How I Plan: Part 3

How I Use the System to Plan My Month

Last time I explained the three components to my system: Month to Month files, lists, and a calendar. Now I’ll explain how I use them to plan my month.

The bulk of my planning happens at the beginning of the month. I try to carry out this plan throughout the month, therefore accomplishing most of my goals. Because I have a General Checklist for each month in my Month to Month system, I know just what I need to do for that month and what my goals are. I try to spread tasks and jobs out throughout the month.

Getting ready

I usually plan my month on a Sunday afternoon during our quiet/nap time. Right now it takes me about an hour. I pull up my To Do list for the month in Evernote on the computer. I have MinimaList open on my tablet, and I have my calendar.

In MinamiList, I make list for each week of the month like this:

January 5-11

5 -

6 -

7 -

8 -

9 -

10 -

11 -

I also make a To Do list, and a list for gifts.

Now I'm ready to plan!

The Planning

1. Review the month. In this step, I review scheduled appointments, things going on with my husband, birthdays, feast days and church services, etc. I add all these events to my week lists in MinimaList. So it might look something like this:

January 5-11

5 - pitch-in @ church

6 - Theophany

7 - Peter

8 - go to Robin's

9 -

10 - Move!

11 - Will has camp

2. Plan from the General Checklist. My General Checklist for the month (kept in Evernote) is broken into three parts: Seasonal, Monthly, and 2014. Seasonal tasks are those that need to be done specifically that month or season. Monthly tasks are things I like to do each month such as write to the kids, plan birthday gifts, and organize photos. The 2014 (or current year) list has projects I hope to do that month.

Here's part of the January List, for example.

Seasonal

Set home goals for the year.

Review Month by Month system, adjust any lists, and delete any files that are no longer relevant. Look through paper files as well. 

Take care of gift returns.

Monthly

Update family blog.

Write Mia. 

Write Michael. 

2014

Organize food binder, make stock lists, shopping lists, etc.

Start card making

Start a family art time

I simply start at the top of the list, and put a task either on a specific day (for example, I like to write to the kids on the day of their birth so Mia is always the 18th) or at the bottom of the week I'd like to do that task. I assign them one by one into my MinimaList lists until I get to the bottom. Some of them I can do right then. Some just get put in the To Do list if I don't know where to put them.

And I'm done!

Next time I’ll walk you through how I put this plan into action to get things done!

How I Plan: Part 2

When I was in school, using a basic planner from the store worked just fine. However, after moving into a real home and having a child, then another, the planning got more and more complicated. After reading Sink Reflections, I had a "Control Journal." But after a while, even that didn't cut it. So I tried different things out, including making my own planner pages and printing them out each month. And as much as I like paper (especially if it's pretty), I'm pretty tired of it and having to throw it away, not to mention looking at my own handwriting.

My Current System

A couple key things happened that formed my current system. The first was I read about the Tickler file system on this site. Don't ask me about the name, but it is awesome. Instead of Tickler though, I call it “Month to Month”. The second key thing was reading “31Days toGTD for Homemakers.” The author took the book Getting Things Done and applied to to homemakers. Although most of it was review for me, the big thing I took away was the idea that a planner is really just a bunch of lists.

Month to Month

The Month to Month file system is basically having a file for each month. In that month you keep all the papers relevant to that month as well as a To Do list. Since I am trying to get away from paper, I have this in Evernote. (Which is also awesome by the way!) I do have a paper file too because there are some things that just can't be on the computer.

Setting up the Month to Month system was a light bulb for me. I was used to having binders that had a category for each aspect of my life: wife, mother, kitchen, cleaning, homeschool, blogging, etc. It was so disconnected and I hated flipping from section to section. With Month to Month, everything I need for the time I'm in, is in one place. I also had a place to add all the seasonal tasks and ideas that seemed to always get forgotten or lost.

Lists

Lists grow and shrink. There is usually a need for a new list for a time, then not for a while. It’s always changing. The reason set planner pages always frustrated me was because if something new came up, there was nowhere to put it.

I keep all my lists in two places. I keep long term lists that I need occasionally in Evernote. I keep every day To Do lists and things in an app on my tablet called MinimaList. It was free and I really like it. The author of the book I mentioned uses “Remember the Milk”.

Calendar

I also use a calendar for appointments and other date specific information. I was using the calendar on my tablet, but it is unexplainably not working so I'm using a free paper one for now. I was using Google Calendar, which I like. However, since we don't have internet in the home right now, I needed to go the old fashioned way. Really, I just use this as a reference so I'm not too picky about the method right now.

So those are the three components to my system: Month to Month file system, lists in Evernote and MinimaList, and a calendar. Next time, I’ll show you how I use them to plan a month at a time! 

How I Plan: Part 1

This Mini-Series

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to share each month how I plan with a preview and review. Since this month is going to be off with basically moving and unpacking, I'm just going to outline my system for this month. In February, I'll show it in action with the preview and review.

As I wrote this, it turned out to be a lot longer than I had originally thought! So instead of bombarding you with a huge post, I’m going to spread it out into five posts. It’ll be a mini-series. While I’m unpacking and trying to adjust, these can quietly be showing up for you to read.

This first post will introduce the series and my thoughts on the system. Next I’ll give you a little history of how I developed my system. After that I’ll dive right into the components of the system. In the following post, I’ll explain how I use the system to plan my month. I’ll tell you how I use it to plan my days for the final post.

Thoughts on My System

I want to start out by making something clear. I’m not saying this is the ultimate or only way to plan. It’s just how I plan. I am so excited to finally find a system that works for me and adapts to changes in our lives without having to rebuild a new system. I realize everyone’s needs are different and everyone’s brains work differently. I’m sharing because maybe it will work for you. Or maybe just one piece. I love reading about how others plan and even if it’s not for me, I usually can take a piece of it and make it work for me.

What I love about my system is that it’s a few components that I use together to meet all of my planning needs. It’s a simple structure that I can adapt to my current needs. And to add to that, it’s free! It’s not a planner I have to buy or even my own sheets that I print out. Wonder how that can be? Find out in the next post!