I hope your celebrations were safe, fun and enjoyable for all. As I write this, my 13 year old is the only one in the family with plans for NYE.
sigh
It’s official. I’m old. Uncool. and have no social life! LOL!
The biggest question on my husbands mind is how he’s going to stay awake til 12:30 so he can pick her up!
As my mind turns to the new year, it naturally starts to plan. I’ve been through a lot of changes over the past year and a bit. Looking back at my blog posts, they essentially stopped in September of 2016 – right about the time I got super serious about finding a full time job. I found one … and lost it 10 months later. Since September of 2017 I’ve been busy with too many things to recount for you here. Suffice it to say, January 2018 marks a “buckling down” if you will.
On my list for 2018:
- Job search.
- Blog and Website renewal.
- Personal commitment to health and well being.
- Continued commitment to my marriage health and well being.
- Home renovations (both big and small).
- Family – communication commitment.
- Making time in all that to stay creative too!
It’s quite the list isn’t it? And I’ve even got a plan on how to stay on track with it all.
Notebooks!
WAAAY back in February 2015 I introduced you to my planning method (if I can be so bold as to call it that! LOL!) I have been faithfully using this planner since then and I love it!
It’s gone through some changes though. (Check out my video below for a current walk through.)
I love having notebooks to write in. I guess I’m old school, in that I find the act of putting pen to paper helps solidify my thoughts and feelings, as well as cement them into my brain. A very important detail as I age!! I do not have a calendar insert in this though. I have tried to have a paper calendar but it never worked for me. If I’m being completely honest, the chore of entering all my work appointments, blog/business tasks, kids activities, family commitments, etc, etc, etc, was way too hard! Last summer when our eldest daughter graduated Elementary school, our gift to her was a phone. And we took the opportunity to upgrade our phones too, so now we all have iPhone 6s’s and share the calendar app (my husband used to have an Android phone so it was a constant battle to get him to check the calendar, let alone add things to it!) I am super fond of saying “if it’s not in the calendar, it doesn’t happen”. When your weeks are as busy as ours, this is vital!
Commonplace Notebooks
One day while scrolling through one of my Facebook groups, a member posted a question about “commonplace books” and I realized that this is kind of what I’ve been using for years without knowing it. What is a Commonplace Book you ask? They have actually got a long and distinguished history! Roman Emperors like Marcus Aurelius were said to use one. He apparently liked to keep track of military strategies and political thoughts in his. They are essentially a mash up of a notebook, a planner, and a scrapbook. A place to record motivational passages from your readings as well as song lyrics, inspirational quotes, funny anecdotes, and images you want to keep for later reference.
As with anything made of paper, there is a section of our crafty society that likes to take it to the next level. Cori, The Reset Girl, has a wonderful (and long) video on how she set up her Commonplace Book. Now, I do not go for the level of decoration in my notebooks that a lot of the crafty souls out there do. I prefer to devote my creative energy to other things like my cards and scrapbooks. My notebooks are largely utilitarian BUT I do love to decorate the homemade dividers I’ve got in there. Check it out in this video.
What about you?
How do you organize your thoughts and plans? There are so many ways to keep organized. I love it! And each one is customizable to how you live which is so fantastic! Are you digital or analogue? Or a combination of both? Do you Bullet Journal? Do you use Traveler’s notebooks? Does your planner include a calendar, or is it more like a commonplace book used mostly for notes and images? Or are you still using something like a DayRunner (I still have inserts for mine but nowadays it sits in the kitchen and keeps track of our family favourite recipes – yet another opportunity for organization, am I right?)
Tell me in the comments what system (or lack of system) you love to use and why. I am always looking for new ways to stay organized so I can’t wait to hear about yours.
Cheers! And here’s to a happy, healthy and successful 2018 to all of you wonderful people!!
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Hey Alison! Long time no chat!!! I just started bullet journaling a couple of months ago, and I am really enjoying it. Still working out the kinks, but I think I’m more analog than digital. Took a few years to figure that out, entering things into my phone and having reminders NOT ring or ding or remind me of anything. Gah, frustrating! That’s one of the reasons I bought the dang thing in the first place! Anyway, writing it down seems to work better for my memory than typing.
After almost 5 years of half time hours, I somehow ended up with a full time position! Great for the wallet, but after three weeks of trying to adjust, I honestly have no idea how I’m going to do anything crafty. I’m sad, I really need to figure out how to fit more creative time into my life. And forget about exercise! And the state of the house!!! Oh man, I cringe to think about it, haha! I’m happy to see you’re making videos and blogging again – I’ll have to live vicariously through you! And I wish you luck with the job hunt. Good things will happen if you just believe, blah blah blah, yeah right, we both know it’s hard work and perseverance and tears! You are awesome and things will work out, I have no doubt!
Aw, Roxy you’re the best on line buddy a girl could have! I hope you find your balance soon. I know how tough it is to work full time and try and get everything else done! That’s pretty much why I fell out of the blogging/creative world for over a year!! You are amazing too and I know you will rock this new position AND your house (that’s why you had kids, right? put them to work!! LOL!) and your memory keeping. While you can’t create, why not use that bullet journal to write down the stories and remind yourself of the photos that go with the stories so when you are able to get back to your scrapping you’re ready to go. I recently found years and years of my Dad’s journals. Wow! Talk about a gold mine! Decades of stories – some huge like the trek through Nepal, some small like what groceries he bought – all there for me to go through and discover who he was! so precious!!