Planner Party Guest Post Number Four: Amy! (By Sun and Candlelight)

Planner Party Guest Post Number Three: Michelle!

Planner Party Guest Post Number Five: Mary!

Planner Party Guest Post Number Four: Amy!

October 20, 2015

{And now we hear from Amy - I am having such fun with this series!}

***

This is so exciting. Thanks for this invitation! How fun - like my own little blog post, as I get to explain to you just how and why my planning looks the way it does at this time.

First I will show you my wall calendar. We have had this system for many years, at least 7 or 8 at this house and I can't remember when I began doing it this way, but the important part is that it shows three months at a time - usually the current, and two upcoming months, though sometimes I don't update so fast and we have the previous-current-future instead.

For years I had two 12x12" heavy-duty, somewhat-glossy card stock sheets attached to the wall to create a 12x24" rectangle background, and the calendar pages were held onto that with tape rings on the backs, but that was tedious, and then made saving the old calendars a pain: you have to remove those tape rings so the old pages don't stick together! But at least the tape peeled off the semi-gloss card stock easily so I could quickly take down the old pages, move the current ones upward, and add the new ones at the bottom.

However, every summer the papers AND the card stock would curl so badly from the humidity! Between that, and the tape hassle, I finally had my husband install a piece of sheet metal. Now I use magnets to hold up my calendars. What is funny is that I had the magnet idea years ago, and we talked several times about going to pick up a piece of sheet metal and cutting it to size; then, just as we finally got over the hump of indecision (really, just being too busy with all the other small - or extra-large - projects we always have to do) and ordered the sheet metal, we were able to get just the right size (12x24") from Amazon, AND my very next trip to Joann Fabrics revealed that they, too, were selling these pieces of sheet metal! Some were plan, others were filigree.

I have been printing my calendar pages from WaterproofPaper.com for years; I think before that I might have gotten some from DonnaYoung.org or elsewhere.

It just occurred to me yesterday that perhaps I should have seasonal magnets instead of this random assortment of whatever isn't needed on the fridge. Wouldn't that be nice?

Oh, just a note, the clock on the wall used to be a "Maine" thing around here; a local family used to make these "Fox clocks," there were at least a dozen designs, all of them from that kind of 40's diner era. I am fairly certain that they also were a homeschooling family! They don't make them anymore, very sad. I always love it when I walk into someone's home or business and spot one of these clocks - they are unique, local, and becoming rare! We've had ours for 12, maybe all 13 years that we've lived in Maine and just this past year someone knocked it off the wall and we lost the glass. It still works, I will just have to be careful about dusting it more often!

And then, you will probably appreciate this: yes those are two thermostaats on the wall. :) (This is also just about our only kitchen wall, 2.5' wide, as most of our kitchen is taken up by windows, exterior doors, and interior doorways - what a pain.) We have the old thermostat from the old oil system, which we had replaced a few years ago. Above it is the new gas thermostat. And we have 3 zones. That is on top of the wood stove in the living room and electric on the third floor... we have an interesting and ancient house!

Oh my, this is so long! No wonder I don't blog anymore, sheesh!

{Dawn here, popping in to say: I'm loving this, Amy! You are so fun to read and never-ever apologize for wordiness ... I'm a big fan of wordiness!}

Now on to the fun part!

I have a few photos for you of the planner I was using until the end of the summer. I tend to be a 9-months kind of plan lady, and then I get an urge to switch up my system. That worked well with the Franklin Quest (then Covey, then Planner) products because they offered sets that start on all the quarters! Now most of their paper products seem to start on the half-years only, but I think a few classics still start on the quarter...

Of course that did get expensive on our single income and often I would just bide my time by making new inserts for my binder....

A number of years ago I switched to Michelle Quigley's beautiful Catholic dayplanners (and I used a few others too that were less expensive than the Franklin products) but eventually I got tired of nothing seeming quite-right.

So I made my own, of course.

{Dawn here again - we are kindred spirits, Amy!!}

This one I started in January. I've had a couple of other iterations in the very recent past few years. This one in particular is a Canson sketchbook and I like it for the thickness of the paper and also because it is book-bound. I found that the spiral-bound planners would get caught on things in my purse/bag, if/when I took them out with me. And the binder-style ones are just so thick and cumbersome.

