It’s Planner Time!

Ok, somehow I totally heard that with MC Hammer in the background singing and everything. That’s usually when I turn it up in my mind and rock on, or tune myself out and get to work. I think right now I need to stay on task because my day is so busy I’m writing this in one of 4 school lines before I return some phone calls and go back to work. Trust me, I know many of you are even busier so I will try and keep this simple and to the point.

Since today I would like to talk about how my organizer/ planner is the center of my life, I’m going to start with my 2 main lists. Basically my whole planner is categorized and everyone’s has to be different in order to meet their needs. Maybe you don’t have kids. Possibly you go to school. Maybe you are single. Doesn’t matter, like, at all. What does matter, is that you know what is the most important to you. My most important lists in my organizer are my “To Do” and my “Menu Plan”. The reason they are the most important are because they have my daily reminders and I know based on my menu if I need to pull out foods or if I am making several meals out of one item that needs to be prepared alongside others. If you are single and go to school full time, you most important lists might be your schedule and your school work planner.

My “To Do” and my “Menu Plan” are also probably my simplest list. They don’t need to be completed. The more complicated things get, the less likely I am to do them or use them. Starting with my “To Do”. I use this list as a simple way to make quick notes and not a full schedule. Sometimes it looks like it, but it’s not. I glance at it before bed and again in the morning as a simple reminder of what’s going on. My schedule, not included in this post, I have to follow to a T or way too many things can get out of hand pretty quickly. I don’t know about you, but my idea of saving money does not involve running to a grocery store at 10:30 at night to buy school crap, lunch stuff that we are out of and dinner all without coupons or any thought to them. My life used to be that way. It was stressful, complicated and expensive! Even with a plan for everything I have to make a quick stop sometimes still, it’s completely unavoidable. But, I can try to plan ahead and make the most of my time spent in advance. Because I plan my meals ahead of time, I know what I need at a grocery store which eliminates the aimless wandering (Ok, sometimes I used to do that for fun), and it takes away the shock at the register of what items really cost when you just start throwing the things that sound good in the cart. Of course, I’m also a big kid. If I didn’t have strict dietary restrictions, I would probably only eat ice cream. Forever. And EVER! That’s a food group right? In fact, I think it’s like 4 food groups – sweet, cold, creamy and sometimes crunchy/ salty. Yep! I wish!

Back to my point. My “To Do” and my “Menu Plan” are very simple. My “Schedule” includes when, how and what time to prepare these items so they get broken down even further in case pops or the mini-me’s have to help with anything or I get stuck at work. I made my “To Do” and “Menu Plan” in MS Word. They are nothing more than a few text boxes, fun fonts and the use of the alignment and wrapping tools. You don’t even have to spend that much time. You also don’t need to print them unless it’s counterproductive for you to not have them with you. Since I work from my computer, I only print my schedule to keep on me. To Do at Home Menu Plan These two items begin and end every day. They are 2 of the categories in my expanding and evolving personal binder. Just like the ones some people use to coupon. That also doesn’t work for me but I’ll explain in a different post since my coupons are in fact part of my binder, it’s just not a coupon binder. I hope seeing these helps you get started organizing or reorganizing your planner. Feel free to comment and let my know what you think.

My Official First Post!

Woot! Yippee Do Dah! I’m so excited to be here sharing what’s on my mind with you. Today is simply blah. The sky will not stop drooling and our whole yard is officially a swamp but, still can’t bring me down. As far as I am concerned, it’s all glorious and happy rainbows and fluffy stuff. Hehe

Ok, I probably won’t hold your attention for very long if I continue with all this excitement because you will all want to turn on some music, put on sweats and dance on your bed, too! Maybe there should be ice cream, but I can’t have any so I will live vicariously through you all. Go eat ice cream. Unless it’s against your New Year’s resolution. Then don’t, or at least I won’t tell if you do. Shhhhh

Calming down now. Not really, but I will focus to the best of my abilities. Since I am here exclusively, for now to divulge large quantities of information about how to save money and spend less, I suppose I should get started. As I have told you before, I use a huge variety of ways to accomplish this. However, I think the most important thing to start with is the same way I get started here at home. It’s all about (drumroll please):

Organization! Let me just say that again. ORGANIZATION! Without being organized, I would get nothing done, like ever. Seriously. Ever! Especially because I have two children on the autism spectrum. My days have to stay scheduled or the whole house goes crazy. Kind of literally. Because I have a full-time job, kids, pets and hobbies, I must budget for “my time” accordingly. I also have to plan for times that I can turn my back on my kids and just know that mass destruction will commence. Charts, schedules, calendars and a little planning go such a long way. I am an avid coupon clipper. While I plan to tell you all about that later, little things like this must have a place and time. Too many things are out of our control. We can’t blame life for getting in the way when we are the ones who let it. When my kids were younger, organizing was harder because they were such a distraction. They were always in the way and I was always frustrated. I am a multi-tasker and like to accomplish a lot in a day. While everyone is different, I love to check off a list. My husband even sometimes just asks me to make him a list of top priorities so he can do the same. I gave up trying to plan and organize with them around because I found that I was losing my mind and overbooking some priorities. There is only one of me sadly. Although there should be like 20, because I’m pretty rad!

My first time I decided to really get organized, I tried a regular planner from a store. This did not work for me and may not work for you. Or, it might. I just found that I could never write what I needed in those tiny little spaces. That was long before Pinterest and the land of Google. Using a simple program like Word you can create your own. Or just Google templates until you find what you think will work for you. For the rest of the week I will post topics about how to become more organized, if you aren’t already. Hopefully I can help you find some ways to become even more productive and successful than you already are.

The most important thing about all my planning is that it has to coordinate. I don’t mean that my planner has to match my Calendar and so on. I mean, what goes in one has to line up with all the others. I have to leave complete instructions with dates so I don’t forget the little details sometimes. Like if my daughter has class snack day, while I am planning my calendar to remember to take her snack, I also pull out my grocery shopping list and make a little note to buy her snacks and for what day. And vice versa, my grocery shopping must go into the calendar before her school snack day. Not at all complicated until there are 3 other very loud people in the same room and you have worked for so long you can’t remember your name. Lol  In addition to my planner and calendar, I keep a budget, a coupon system and a book full of schedules from around my city. I like to be able to quickly look and see who might have a “kids eat free night” if I am running around and realize I have not fed the kids and it’s bed time and we are still not home. Oops! Do you do that? Yeah, me neither!

This all might sound like a lot, but you will see as I go over it further that it really isn’t more than you already do, just organized in one place. Since I cannot do this when my kids are around, and never could, I do this when I take a break from work, or after everyone is in bed and the house is quiet and sitting in the car line at schools. I also keep a notebook next to my bed and I try to write things down as they come to mind or I will never sleep since I try to keep the idea so fresh, it keeps me awake. Then I’ll be the stale one in the morning – Yikes! I’m not a morning person to begin with so losing sleep is not an option. In my next post I will go over how to start a planner or organizer to help you gets started. Feel free to post anything you would like me to go over in the comments. Try to stay warm and dry.