a little creative.

My pouch would be about 1cm too big for the binder. I decided to cut it, which meant it would have open ends.

Couldn´t have that, so after cutting off 1cm (horizontally measured), I decided I could sew it.

Got my needle, my grey line and my ruler. I tried to mark 0,5cm marks with a pen, but it kept washing off so I did it with liquid paper.

After having sewn, punch the 6 holes to heaven! :)

I used those lines to give me my itinerary when sewing. I´m awfull at it, so I need guidance. This was the result:





DASHBOARD 

MATERIALS NEEDED

Transparent tabs in letter size (what I used), or a transparency sheet





STEP BY STEP
Same step by step for the transparency sheet or the dividers (which I used).

Take a personal sized page with holes punched and trace the format on the sheet. Leave a little bit of a margin so that it´s lightly bigger.

Cut out, and voilà!

Next step is to put your post its on your dashboard.

To keep them nice and tight, I used a well known hack: double sided tape! :)







I put those post its I showed earlier, but this time used the sticky side, plus two small ones, just for a punch of color.





4. FLAGS THAT FIT

MATERIAL NEEDED
Flags by YES









STEP BY STEP

Just trim of the sides a bit and they should go right in!






This is what it looks like now, with everything together:

HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!!

XOXOXOXO

GETTING ORGANIZED!

So...this was me before having any kind of organization in my life!

Yep. Not that I´m much better off, because I´ve just started the process, but seeing a light at the end of the tunnel all ready gives me some kind of inner peace.

I don´t know what it is with us woman, but generally spealing, I think planners remind us of adolescence

When we turned 18, we all of a sudden decided we were way to "mature" for some things, and people (whether family or not) agreed with us and gave us that assurance.

One of those things would be decorating your diary. You have not had an adolescence if you haven´t filled at least one page with cutouts from magazines and drawings that represent that place, song, feeling or someone who you stupidly thought was special.

Now we´re all grown up. In fact, there is little time to be "filosofical" about life as we were back then.


What you have in your diary, or in an adult term, PLANNER is different. Meetings, things to do, things to buy, childrens errands, husbands reminders, amongst other responsabilities, will now be your basic text.

But isn´t life easier when taken on light heartedly?

Well, I decided that I will decorate my planner. Why not? The secret to staying young is keeping your joviality, right? Right! So at least when I open up my planner I´ll have something beautiful and fun to look at instead of just seing a plain piece of paper with regular pen writing all over it.

Thinking of that, I began the process.

First thing to do was to decide what practical things I wanted to include in my planner.

My failed financial life came to mind, of course, as the first. Then came my kids, who have weekly testings and I need to be able to know what they´re seeing in school in order to help. third place came work and my own appointments.

This last is probably the most important because I work at 3 different schools. Each has it´s own methos, proceedures, students, grades, classes, resources, meetings, ideas.....sheesh! Made my tired just typing it!

I HAVE CAOTIC DAYS AND SOMETIMES DON´T EVEN KNOW WHICH SCHOOL TO DRIVE TO OR WHAT DAY OF THE WEEK IT IS.

Therefore, it´s evident to my I need to be on top of things ASAP. Something I haven´t been coping with doing the last semester.

Having decided what I wanted in the planner, I began to think of tabs. I found TONS of them on etsy, but of course if you live in Brazil, you have a BIG PROBLEM CALLED CUSTOMS. Most order, even the cheapest dollar ones can take up to 4 months to reach your house.

So I went to one of my favorite local stores. But, as all stores here, there biggest mistake is not having a lot of variety.

So here I am lost on the second floor, which is miniscule and is supposed to be scrap book dedicated, and I ran into the cutest paper!!!!

All of a sudden: WHAM! The thought came to me that I could make my own! Yes sir!

The result of that were the four dividers I needed and that I think came out pretty darn good and cute! And the colors match the planner completely :)

I actually messed up the order on the 3rd and 4th. It was supposed to be:

PINK - BEIGE - PINK - BEIGE

But all is well when it ends well and I´m using them anyway.

Well...if you followed my last post, which was all about China, the planner, you know that all she came with was lined paper.

In order to actually start putting my idea to work, I would need more then that.

I am a woman on a mission, so I went over to the PC and started making my own inserts.

I used Microsoft PUBLISHER, because I just love it´s practicity. It´s a lot better then word for these sorts of things.

Ironically I can´t get myself to make my tests on publisher, though. Each to it´s own, I guess.