So I have been making this style for a few years now, and I often use colored pencils that either reflect the season or reflect my whim. :)

I've got a couple of photos here of my monthly pages, and I leave a blank page behind each month for who-knows-what, maybe a phone number or a prayer or a birthday idea etc. I leave a few pages after Dec. for Christmas planning and card lists. And I always have the current and future year-at-a-glance calendars pasted in somewhere - usually the only thing that I print and glue in. You can't glue in too much or else you strain the binding, and I do want to leave just a little space in case of wanting to add in a photo or a bookmark or a sticky note etc.

SO. I am sending you photos of my monthly spreads, and my weekly spreads. The weekly spreads I have tweaked so many times; this layout I found in one of the Franklin catalogs and I essentially copied it. It's called the "Five Choices" planner and I don't really know what the "five choices" are, maybe once I looked into it and decided those few extra encouragement pages wouldn't be worth the $28 when I could just fill in my own $10 notebook! I really just like the clean style of the layout, and this is one of very few that go horizontally across the top. The bottom half the the spread is reserved for my to-do lists, which are: do, call, comp(uter), and go(errands etc.). That's it!

But like I said, I stopped using it abruptly at the end of the summer and I have something much simpler that is working for me right now.

Ooooh I love what Cay says about adding to our favorite planner and helping us focus on what is most important. YES.

And the thing about having stopped using my hard-bound homemade planner is that now I don't have a keepsake copy of what was important to me at any given point. I do save our wall calendars but they don't capture the smaller details, like the things on my to-do lists or my weekly focus notes to myself (at the top of some of my weekly spreads, such as a particular bible book, a verse, a reminder to myself about a child's habit or my own habit... etc.)

So.

What am I using now?

A totally disposable, totally simple stack of papers in a mini binder clip.

My main scribbling/planning/jotting/thinking spot is in my kitchen, standing at the breakfast bar, and at my house, that breakfast bar frequently has someone eating at it. And so any time I leave my planner there, it is at risk! Even though I don't think I had ever had any major accidents with it over the years, the risk is still very great (and case in point, just on Saturday I dumped a child's water glass onto my stack of papers and had to rewrite them... a first, I'm pretty sure... but there it is).

So one problem is that I often put my planner "away" to keep it safe. Even if that means putting it into the family command center in the kitchen, or onto the kitchen table where there is actually less snacking and drinking, that is several steps out of my way, and not where I am currently trying to do my thinking.

The other problem with the book-style planner (and this might sound ridiculous) is that you have to open the cover to get to the important/pertinent part!

I know that sounds like no big deal, because we spend all day opening books to the pages we need, and my planners always have the month and week tabs easily graspable from the outside, so it's just one quick flip of the wrist to get to where I need to be.

But.

It's a step. And performing it many times a day does add up, and it does become an impediment.

Now I have, at times, experimented with a list attached to the front cover of my planner, or a sticky note attached to the cover, but those don't end up working the way I hope they will.

(And the last part is that there are always crumbs about. Having my "thinking spot" being in the midst of food prep - and really I have tried to come up with a better spot, there just isn't one - means that even though whole bowls of soup or full mugs of coffee don't usually land on my planner, there are always tons of crumbs that need to be brushed up all day! That is probably the reason why I keep it closed, which means I always have to be opening it... So now that I have a disposable clip of paper, I'm not nearly so worried about it, which means I am much more apt to actually use it.)

(Can you believe anyone else thinks in such specific, minute details about her planner situation? Isn't it ridiculous, in a way?)

{Dawn again, here - I can absolutely believe it and to be honest, I am relieved by it! I am so glad I'm not alone in my obsession! It might be a bit ridiculous but that doesn't mean it's wrong!}

Okay, so now I am using scrap paper, which we have in abundance because of having printer rejects or just papers that got scribbled on one side, etc. I tear it into 1/4 size sheets, which is a little bit smaller than I would prefer a planner to be, but because there are no bindings or covers etc. to get in the way, it's working so nicely! And because it's so small and "disposable" looking, it ends up being rather private too. Nobody bothers to waste their time with it.

