2016 Bullet Journal Setup

Since letting go of our employees last year, and having worked almost every day since then, I have learned there is a difference between being busy and being productive. I noticed I was not really taking an active part of my life because it was the same thing day after day. This made me want to put things into perspective. I wanted to "track" aspects of my life so see what I was actually doing with my time and see how I can be more PRESENT in it.

I snagged myself a Traveler's Journal Notebook by Midori and started a Bullet Journal. Bullet journaling was something I debated doing when I started my planner (and even started a diary), but I didn't think the format was what I needed at the time. It is now.

If you aren't familiar with Bullet Journals there's a great video here and here, which can explain it a lot better than I can.

The flexibility of this type of journal allows me to use however much space I need for any one day (not what a week-on-two-page planner has separated out for me) and I change change things up as needed. For instance, in August when I set up my monthly pages I used one whole spread for the month (the left page for the monthly calendar and the right page for events, notes, etc) and I really only used the left page. When I set up September's calendar I only used the left calendar page and started my daily entries immediately after that, so there was no wasted space.

On a side note, am I the only one who gets stressed out about unused spaces in planners? For some reason I feel this pressure to use every inch of a page so if it's left unused I feel bad about it. Any one else feel that way?

Some of the things I wanted to keep track of was how much time I spent at work, how much time I spent in car, how many hours of sleep I'm getting, the amount of quality time I'm spending with Dean, and how much time we're spending together as a family. I wasn't sure if what I felt I was doing was what I was actually doing. Does that make sense?

So I've been using this for going on three months now and I do think it has helped me get a better understanding of what I'm doing with my time and how I can better spend it. Not only that but I feel more in control of my life. Definitely more present in it. There are definitely things I still need to work on, but this journal has helped me get on the path I want to get on.

How do you keep track of your time? Do you keep track of it even? What are some things you do keep track of? ♥

What's In My Bag?

Purses have always been a weakness for me. Chunky handbags, chic clutches, sleek cross body bags... I love them all. Over the course of the last decade or so I have collected so many different purses. Some gals collected shoes, I collected bags. One type of bag that I kept coming back was the cross body. I love having my hands and arms free, and not having to worry about my stuff.

I've always been on the look out for the perfect purse. Currently I have the perfect clutch, tote bag, mini travel purse, and special occasion purse. The special occasion purse is actually the perfect purse ever made, but since having Dean I've been hard on it and I don't want to ruin it, so it's now the special occasion purse instead of my every day purse. The purse I am using right now is one I found on a whim at Target a week ago. It was in the clearance section with no price tag on it, and it was the only one. So of course I grabbed it and bought it. And I love it. It's big enough for my essentials and little more but not too big it gets in my way getting in and out of the car, and carrying Dean around.

My essentials:
1| Kate Spade planner. 2| diary. 3| binky wipes.
4| mini pouch- anti nausea wrist bands, military coin from my Dad's Green Beret unit,
and good luck charm form my Mom, a little key that says "compassion".
5| my favorite lip gloss and lip balm. 6| coffee cup cozy. 7| tissues. 8| wallet.
Funny little story about this military coin. My sisters and I all received one on the day my dad retired from the Army. I was a senior in high school at the time. After the ceremony my dad told me to walk over to where a bunch of the "younger" guys in my dad's unit were chatting (and by younger, I mean younger than my dad- I'm sure the youngest was in his 30's), and drop my coin on to the floor by all of them. Me being me and totally niave, I did just that and I looked up at them and smiled big like I was in on something cool, not knowing I really was a butt of a (playful) joke. All the guys looked shocked and slightly embarrassed, looked from me to my Dad and just started laughing. Hard. Quickly I realized this wasn't just a cute thing I did. I had essentially just told them they were all buying me drinks. It's a thing in the Army, I guess, that in a group of people whoever drops their coin last buys drinks. So I had initiated something that I wasn't even able to do and with all the dudes who worked under my dad. Hahaha, I was so embarrassed at the time but I look back on it fondly now. It really was funny!

1| Sailor Moon keychains. 2| Sailor Moon pocket watch.
Anyways, that's all that's currently in my purse. I have a feeling pretty soon here I'll be dropping the diaper bag and adding a few of Dean's necessities in there as well.

Do you have have anything special you carry around in your purse?

2015 Planner Details

Last July I decided I needed to finally get organized. Adding the baby on top of owning a business (and on top of me being a space cadet) made me realize just how much I needed something to keep all my bills, appointments, work schedules, and everything in between in one place where I would remember it. So I bought myself a little planner from Office Depot. A few months into using, I knew I was going to stick with it so I invested in a Kate Spade zipper planner.

