How organized are you? Getting organized is a popular New Year’s Resolution so now is a great time to get your life in order. We’ve got tips on how to use planners and they don’t need to be extravagant. What’s interesting is we often don’t realize that when we don’t pick the planner that suits our natural tendencies, we’ve defeated ourselves before we even get out of the box. Then we fuss that it’s the planner’s fault when really it’s that we didn’t tune into how we tend to do things so that we would pick the planner that would work best for us.
Wondering what the first step is to simplify everything in your life and get more organized? Take a good look at your mom planner and ask yourself how you handle it. What do you love and what don’t you like about it? When you make a list you might be very surprised at what it tells you. The next step is to pick a mom planner that is truly right for you based on your planning style. How can you tell what planning style you are? Here are four styles most busy Moms can identify with:
The DIY Mom: For the person who is always changing their mind,, trying to put two things together from different products, always wanting to see what the latest planner out there is and by the middle of the year, you can’t stand the planner you have, you are perfect for a DIY Planner. What’s great about any DIY Planner is you can print out only what you need and set it up exactly how you want. Monthly and weekly calendars, home management forms, these are all examples of what you have to pick from. When personalizing it, I may only carry the calendars and leave home management forms at home, print out my year or only a week, use the same format for work and for home ~ the key is flexibility and a DIY Planner has it all.
The Mobile Mom: You aren’t often home or you always have a phone or laptop in your hands and your calendaring may interact with work, home and your partner. I love pages that are formatted for Outlook enabling you to simply print out your Outlook planner pages and place them in the binder of your choice. That way you aren’t risking the information you keep at work when marrying it with information from home. If you are electronically savvy, you will thrive with online, mobile or desk top planning apps.
The Traditional Mom: You manage a complicated and busy schedule full of activities, prefer detailed records no matter what the topic, are happiest when all your reference information is in one place, like to customize by adding information pages that meet your personal needs, and like a planner that is an extension of your personal style. You actually use all the pages in an organizer made in a binder format in various sizes from purse to desk with every calendar layout you can find.
The Gatekeeper Mom: This to me is the holy grail of family time management ~ the piece that holds it all together. So basic and unbelievably useful! This is a generic desk pad that is just $4.99, available from any office supply store. The key to its success are the big blocks and applying a color coding system to help everyone know where they need to be. The reality is if no matter what kind of planning tool you choose for yourself, there is always a step two. You are the epicenter for information, the gatekeeper that makes it all come together so you can teach your family where they need to be and what they need to do.
Tell me…what kind of mom planner do you currently use? Is it paper or digital? Do you use a family wall calendar as well? We’d love to know~
My favorite planner, by far, is a planner pad. Check it out.