My top sheet is my brain dump, and it gets filled quickly. I end up refreshing/rewriting it every few days. And because the whole thing is disposable, I don't mind crossing out heavily anything that I have done or deleted etc. (That was another problem with my planner, I wanted to keep it neat so "done" items simply got a check-mark, which didn't make them get out of my field of view! I wasted so many accumulating nano-seconds skimming things that had already been checked off, because I could still see them!)

Sometimes I have a totally urgent sticky note attached to my top sheet, reminding me that we really really need to cook the fish before 4pm, that sort of thing... because if it's not written down right under my face I am apt to forget that sort of thing.

Beneath my top sheet, I have several longer-term sheets that I actually have stapled together, which helps me to understand that, as a group, I don't need to review them too often. A couple of times a week is fine. Each sheet is a little bit different, but basically I have a non-urgent shopping list that has things like a new belt for myself, a smaller crock pot, etc. just things I should keep a lookout for but don't need to worry about.

Then there is a list of places we can go if we need to get out of the house. On those rough days, I usually end up walking around in circles muttering about how awful everything is (not really, but in my mind I worry a lot!) and if I could just remember to look at that list, it might, maybe, spark me into a spontaneous trip to: the beautiful working waterfront; the gluten-free bakery; a different library branch; the beautiful cemetery in our neighborhood; the arboretum which is only 40 minutes away; etc. I have a list of indoor places and a list of outdoor places that we could easily get to, thus making memories instead of stewing and being angry with one another while the dinner doesn't get made, the laundry doesn't get done, and the homeschooling gets neglected. (Really our lives are not angry and bad like that at all, but again, inside my own head it gets kind of ugly and no matter how lovely and sweet things might be inside our own home, I know we need to get out and do more interesting things sometimes, esp. outdoor things.)

And I also have a sheet of other long-term things I need to keep in mind, like I am starting to jot down Christmas ideas but that will probably become several full-size pages in my housekeeping/homeschooling binder which I am not going to bother to include in these emails, it is rather separate from my main calendar/planner habits.

Oh, and the very last page I have in my binder clip is a little vitamin/supplement weekly chart. If it's there and can be checked off, I am much more likely to be getting those supplements! I have it oriented as a landscape so that I can easily flip it open 3x/day.

This system is working so well for me - but honestly now that I've been talking about this stuff with you, I am tempted to try my book-bound planner again. It's just so very nice!

Now I'm not sure how these photos will be ordered for you, but one photo shows two stacks of paper, wet, because I had just dumped water all over them. You can also see the scribble marks from my helper, and it doesn't bother me at all because I now these pages will just be recycled when I am done with them. :)

The other two photos show the new (dry) stack earlier, and then later, during the weekend as I added more and more items. And since then I think I have re-written a clean list for the beginning of this week.

Well that sure was fun for me! I hope you aren't entirely overwhelmed. I hope some other people are joining your party too! I guess my kitchen is pretty dark, we've got all southern exposure but some fools put a giant garage at the back corner of our house about 25 years ago and it blocks all the morning sun from the kitchen! And there is also a gorgeous sugar maple in our neighbor's yard, I have no problem with that, but until it loses its leaves it also casts shadows (which helps keep our house cool).

***

Amy I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this post! I love - LOVE - your stream of consciousness and I also LOVE that you are as mindful and - ok, I'm going to say it, but I'm right there with you - persnickety about planners! Thank you so much for sharing not just your planners but yourself and your family life, too. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that this current system is working so well for you ... and yet you feel pulled to go back to the book-bound planner. I am always in this situation. I find something that works well - maybe even really well - for me, and us as a family ... but I am constantly feeling pulled to something else that might appeal to me on a more aesthetic sense. It's a tough thing to balance!

The three-months at a glance on the wall are fantastic - I really like that the whole family can see these calendars and that you have a "season" in view at a time. My whole fridge is taken up with a large whiteboard I use as a schedule for Earlybird, otherwise I'd be on this. And now our one big kitchen wall is adorned with three very large framed prints. They are so pretty and just what I wanted but there goes my wall space.