This was a small fortune ($120 on Ebay), is my first "designer" item, and it was worth every penny. I l o v e it. One reason I chose to invest in this one was because the one I was using was getting pretty loved from being lugged around in my purse. The corners were starting to bend and the pages inside were getting banged up a bit. The Kate Spade has zips around so everything is safe and sound inside. At a glace, on the left I have a gift card I need to send to my sister, two cute little cards that make me happy (and I haven't decided what to do with yet), a business card for my store, and a copy paper clips.

On the right hand side is a little tab I made that says "AaronlovesSarah", pictures, and a big note card of happiness. The pictures are from my IG account and had printed at Office Depot for a whopping total of 29 cents. The pages for the pictures I found at Craft Warehouse for $4 and had to cut and re-hole punch to fit on the rings.

The calendar part of the planner I'm using is a week on two page format calendar I bought of Etsy and had printed at Office Depot. It turns out the Office Depot Copy Center is pretty amazing. You can just email them what you want to have printed out and then they'll print it, cut it, hole punch it, basically whatever you need. If you are a small business and apart of the Chamber of Commerce you get a small business discount. What would have cost me $35 ended up costing me $14 after the discount. So yay for small businesses!

I really liked the "life mapping" color coding system so I continued with that. This allows me to see anything major at a glance without having to even open up my planner. Pink is anything having to do with Me, Aaron, or Dean. Orange is family related. Yellow is work related. Green is bills. Blue is general fun things. Purple is friend related.

After my calendar I have a few small sections for various things like Dean's sleeping and food log, store related notes and ideas, and then a section for the fantasy wrestling league that I'm apart of. As I'm writing this, I realized I don't have a section for the blog, oops! I'll have to fix that asap.

There are tons of different ways to set up an organizer but this works for me. I've found that my planner is most effective when I keep it out someplace visible. That way the moment I think of anything I need to add or check on it's right there for me. In addition to keeping work schedules and bill dates in my planner, I use it to keep track of what workouts I'm doing, small grocery lists, and projects I'd like to work on.

What do you do to stay organized? Do you use a planner? Your phone? Post-it notes?

Basket of Organizing Goodies

"Back to school" sales are my favorite types sales.  Stores line their shelves with colorful and fun school and organization supplies.  I'm a sucker for them.  Target is especially awesome (but brutal for my bank account) thanks to their awesome Dollar Spot.  It's a rare occassion I leave Target without a handful of items from there.

Today Dean and I had a little shopping date so Aaron could nap since he wasn't feeling well.  Dean helped me pick up a basket full of goodies.  Most of it is for my planner and keeping all that stuff organized.  Now I can keep it all together in one nice spot instead of the bags I've been using.

The pouch, rulers, and pencils I got in Japan, and the mini pens I got at Target.

Various ink pads, stamps, and paperclips.

Clips, pads of paper, and washi tape.

 

A one-hole punch and a six-hole punch I ordered on Amazon.

Some good old Smashbook accessories.

L o v e  the notecard sets Target has been selling this year.  I used them for for my baby shower and a few other special occasions.  They're perfect for all of the reasons so of course I picked up all the new sets Target had.

Are you a sucker like me for Target and it's Dollar Spot items? <3

Color Coding

The months of July and August have been (and are going to be) crazy for us. Birthdays, anniversaries, taxes, imports/shipments, tournaments, a convention, and more taxes mean that I need to be on top of my time and money. This is why I picked up a planner and after using it for a few weeks I'm starting to get into an efficient grove. It has helped us a ton already and I feel pretty confident that I'll be sticking with it.

Over the course of the last few weeks I've tried different things to see what I liked/didn't like and what worked/didn't work for me. Post-it notes, to-do lists, highlighters, and colored pens, oh my! After hours and hours spent scouring blogs and watching youtube videos I've come up with a system I'm pretty set with.

I found a blog post on Plannerisms about color coding with a "life mapping" system. It's basically an indexing system to help you see at a glance what events are happening that week, or however far in the future you plan, using colors.



This is my oversized index insert that I keep directly behind the current week in my planner. My life is separated into six categories and when an event or something is happening on a particular week I mark it on the edge of the paper. The squares I mark on my week match the position of the squares on my insert for continuity. I like having my week on two pages, that way I have enough room on each day to write out multiple things like events and lists.



Once a few weeks are completed using this system, you can flip backwards and can tell just by the colors on the edge of the paper what events happened. These weeks look pretty much the same, but that's because I have that many things going on right now. This works for flipping forward in the month or year. If you know ahead of time when certain things will happen you can color them in and if you forget the date you can still find it just by looking for the colored square.

For a detailed tutorial on how to make a life mapping system like this, along with some other life mapping resources, check out DIYfish's blog. If you are interested you should definitely check it out. I also watched a good video by One Fantastic Find on how to create an index.

How do you keep your planner organized? Do you color code also?

♥♥♥