My 2018 Planning System

One of my goals for 2017 was to get better at managing this thing called life. With the kids getting older, motherhood was entering a whole new phase for me. I wasn’t set to their nursing and diaper schedules anymore. I had 7 soccer practices and 3 games each week to keep up with. As well as obligations my oldest had for band, chorus, jazz band, and all the other things he’s involved in.

I felt like sometimes I was surviving day to day, appointment to appointment, but was missing out on the smaller, yet equally important, things in life. Like trash day. And there were other times were I would get so caught up in the smaller things, that I would miss the much larger things.

Over the last year, I have experimented with different planning systems, and have evolved into this system that works for me personally. I can say with certainty that because this is the system that I came to 5 months ago. And in those last 5 months, not much has changed. This is my planning system for 2018.

On The Go Planner

This planner serves one purpose – to be a calendar on the go. It’s a personal sized Recollections planner from Michael’s, with one of their personal sized annual inserts. Inside the front pocket I keep various items including our library cards, appointment reminder cards, the school calendar, and a few important contact numbers for volunteering at the school.

This calendar comes with me to every doctor’s appointment, orthodontist appointment, etc. It’s permanently housed in my purse. Besides appointments, it also contains dates for various concerts and performances my oldest is obligated to with band, jazz band and chorus, as well as our soccer schedule in the fall and spring.

Since we live 30 minutes from town, 40 minutes from the kids’ doctor, and 90 minutes from specialist doctors and the orthodontist, I need the planner to make sure that I’m not going to overbook ourselves for travel time on specific days.

I don’t use the weekly pages that came with the inserts for planning out our week, just the monthly view. I keep 6 months in here at a time for scheduling purposes {nothing is written in stone out more than 6 months in advance}, and I use the weekly inserts for taking notes of phone conversations and any specific appointment instructions.

This planner also sits next to me when I have to call and make appointments for sick visits for the kids. I write down the appointment time, who it was for, and also mark whether they were out of school all day or not. This way I can keep up with their absence reports, and be able to fix any discrepancies the school may have.

Fridge Calendar

Over the last 8 years, this is the only part of my current planning system that has survived with very little modifcation. It’s that vital. At the very least, this is what’s needed to get us through each month.

Towards the end of the current month, I print off the calendar for the next month, and get to work.

I mark the holidays, days the school is closed, and if there are an birthdays we are celebrating. Then I start marking what day the school will be on {they operate on a 6 day schedule rotation}, and what the schedule will be like for each child. I color code each child, that way no one gets their schedules mixed up. I also mark in any appointments in purple.

This calendar is written on continually throughout the month as more things come up. At the beginning of January, Bookworm received his rehearsal schedule for the spring musical, and the dates and times have been added. I also added in when my car would have repairs, and spring soccer registration.

At a bare minimum, this calendar is necessary to keep us going, and everyone is lost if I am late in creating the following months calendar.

Budget Planner

Next is my budget planner. Since we are on a mission to become debt free, I needed something to keep track of our budget and goals. For our debt free journey, this where the money magic happens. Seriously.

This planner I got on clearance at Michael’s back in the summer of 2017. I find that using a paper planner makes our budget more real and tangible. It’s a lot easier to keep track of savings, and a lot more painful if I am writing down multiple unplanned transactions.

It houses my monthly budget overview, as well as our financial goals for the year and our savings trackers.

I take my 52 week savings tracker, and print the PDFs at 40%, then trim the excess paper and hole punch them for this planner. It also gives me a little more room to write any notes I need to keep track of. This is especially helpful if there’s sinking funds I add to once or twice a month rather than every pay day.

Daily Planner

This is the planner where it all starts to come together. And let me just be honest with you here… this is the area where I had the biggest struggle. I do better when areas of my life are separated because when it’s all in one place on one calednar it gets too overwhelming, but I also don’t do well with too many planners for varying things because it’s so easy to lose track of it all when the information is scattered all over the place.

I also do better with a customizable planner, such as a 6 ring binder, over a spiral bound. When it comes to a planner for me, I like the ability to be able to personalize a planner to my needs at the time. I also loved the ability to decorate my planner with stickers and washi tape. This makes it much more inviting for me to stay on top of tasks and appointments, both big and small.

So after researching multiple planners, trying multiple planners out over the last year, and finding what worked and didn’t work for me, I decided on a Happy Planner.

I’ll be honest up front… I am not a fan of the disc system at all. I like ring planners much better. But that said, I like that I am able to add in different extension packs, or even combine multiple planners into one with the Happy Planner system.

This particular planner is broken into three sections. The first for household and family related things. So appointments, pay bill and budget review reminders, as well as and general household tasks fit into this category. I don’t get into specifics on anything in this planner. If it’s appointment instructions, it’s in the on the go planner, if it’s budget items, it’s in the budget planner, and so on. This first section serves as a birds eye view of tasks combined with reminders of what’s to come.

The second section is for self care for me. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day, and forget to take some time to myself. This section makes sure I have a better shot at reminding myself to put myself first, and it’s okay.

The last section is for the blog. I keep a rough editorial calendar here, as well as my attempt to figure out some sort of social media posting schedule.

Bullet Journal

This is where it all happens. This notebook is where I take the general tasks outlined in my daily planner, from appointments, to household items, and break it down into managable chunks intermingled into a daily task list.

It’s a Leuchtturm 1917 dot grid*, and I really do love it. It’s my to-do list and catch all. It’s where I break down the week, and each day, to see what can and cannot be reasonably done. It also houses my habit tracker and no spend tracker. I can see at a glance in my bullet journal how much coffee I’ve had for the day, and how much water I should be having, but didn’t drink.

I can check off the simple daily tasks like laundry and dishes, remind myself to exercise and meditate, yet give me enough room to write notes, and break down goals into smaller tasks {something I’m still working on by the way}.

Why don’t I just go with a bullet journal? Well, simply put is that I do better with a calendar view, and I don’t have time to continually write them out. I love the Happy Planner layout, and I use the bullet journal in tandem with it. It’s a system that’s worked for me over the last 5 months, and so it’s what I’ll be sticking with.