(Seasonal magnets would be lovely, but there's something very genuine about those random magnets.)

Ok my friends, please let Amy know your thoughts and if you have any questions on her planners ... drop a note in the comments box below if you have time!

Isn't this so fun? I am having SUCH fun with these guest posts and I hope you are too! I have several more to share so I hope you enjoy and I hope to see you here again ... tomorrow!

Posted at 06:00 AM in Calendars & Planners, Household Habits, Office Supplies, Organization, Planner Party | Permalink | Comments (15)

Comments

{And now we hear from Amy - I am having such fun with this series!}

***

This is so exciting. Thanks for this invitation! How fun - like my own little blog post, as I get to explain to you just how and why my planning looks the way it does at this time.

First I will show you my wall calendar. We have had this system for many years, at least 7 or 8 at this house and I can't remember when I began doing it this way, but the important part is that it shows three months at a time - usually the current, and two upcoming months, though sometimes I don't update so fast and we have the previous-current-future instead.

For years I had two 12x12" heavy-duty, somewhat-glossy card stock sheets attached to the wall to create a 12x24" rectangle background, and the calendar pages were held onto that with tape rings on the backs, but that was tedious, and then made saving the old calendars a pain: you have to remove those tape rings so the old pages don't stick together! But at least the tape peeled off the semi-gloss card stock easily so I could quickly take down the old pages, move the current ones upward, and add the new ones at the bottom.

However, every summer the papers AND the card stock would curl so badly from the humidity! Between that, and the tape hassle, I finally had my husband install a piece of sheet metal. Now I use magnets to hold up my calendars. What is funny is that I had the magnet idea years ago, and we talked several times about going to pick up a piece of sheet metal and cutting it to size; then, just as we finally got over the hump of indecision (really, just being too busy with all the other small - or extra-large - projects we always have to do) and ordered the sheet metal, we were able to get just the right size (12x24") from Amazon, AND my very next trip to Joann Fabrics revealed that they, too, were selling these pieces of sheet metal! Some were plan, others were filigree.

I have been printing my calendar pages from WaterproofPaper.com for years; I think before that I might have gotten some from DonnaYoung.org or elsewhere.

It just occurred to me yesterday that perhaps I should have seasonal magnets instead of this random assortment of whatever isn't needed on the fridge. Wouldn't that be nice?

Oh, just a note, the clock on the wall used to be a "Maine" thing around here; a local family used to make these "Fox clocks," there were at least a dozen designs, all of them from that kind of 40's diner era. I am fairly certain that they also were a homeschooling family! They don't make them anymore, very sad. I always love it when I walk into someone's home or business and spot one of these clocks - they are unique, local, and becoming rare! We've had ours for 12, maybe all 13 years that we've lived in Maine and just this past year someone knocked it off the wall and we lost the glass. It still works, I will just have to be careful about dusting it more often!

And then, you will probably appreciate this: yes those are two thermostaats on the wall. :) (This is also just about our only kitchen wall, 2.5' wide, as most of our kitchen is taken up by windows, exterior doors, and interior doorways - what a pain.) We have the old thermostat from the old oil system, which we had replaced a few years ago. Above it is the new gas thermostat. And we have 3 zones. That is on top of the wood stove in the living room and electric on the third floor... we have an interesting and ancient house!

Oh my, this is so long! No wonder I don't blog anymore, sheesh!

{Dawn here, popping in to say: I'm loving this, Amy! You are so fun to read and never-ever apologize for wordiness ... I'm a big fan of wordiness!}

Now on to the fun part!

I have a few photos for you of the planner I was using until the end of the summer. I tend to be a 9-months kind of plan lady, and then I get an urge to switch up my system. That worked well with the Franklin Quest (then Covey, then Planner) products because they offered sets that start on all the quarters! Now most of their paper products seem to start on the half-years only, but I think a few classics still start on the quarter...

Of course that did get expensive on our single income and often I would just bide my time by making new inserts for my binder....

