My New Calendar

So life has been really hectic for me this year...  Work and home just seem to be overloaded with events, jobs and 'things' that were making my days run into each other with long lists of 'to dos'. 

I decided to take control of my time, by enrolling in my first ever online class, 'It's About Time', with Aby Garvey from Simplify 101.  Let me tell you, I am now addicted to online classes, and I am currently about to start my third class this year!  I will blog about online learning another time soon, but for anyone out there who is wondering whether or not to take the plunge, I personally highly recommend it.  It is fabulous for self-paced learning, and it is surprising just how personalised it can be.

Anyway, one of the steps in my quest to better organise my time was to review my calendar system.  I have blogged about my calendar before, which you can read about here.  I am lucky enough to have been given beautiful family calendars for Christmas for the past couple of years, which I keenly embraced as our key home time management system.  Unfortunately, a few factors started to bother me about these other styles of calendars, and when I found myself missing appointments, I decided I needed to rethink my approach.

One of the prompts that Aby gave to us in her class was to think back to an ultra-organised time in your life, and what time management 'tools' we used.  This reminded me of an old calendar system that I had a few years ago.  I initially purchased it from Day Timer (a company from which I get my diary inserts), but unfortunately they don't stock this particular system any more.  It is a large white magnetic board, and it had a calendar on the top left hand side, an additional notepad on the bottom left, and 5 sets of mini post-its down the right hand side.  When the calendar and notepad ran out, I put the magnetic board in my cupboard for a rainy day...

So when things were really pouring around here, I pulled out the old board and got creative with cardstock and my computer.  I downloaded a free calendar template online, and personalised it to suit our needs.  I also made the words 'Eat Play Love' for the tiny pockets. 

Finally, I copied the calendar template to also create a meal plan template for the space at the bottom. I still use my meal planning routine, that I have previously shared with you here.   And having our dates AND meals in one place - perfect!

And by having it magnetic, it is on the fridge, so it is right in front of my face everytime I go into the kitchen - now I can't miss a thing!

I have also made the most of the other family calendars, having one in my home office, and the other one is still hanging, which I plan to buy a frame for, and change the photo monthly to enjoy our gorgeous nephew :)