New Month, New Style

Filofax Friday is coming a little late this week.

I thought I would share some changes I'm making in my planning.

I tried again in October to move into my midori and while I love it for journaling and creative pursuits, it doesn't work as well as I would like for my planning. It's truly just personal preference but I love being able to put in and take out pages at will and that's just what I do in my Filofax. 

Since tomorrow also starts a new month, it's the perfect time to try some things out. I was plotting some gifts for people so I was placing an order with Sew Much Crafting (sewmuchcrafting.etsy.com) and I decided to try a week on two pages layout for myself. 

If you follow my Filofax posts you know I'm not only a planner girl from way back, I'm also a day on 2 page user. This is a very big change. I will be trying out using the week on 2 pages in conjunction with my day on 2 pages for now. 

I'm starting my month in my beautiful purple Malden Filofax. 

Right now it's all decked out with Monsters for October but I will probably be changing that up. 

The inserts from Danielle at sew much crafting are so lovely. Bright white paper, crisp, clean printing, they beg to be written on.

I started with some simple decorations from a past Planner Society kit and then, added in the things I know need to be done this week.

Work schedule, daily cleaning tasks and a few other tidbits. I'm really curious to see how this will work out this week and whether I will enjoy using these inserts. I bought all of next year and through the end of this year so I can always use them into December and if I decide I won't continue, can destash the remainder. They truly are beautiful inserts though.

I'm excited to try something a little bit different and see how it works for me. How about you? What style of pages do you use? Let me know in the comments. 

Slacking

I have been slacking so much on my blogging. I would like to offer up some wonderful excuse but there really isn't one. I've been feeling pretty meh about a lot of things, especially my knitting. That leads me to have nothing good or interesting to say.

I signed up for another term of Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup and honestly, I was partly hoping the cool fall weather, and the required one class a month would get me motivated which would help me fall in love with my knitting projects again. The truth is that I should probably have a frogging fest because I don't love most of them. Some of them I should power through and just finish but it's time to do something new that I'm excited about. I'm not sure what that is exactly yet.

In the meantime, I can do a little planner talk. As much as I loved One Book July and made it work so well, I was feeling pretty blah about it by mid-August. I decided to try using my Filofax again. When it comes to planning, especially daily task lists and to do lists, for me, nothing beats a ring-bound planner for looking at least semi-professional and allowing me to get everything I want to on a page. I have a system, I use it and it works. 

Here is an example of a recent page. Everything I need for the day is there. I can do my daily devotions, keep my food log (which I am slacking on so badly) keep track of the schedule for myself and the husband, my home to do list, my work to do lists and anything else that comes up. Even any medication I take or anything else like that. Since I have insomnia and often find my anxiety is higher if I'm overtired, I also track my sleeping habits so I can be aware of extra wake ups or other issues before they affect me in other ways. 

Here's a day where I was running a fever. (See the little thermometer icon I drew?) I can also keep track of things like that so if I read the cold medicine bottle and it says; if you have a fever for more than 5 days, discontinue use and see your doctor, I can look back and see just how long I had that fever. All these little things help me. 

Here's a day when an Internet order I had placed arrived. When I order something I write it on a page flag and stick it on a plastic ruler near the monthly calendar. Then I know what things I'm waiting for. I move it to the daily pages when it arrives. 

These are all simple things that help me feel more in control of everything going on day-to-day. For me, it just works. I have tried multiple electronic methods for this and it will not work for me. I need the tactile writing down on paper and not having to worry if the battery will die. That has happened to me too many times! 

Do you have any little tips and tricks that you use to stay organized? Let me know! I would love to hear it.