on how I plan my life

Amanda from Michigan, USA writes I love all your posts but I especially enjoy the ones about your planners/notebooks and how you organize them.

I'm secretly very glad Amanda wanted to know about the planning aspect since it is one thing that really works very well in my life.

First and most importantly, I do weekly planning - of our household, my business, socially, etc.

I firmly believe that doing only daily planning will drive you nuts - it certainly did for me - because you really feel the pressure of the to-do list every. single. day.

I do my business planning on Fridays because that's when my accountability partner and I chat. Household planning usually gets done before the grocery shop - these days that's a Thursday - but when I go back to work (I'm still on maternity leave), it'll also move to Fridays. And then, the social and personal stuff gets done on a Sunday late afternoon.


My tools

I use both a paper and an electronic (Outlook) planner. Outlook is mainly to remind me to pay bills and not miss appointments especially when I've had busy days where I haven't even opened my paper diary.

We also have a ginormous calendar in our kitchen where we mark off any socials but also things like when we need to phone in the electricity meter reading, when the gardener is due (we only get him in twice a month), when I start a new bottle of vitamins for the babies, etc, etc.
Household

I get an immense sense of satisfaction when I can use up stuff in the freezer and pantry so I first have a look there before I do my menu plan for the week.

Usually after I see which basic items I have, I add to my grocery list. E.g. if I have chicken in the freezer and I want to make Apricot Chicken, I may have to add a can of apricots or a sachet of brown onion soup to the grocery list.

Then I do a quick check through the house to see if we have things like breakfast and lunch goodies, cleaning stuff, baby items like formula and nappies and personal items for D and me.

Business

Quickly, in a nutshell, because I've written a whole system on organising your business, I review goals and set some action steps every week.

Personal and social

On Sunday nights I check all the calendars and see what's etched in stone (doctors' visits, supper with friends, etc.) and what still has to be done but can be moved around (gym!) depending on how busy we are. Also we don't like to be too busy in any one week, more so than ever now with the babies because sleep is our number 1 priority.

I then plan when I will work on which business tasks because I don't like feeling stressed out with too much to do. You see, I've realised my limitations :)

I usually coach clients on Mondays so I'll do a freezer meal (almost no kitchen time). Tuesdays I write my weekly newsletter so I won't make any social plans. And so on.

My other notebook

I also carry around a notebook to jot down basically anything that strikes my fancy:

• things to blog
• talk to nanny about ________
• things to buy
• website changes
• birthday cards to write out
  
• etc
  

If there's anything that needs to be transferred to the planner, I do so on a Sunday evening so that there's actual allocated time to attend to it.
Next year's planner

I've already seen the planner I want to get for next year - the only problem is it comes in two gorgeous colours - deep purple and deep red. Both delicious, yummy colours. Both are absolutely lovely to the touch (I'm a tactile person) and so, because I can't choose, I haven't bought mine yet.

Which colour do you think I should go for?

Have you bought your 2010 planner yet?

If you're undecided, here's a series of 5 posts I did to help you out (with pics)

Choose the perfect planner

P.S. I will write about the babies in another post - it takes military precision to organise those two :)

Menu plan Monday - 1 Oct 2007 & 2007 goals

Woohoo - only 3 months left to January and I'm on a mission to finish the year with a bang! I've signed up for the 100-day Goals Guy challenge to get closer to some of my goals. Do you need help? Email me.

Now, I have a confession - I took this planner back to Exclusive Books and got a new (more stunning) one. I have actually had to put it FAR away because I keep touching it. I'm such a tangible person and I love gorgeous textures and let's face it, after a 90-minute session at the dentist, can you blame me???


Anyway, here goes this week.

It's been nice and cold for the last week which I am LOVING so it's a pleasure to be in the kitchen whipping up some meals again. I finally figured out that I bake and cook more in winter because the kitchen is cool. In summer it's not pleasant to be in that kitchen (in our old house we had a lovely cool kitchen no matter what the season so my cooking didn't depend on the weather :) )

Monday
Kin's Apricot Chicken, rice and broccoli

Tuesday
Stirfried chicken in satay sauce (about two tablespoons peanut butter and I use water and milk to thin, not oil), noodles and vegetables - yum

Wednesday
Spicy sausage and potato

Thursday
Spaghetti bolognaise and salad

Friday
Pizza with loads of vegetables and fat-free chips

And if you still haven't answered the feed reader question, please do so... Tomorrow I'm posting on my solution and you can share yours too!

Works for me Wednesday - Organising your daily to-do list

This is my first WFMW and I’m so excited!

I’ve been reading some of the WFMW blog posts for a while now but I keep forgetting to actually post my things in time. But this week I got organised – I decided on Sunday what I wanted to post.

So this week I’ll show you how I organise my daily to-do list in my diary/ planner.

Every Sunday I have planning time for the week ahead. I write subheadings – Phone, Email and Computer – in red pen on every diary page from Monday to Friday.

Then all I do is add in my tasks under each heading. I separate Email from Computer because when I say Computer, it’s stuff like blogging, updating spreadsheets, printing shopping lists, etc, etc. In other words, non-email stuff.

Well, this works for me because it focuses me and if I feel like phoning, I can just get stuck in and make all my phone calls at one time. It saves me a lot of time every day because I don’t have to sort through a whole list to find certain tasks.

For more great tips, check out the official WFMW site