FOR SECTIONS, I MADE:

1. Monthly calendars that go from June to December of this year, all in the following format:

      2.      week on 2 pages or WO2P. These I do by hand using the lined paper that came with her.

             

                 3   My daily schedule:

                                               

                            4.     Last but not least, my hyperdex. This one I made myself as well. If you don´t know this system yet, you should, and will. In a future post we´ll be having a guest blogger, Carla Gondim, that will explain all the bits and pieces to you!

FOR MY FINANCIAL SECTION, THERE IS:

1. A payment calendar. Actually, is was the same calendar I made for the agenda, but of course, instead of appointments, I´ll have my bills on it.
2. Monthly payment list with 3 payment methods to check on it: credit card, debit from ckecking account and wallet.
3. A daily expenditure table to controle what you spend, in this case me, and where from
   

After a full day and night without being able to sleep because I was agonizing over this organization thing, I still have my work and my sons section to get to.

And here´s my favorite part! Decorations!!!! I decided to do the decorations on my WO2P, so here are the 2 weeks I have so far:

And now I´m giving it a brake cause I have to buy some ink for my printer. Got that silly warning we all know too well:

For now, I´ll leave you all with the video of my progress: XOXOXOXO

MADE IN CHINA - MY FIRST SORT OF, KIND OF FILOFAX

She´s here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, unfortunately, it´s not a true filofax, but being caught between bankrupcy, desperation for organization and the lack of agendas with 6 rings where I live, I opted to buy through ALI EXPRESS.

The only problem with these orders, be it Ali or EBAY, is that OMG!!!!!!! They take an eternity to get here!!! I never thought it would take this long! But anyway, It´s finally here, and thank God for that, because I was almost giving up on this agenda world.

Almost a four month wait, and in my anxiety, I did something silly. I went on MERCADO LIVRE, the equivalent to a Brazilian EBAY, and found a planner on sale from plan ahead. Or so they said it was. I´d been looking for a long time, never found one, so I snatched it and had it delivered express.

 To my horror, it was black, which I absolutely HATE! But basically there was no other choice in sight, so what the heck.

Then, life being ironic as it is, on the day I got that delivery, I got another delivery with it. Guess what is was??

You got it! My planner from ali express!

So now I have 2 of them, but the black one I dislike so much, I´ll probably never use.

So this is China! And yes, I named her. If you think that´s weird, you know nothing about the planner world and how attached you end up being to these little bundle of appointments!

This is my beauty!

And to think I almost didn´t order it in pink. What was I thinking?! She´s absolutely gorgeous!

No package to show here because that was pretty plain and simple. Besides, I was so excited I just tore it open not even thinking about taking a pic.

Obviously, I adore pink, despite being too old for that according to some people (you know who you are).

This is the first page, dedicated to personal information. Of course the use is optional, but I intend to use it.

This is the yearly calendar for 2014. I wasn´t going to complain, but since it´s just between you, the entire internet and me, I´m gonna ask a question: don´t you think it should have come with a 2015 calendar as well?

Inside; lined paper. These are in a Day on 1 Page format I guess?

I find them pretty practical. You can use them as a diary, weekly event planner, shopping list, you name it!

This is the inside cover on the right side. You can put in 2 credit cards and the rectangle there is see through, so I think family pics are most definitely in order. There´s also this side pouch, or whatever you call it. I used it for bills to be paid already, but now I´m thing about putting some post its in there.









The other inside cover, on the left side, is pretty plain. There aren´t any pockets as filofaxes have or redfax, but the price was marvelous!

And it does come with a pen holder.

Behold my planner with FREE SHIPPING  and a price tag UNDER 20 DOLLARS!




the strap is HUGE! Which means you can really stuff this little thing, and the closing is with a metal lock of some sorts, so it´s pretty secure.

As soon as I got it, I thought the pages weren´t personal size. Yeah, I know I have a post all about page size, but silly me got confused and I was desperate when I mistakenly thought that.

Thank God I realized they were personal sized pages!

From then on, the transformation began.

As said before, the magic of these planners is allowing you to set up your own system. Inserts, tabs, dividers, pouches, the way you like it.

It´s your messing with it that´s gonna make it perfect!

Next post will be all about making my baby mine.

Hope to see you then!

Ps: the ali express link will take you straight to the seller of the agenda for those who are interested. They have a beautiful sky blue one too!

XOXOXOXO

HEAVEN AND HELL IN ONE - MEET THE LUXURY PLANNERS!