A number of years ago I switched to Michelle Quigley's beautiful Catholic dayplanners (and I used a few others too that were less expensive than the Franklin products) but eventually I got tired of nothing seeming quite-right.

So I made my own, of course.

{Dawn here again - we are kindred spirits, Amy!!}

This one I started in January. I've had a couple of other iterations in the very recent past few years. This one in particular is a Canson sketchbook and I like it for the thickness of the paper and also because it is book-bound. I found that the spiral-bound planners would get caught on things in my purse/bag, if/when I took them out with me. And the binder-style ones are just so thick and cumbersome.

So I have been making this style for a few years now, and I often use colored pencils that either reflect the season or reflect my whim. :)

I've got a couple of photos here of my monthly pages, and I leave a blank page behind each month for who-knows-what, maybe a phone number or a prayer or a birthday idea etc. I leave a few pages after Dec. for Christmas planning and card lists. And I always have the current and future year-at-a-glance calendars pasted in somewhere - usually the only thing that I print and glue in. You can't glue in too much or else you strain the binding, and I do want to leave just a little space in case of wanting to add in a photo or a bookmark or a sticky note etc.

SO. I am sending you photos of my monthly spreads, and my weekly spreads. The weekly spreads I have tweaked so many times; this layout I found in one of the Franklin catalogs and I essentially copied it. It's called the "Five Choices" planner and I don't really know what the "five choices" are, maybe once I looked into it and decided those few extra encouragement pages wouldn't be worth the $28 when I could just fill in my own $10 notebook! I really just like the clean style of the layout, and this is one of very few that go horizontally across the top. The bottom half the the spread is reserved for my to-do lists, which are: do, call, comp(uter), and go(errands etc.). That's it!

But like I said, I stopped using it abruptly at the end of the summer and I have something much simpler that is working for me right now.

Ooooh I love what Cay says about adding to our favorite planner and helping us focus on what is most important. YES.

And the thing about having stopped using my hard-bound homemade planner is that now I don't have a keepsake copy of what was important to me at any given point. I do save our wall calendars but they don't capture the smaller details, like the things on my to-do lists or my weekly focus notes to myself (at the top of some of my weekly spreads, such as a particular bible book, a verse, a reminder to myself about a child's habit or my own habit... etc.)

So.

What am I using now?

A totally disposable, totally simple stack of papers in a mini binder clip.

My main scribbling/planning/jotting/thinking spot is in my kitchen, standing at the breakfast bar, and at my house, that breakfast bar frequently has someone eating at it. And so any time I leave my planner there, it is at risk! Even though I don't think I had ever had any major accidents with it over the years, the risk is still very great (and case in point, just on Saturday I dumped a child's water glass onto my stack of papers and had to rewrite them... a first, I'm pretty sure... but there it is).

So one problem is that I often put my planner "away" to keep it safe. Even if that means putting it into the family command center in the kitchen, or onto the kitchen table where there is actually less snacking and drinking, that is several steps out of my way, and not where I am currently trying to do my thinking.

The other problem with the book-style planner (and this might sound ridiculous) is that you have to open the cover to get to the important/pertinent part!

I know that sounds like no big deal, because we spend all day opening books to the pages we need, and my planners always have the month and week tabs easily graspable from the outside, so it's just one quick flip of the wrist to get to where I need to be.

But.

It's a step. And performing it many times a day does add up, and it does become an impediment.

Now I have, at times, experimented with a list attached to the front cover of my planner, or a sticky note attached to the cover, but those don't end up working the way I hope they will.

(And the last part is that there are always crumbs about. Having my "thinking spot" being in the midst of food prep - and really I have tried to come up with a better spot, there just isn't one - means that even though whole bowls of soup or full mugs of coffee don't usually land on my planner, there are always tons of crumbs that need to be brushed up all day! That is probably the reason why I keep it closed, which means I always have to be opening it... So now that I have a disposable clip of paper, I'm not nearly so worried about it, which means I am much more apt to actually use it.)

(Can you believe anyone else thinks in such specific, minute details about her planner situation? Isn't it ridiculous, in a way?)

