Hello my friends and Happy Tuesday! I hope you're all doing well. :)
I was waiting for a sunny day to do this post because my pictures come out so much better when taken in bright, natural light - but the skies above are just not cooperating! Yes, it's drizzly, dreary and downright raw here in New England this week - and this is crazy weather for the end of July! (Crazy that it's the end of July, period, right?!)
Anyhoo! I decided not to wait, but to go ahead and take my pictures, and just get on with this draft! :)
What I wanted to show you all today is how I'm tweaking my Day Designer daily planner with a couple of "hacks." I'm part of a Facebook group that discusses our love for Day Designers (named, rather aptly, We Love Day Designers) and there's a current thread discussing the challenge of keeping track of one's week when using a daily format. So my answer in that thread was a little convoluted (I know, shocker) because I had a whole bunch of thoughts on this topic! And, as I've blogged about before, I do have separate weekly planner(s) that I use in combination with my daily planner. But because most people don't like to use more than one planner at a time, I brainstormed a bit about how to combine these two needs - to tightly focus on one's busy and full day while still keeping an eye on the bigger "weekly" picture.
So here's where I got to indulge my obsession with addiction to passion for post-it notes ...
Post-it notes to the rescue!
First I addressed the concept of the weekly to-do list ... which includes those items that need doing soonish, but are not necessarily tied (yet) to any given day. Generally speaking I make up this list on Sundays by referencing my monthly calendar, the previous week's to-do list as well as my weekend planner (or P.O.W.). What's coming up? What didn't get done? What does the rest of the family have to say on the subject?
To keep that list handy in my Day Designer, I use a very basic, lined post-it note stuck to the bottom of the daily to-do column. When I fill out that column I refer to this list and choose only those tasks that can or should be done TODAY. I move the list along to the next day each morning. (It saves a lot of rewriting!)
Now, as for a weekly agenda - an overview of the week's appointments and activities - I display this small planner on a stand in my kitchen:
A week coming up next month ... I like how it has the whole week on one page!
But for easy reference when using the DD, I again turned to post-it notes!
At the bottom of each DD page there is a stretch of space designed for "notes" and "gratitude," and to be perfectly honest, I don't really use this space very often. So I thought this might be a good spot to create a compact (but highly visible) week at-a-glance!
I used the 1/5 x 2in. size notes in multiple shades so the individual days stand out. (And yes, I have that kind of post-it note collection - lots of colors and sizes on hand at all times!) I carefully layered the notes on top of each other in order to fit as many as I could and together they formed a kind of long adhesive strip. (I trimmed the last one to size). I was able to comfortably fit six notes here and so the last note represents both Saturday and Sunday. Now, obviously there isn't room for a LOT of planning on these tiny scraps of paper, but certainly enough to list your basic schedule for the week! And the whole strip lifts pretty easily as one piece if you do it with care, and then it can be moved to the next page each new day.
(Full disclosure - I don't actually use this "hack" much since, as I mentioned above, I have other weekly planners as part of my planning repertoire, but I wanted to show this idea here - and over on that FB thread - in case it might be helpful to someone else.)
But speaking of weekly planners - a topic for my next post - I wanted to give you all a little peek at my current planner project:
Woohoo, love making new planners! :)
So what I'm doing here is combining my weekly planning sheets with some lesson planning forms I've made up along with those pretty vintage scrapbooking papers I love so much - into one big (but hopefully not too big) homeschooling/housekeeping/seasonal living mom planner. :) Once it's complete I'll have it all bound at the copy shop - and while I'm still ironing out a few details (my printer is being a pill), so far I am very happy with how it's turning out!
Ok, getting back to the Day Designer ...
Here's a little time-zoning trick I've taken a liking to ...
One thing I love about the Day Designer is the structure of the daily page. I really appreciate how it breaks down the day into hourly increments with evenly lined spaces. (I feel it keeps my writing a little neater and more uniform!) That said, I also like to think of my day in "chunks" if you will ...
There's super early morning when I'm having my coffee, before (most of) the boys wake up. (5-8)
There are the early morning hours after the boys get up and before Earlybird's therapist arrives. (8-10)
There is the daily therapy session. (10-1)
There is the early and mid afternoon - after the therapist leaves but before we need to wrap up the day. (1-4)
There is the late afternoon - or "tidy time" as I call it when I neaten the house and prepare supper. (4-7)
Then finally there is the time after supper ... but before bed. (7-9)
So what I did here was to use a highlighter to differentiate each time period along the side of the agenda. I then color my task boxes in order to assign each to-do a time zone ...
I do this once I've written out my daily to-dos and it gives me a chance to thoughtfully (and hopefully realistically) choose WHEN I can fit in those tasks. For example, some things are easier to get done when the therapist is here (eg. phone calls) or very early before the boys are awake (laundries, for instance). Some things - like the shell craft for St. James's Day - would be something I'd do with the boys after lunch, whereas registering Crackerjack for an upcoming SAT exam is marked in lavender because Bill will be doing that with him after supper ...
You know, I'm really loving this "hack" because not only is it a great organizational tool, but it adds a bit of pretty color to my Day Designer page, too! (Same with the post-it notes.) Because - true confession - I really haven't caught on with the sticker and washi planner craze, lol! And I know it's all the rage, and it is pretty for sure, but it just seems to take a lot of time and sometimes I think it it looks a little cluttery ... not that that's a real word, lol, but you might know what I mean! With a dash of highlighter and some pastel sticky notes I can add some color (and a bit of cheer) without distracting myself from the bare bones of my timetable and to-dos!
Actually, this page is quite cluttered, lol! But just enough to have purpose, I think ...
Bottom line - I love my Day Designer! My head is lighter and my days are a little more productive because of this neat and versatile planning tool! I love it as it is, but it's fun to tweak it and try to make it as efficient as I can ... hey, anything that let's me indulge my extravagant office supply habit, right? ;-)
Oh! One last thing to mention - wait, make that two - and maybe I've mentioned them before, I can't remember - but I use an old Franklin-Covey system "trick" in my Day Designer by marking each checkbox when there is action on a task. So if I have started or am in the process of doing a task I place a dot in the box and when I complete it I check it off. If I don't complete it, I use an arrow to indicate that I'm moving it forward. I also add a little circled initial next to to tasks that are someone else's responsibility. Bill got a couple on today's list as you can see! :)
Well my friends, I'd best be off now as I'm moving quickly towards that blue zone and we haven't made our shell craft yet! (And the troops are getting restless behind me I can tell!) But I hope you are all doing well and once again, I do apologize that my posting has been so slow lately. I hope to pick up speed soon though and if you visit Facebook or Instagram (or Pinterest for that matter) please do look me up! I post in those places pretty regularly because I can do so fairly quickly (and from my phone). My next blog post should be just a week or so away ... I am going to talk about the DIY planner I showed you above and how I plan a new homeschooling year for my family. As you can imagine I have a LOT to say on those topics!
But for now I wish you well and hope you're all having a nice summer. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones ...
I will see you here again very soon!