What's up, folks?

As promissed, I'm back!

This time I'm here to talk about what could well be any filofaxers complete and utter financial decay:

LUXURY PLANNERS!!!

Just wanted to say that if you´ve done your research and thought your average FILO was expensive.... PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

I don´t have the kind of money to foot the bill for one of these, but heck...to dream is to live, right? Who knows, maybe someday I´ll be rich enough to afford them (or will be able to work 72 hours a day to pay for them, whatever comes first).

The first designer brand I fell for was Kate Spade. But, of course I had to fall for the one which you can´t find anywhere and has a price that sky rockets on ebay. Maybe one day the right price will show up, who knows.

Kate Spade, if you don´t already know her, is a really famous designer. Everything she makes is incredible, from shoes, bags and clothes to, of course, her planners! Take a peek!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            -------->   PS: This is my unicorn. Almost had it but of course someone out bid me! :(

Those are just a few of the models Kate Spade offers. The one thing I do have to complain about these planners is that they only come in 2 sizes (someone correct me if I´m wrong). The sizes being: pocket and personal. That means I could never use it to show off  at work. Darn it!

One of the things that draws my attention are the reviews that the paper in these planners get. I´ve seen many people saying the quality is superb and even superior to Filofax paper. Actually, most of the inserts I see around (non-decorated), are just plane BLAH! But getting your inserts all cute and dandy by decorating or making your own design is a matter for future posts.

Another dream planner, simply because there´s no denying the status you get with Louis Vuitton (I´m a capitalist and a consumist, sue me!), would be the LV. So here it is! I think they´re very cute, but not really my design type. The monogram is sooooo yesterday....

There are other designs, but basically that´s the layout: buttoned or zipped.

Ok, so as if hopelessly dreaming with those weren´t enough.... I found out about Gillio planners. They are pretty and everything, but didn´t give me those butterflies in the stomach like the much more down to Earth priced Kate Spade. And believe me, it is very down to Earth when compared, I just don´t have the money for it.

Since we´ve been escalating upwards since the beginning of the post in terms of price, let´s pick it up a notch, shall we?

Ok. Now, take the Mr. Miyagi route.

Don´t get startled! Instructions are pretty easy.

1. Envision a happy place where you´re loaded with money and can buy anything you want.
2. Stay there forever so you don´t land flat on your face when we talk about the prices of the following items

If you´re a cardiac, pop that pill right now, before the jump! (scroll down, you´ll know when you´re at the right place LOL)

Told you to take those meds and think happy thoughts! That photo is nothing next to te frustration of these prices. Stay with me on this one!

www.martemodena.it




Here´s a croc skin planner. Legit too! All you need are $650 USD for this one. A bargain, don´t you think?







I saw one on ebay just now, couldn´t believe the price tag! $1000,00 smackers!



Due to the prices, I hereby declare these planners as banned from my life until a future incarnation.... And that´s that.

Last, but now least, I´d like to talk about a much more realistically priced planner. And the reason I believe it be a luxurious is because of two words that can make a HUGE difference:

                                                          CUSTOMER SERVICE!

For me, that prize goes to the KIKKI K planners.

Each and every planner comes in a cute box, enroled in tissue paper, and is thought out with extreme detail.

On top of that, you get a really nice card thanking you for choosing them!

Just between us - after all we don´t want too many people knowing this great secret - sometimes they even through in FREE PRODUCTS!!!!!

De luxo mesmo pra mim, considero esses dois. Ai que delicia deve ser ter um! Ainda chego la :)

Ia esquecendo de falar sobre a KIKKI K. Essas 2  acima são de designers, outro nível, mas a KIKKI K tb se enquadra no quesito luxo pra mim. Isso porque, são produtos entregues com todo primor. Tudo neles é detalhadamente pensado.







Models, oh the models! Just look and drool! Aren´t they the cutes! Onde of the most colorful and printed too!







Feel like buying one right now (please don´t let my credit card work!!!!!).

This last pic is of one of the most classic models, very coveted after. Guess you can see why, huh?

 So those are my choice for luxury planners. If you have any others you would like to see on the list, please comment and tell me why.


See you next post!

AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM A SPONSOR:

LET´S GO SPEND SOME MONEY ON PLANNERS! #NOT

In case you´re not shy of the prices, here are some links for you. Good shopping!
       
          KIKKI K

          GILLIO

        

          LOUIS VUITTON

          KATE SPADE

           MODENA

           EBAY

See you next post!