{Dawn again, here - I can absolutely believe it and to be honest, I am relieved by it! I am so glad I'm not alone in my obsession! It might be a bit ridiculous but that doesn't mean it's wrong!}

Okay, so now I am using scrap paper, which we have in abundance because of having printer rejects or just papers that got scribbled on one side, etc. I tear it into 1/4 size sheets, which is a little bit smaller than I would prefer a planner to be, but because there are no bindings or covers etc. to get in the way, it's working so nicely! And because it's so small and "disposable" looking, it ends up being rather private too. Nobody bothers to waste their time with it.

My top sheet is my brain dump, and it gets filled quickly. I end up refreshing/rewriting it every few days. And because the whole thing is disposable, I don't mind crossing out heavily anything that I have done or deleted etc. (That was another problem with my planner, I wanted to keep it neat so "done" items simply got a check-mark, which didn't make them get out of my field of view! I wasted so many accumulating nano-seconds skimming things that had already been checked off, because I could still see them!)

Sometimes I have a totally urgent sticky note attached to my top sheet, reminding me that we really really need to cook the fish before 4pm, that sort of thing... because if it's not written down right under my face I am apt to forget that sort of thing.

Beneath my top sheet, I have several longer-term sheets that I actually have stapled together, which helps me to understand that, as a group, I don't need to review them too often. A couple of times a week is fine. Each sheet is a little bit different, but basically I have a non-urgent shopping list that has things like a new belt for myself, a smaller crock pot, etc. just things I should keep a lookout for but don't need to worry about.

Then there is a list of places we can go if we need to get out of the house. On those rough days, I usually end up walking around in circles muttering about how awful everything is (not really, but in my mind I worry a lot!) and if I could just remember to look at that list, it might, maybe, spark me into a spontaneous trip to: the beautiful working waterfront; the gluten-free bakery; a different library branch; the beautiful cemetery in our neighborhood; the arboretum which is only 40 minutes away; etc. I have a list of indoor places and a list of outdoor places that we could easily get to, thus making memories instead of stewing and being angry with one another while the dinner doesn't get made, the laundry doesn't get done, and the homeschooling gets neglected. (Really our lives are not angry and bad like that at all, but again, inside my own head it gets kind of ugly and no matter how lovely and sweet things might be inside our own home, I know we need to get out and do more interesting things sometimes, esp. outdoor things.)

And I also have a sheet of other long-term things I need to keep in mind, like I am starting to jot down Christmas ideas but that will probably become several full-size pages in my housekeeping/homeschooling binder which I am not going to bother to include in these emails, it is rather separate from my main calendar/planner habits.

Oh, and the very last page I have in my binder clip is a little vitamin/supplement weekly chart. If it's there and can be checked off, I am much more likely to be getting those supplements! I have it oriented as a landscape so that I can easily flip it open 3x/day.

This system is working so well for me - but honestly now that I've been talking about this stuff with you, I am tempted to try my book-bound planner again. It's just so very nice!

Now I'm not sure how these photos will be ordered for you, but one photo shows two stacks of paper, wet, because I had just dumped water all over them. You can also see the scribble marks from my helper, and it doesn't bother me at all because I now these pages will just be recycled when I am done with them. :)

The other two photos show the new (dry) stack earlier, and then later, during the weekend as I added more and more items. And since then I think I have re-written a clean list for the beginning of this week.

Well that sure was fun for me! I hope you aren't entirely overwhelmed. I hope some other people are joining your party too! I guess my kitchen is pretty dark, we've got all southern exposure but some fools put a giant garage at the back corner of our house about 25 years ago and it blocks all the morning sun from the kitchen! And there is also a gorgeous sugar maple in our neighbor's yard, I have no problem with that, but until it loses its leaves it also casts shadows (which helps keep our house cool).

***

(Seasonal magnets would be lovely, but there's something very genuine about those random magnets.)

Ok my friends, please let Amy know your thoughts and if you have any questions on her planners ... drop a note in the comments box below if you have time!

Isn't this so fun? I am having SUCH fun with these guest posts and I hope you are too! I have several more to share so I hope you enjoy and I hope to see you here again ... tomorrow!