Planner Chat & Q & A

Happy Sunday, my friends! A quick(ish) post today to follow up on some "planning sheet" questions AND to share a little bit of planning news!

First my news: remember last month I participated in a live planning chat "webinar" with Mystie from Simplified Organization and Jen from Wildflowers & Marbles? Well I'm so pleased to announce that we are going to do an encore webinar NEXT Saturday, January 16th at 10 a.m. (EST)! I hope you'll grab yourself a cup of coffee and join us for some more planning chat!

Now, if you signed up for our December workshop you will get an email reminder for the talk (plus the link for playback) but if you missed us last time, you can go HERE to sign up and join in the fun. I believe we are going to focus on seasonal planning this time around, but please let me know if there are some specific questions that you'd like to see addressed. You can also ask (or type!) your questions for us during the live chat, but I'd love to hear what's on your mind these days when it comes to a new year of planning!

:)

And speaking of planning, and switching gears a bit, I wanted to answer a few questions that were raised about my printable planning sheets. I'm so glad the links worked and that they are of interest to some of you! :)

From Michelle:

I would love to see how one looks when it is filled out with your daily routines. Also, I was wondering how you incorporated your cleaning schedule into these sheets?

Michelle, I will share a planning sheet "in action" in a follow-up post. I am waiting for our new printer to arrive so I can print out more sheets - our old one died a few days ago! (It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow - you've gotta love Amazon Prime!) I will print out next week's planning sheets and then, in another post, I will show you all how I'm filling them in. And I've incorporated my cleaning schedule into the planner itself (the spiral-bound notebook I've made up and will share in a post this week). I have listed my housekeeping tasks in my weekly agenda, in checklist form.

    From Deb:

I especially love your "Deep Winter Overview" and would love to see how it flows through and works into your week(s). Your themes change weekly, time flies so quickly, how do you establish each theme? Crafts, menus, books, decorating details?

Deb, some weeks the theme features more prominently in our plans than others ... but I always like to have a theme! It helps me grasp some of the beauty of the season. I've done this since I was a child ...

What I do is sit down and and brainstorm the year as I see it, filled with so much joy - as I go through my past journals and read through some favorite seasonal resources I take notes of things that I love about the seasons. Using this large list of ideas  - events, qualities, remembrances - I work themes into the weeks of the year. Some of them just fit with certain weeks because they match up with a full moon or a feast day - eg. winter stars at Epiphany, candles at Candlemas, maple during the full sap moon, snowflakes for St. Agnes, etc. With this outline of themes, I schedule activities and observations where I can - in our homeschooling, craft projects, family meals, our weekly book basket, and sometimes just my own thoughts and personal activities.

So, for example, next week my theme is "warming drinks." I chose this theme to be part of January because it is National Hot Tea Month and because I feel hot drinks to be such a comfort and joy at this time of year. It is also my birthday week, and tea (and coffee) is such a big part of my life! So I want to celebrate it a little ... with a "birthday tea" for myself and with my kids (who prefer cocoa) and perhaps a cleaning out of my china cupboard - dusting my pots, cups and saucers. (Remembering the tea I shared with my late grandmother - in those very pots! - whose birthday is also this week.) I retired my autumn and Christmas mugs and found my "new" mug for the winter season - a cheerful, golden mug that holds a very generous volume of beverage!

It would also be fun to explore hot drinks through the world and over time - what do people drink where? What are some global tea customs? How and where is tea grown? We could take a look at the herbs used for tea - and sketch a tea garden for the spring, with plans to make our own tea blends next year? (Homemade gifts!) Perhaps a look at the history of tea in New England, with a visit to the Boston tea party ship and museum? Any or all of these things could be woven into our home learning this week ...

I keep it fairly low key - or not, depending on time and interest! I just like being aware of all those beautiful "comforts and joys" that are part of the year itself. My aim is to come up with all kinds of ideas (like the ones I mentioned above) so I can pick and choose what fits with our needs each year. Like, we didn't do much with "winter stars" last week ... but maybe next year we'll visit the planetarium, hang shiny window stars, and bake star-shaped spice cookies for Little Christmas ... 

Naming "themes" to the weeks is just my way of organizing a large umbrella of many ideas. And these are the ideas (and framework) that are making up my book which I hope to "publish" sometime this year. For now though, these ideas live in my planners and posts and binders - and, of course, in my heart! I carry them around with me and nurture them when I have time to sit and reflect on just why I love the seasons. :)

Well, I got a bit rambly, Deb, but I hope I answered your question. Please let me know if I can clarify further! 

Here's another question, from Shelly:

I am wondering.... did you do these in Word? The reason I ask is that I would like to create a 'deep winter' overview, but my lists would have different things to focus on.

Shelly, I did these sheets in an application called, "Pages" on my Macbook. I don't know how or if that would work with Word, but what I did was I went back into the Deep Winter Overview page and deleted personal text. I left the dated nine weekly blocks and the snowdrops graphic. If that would be something you could use, feel free to grab it! I had someone ask if they would be able to make the pages editable, but I'm not sure how that would work.

Deep Winter Overview (Clean Copy)

And finally, from Kelly:

I could see using these as brainstorming sheets, and then transferring the ideas/thoughts to my planner (monthly, daily, and weekly to-do's). Thank you for sharing these! Isn't planning such a joy, especially when it helps us live out our lives more intentionally?

Kelly - yes! Exactly. I use these sheets (and exercises) to brainstorm seasonal ideas that can (possibly, hopefully) be funneled into my weekly activities - things I might do with my family and/or on my own. The planner - which I will show you all this week - is where I get into the "nitty gritty" of the week. It shows me what is happening when and where I might be able to squeeze in a little seasonal appreciation. :)

Planning IS such a joy, Kelly - and you nailed it when you said: "it helps us live out our lives more intentionally." YES. THIS. Time flies, joy passes by - and I love to find ways to harness it, appreciate it, and share it with my family when and where I can. And the blessing is, seasonal living is a joy we get to revisit every year! :)

~❤~

Well, my friends, I'd best wrap up now, but I hope you enjoyed this post! Please let me know if you have any questions - regarding the planning sheets or perhaps my upcoming chat with Mystie and Jen on Saturday. I would love to hear from you! And I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday ... we've got Downton tonight! Woohoo! So let's chat about the episode tomorrow! :)

See you here again very soon ...