Tag Archives: journal

To - Do List

How My To-Do List Helps Me Get & Stay Organized

I love lists … it’s true ! I love making them, but I especially love checking things off my to-do list.

I make many kinds of lists, but my to-do list is my main list and then I make off-shoot lists from it. For example, I may list: go grocery shopping, run errands and pay bills on my to-do list. An off-shoot list from grocery shopping would be a meal plan list and a shopping list ~ an off-shoot from run errands might be drop off dry cleaning, return library books and pick up a prescription from the drug store ~ an off-shoot for paying bills might be to balance the check book, schedule individual online payments and then file the statements. Usually my main off-shoot type list is grocery related … only if I’ve procrastinated / blown things off like running the errands or reconciling the bank account, do I break it down into doable chunks. Writing tasks down is a way for me organize my thoughts and make a plan to accomplish everything. I’m a visual learner, so having a list in front of me helps me to see the “big picture” and then be able to prioritize things. Continue reading

My Perpetual Calendar

Journaling With A Perpetual Calendar

I’ve always wanted to keep a diary. When January 1st rolled around on the calendar, I would make a resolution to document my days. I always had the best of intentions, but after only a few weeks it faded into the background of my busy days.

One of the gifts I received when my first child was born was a “Baby’s First Year” calendar. It had little stickers to place on the days he reached milestones, as well as ones to note doctor appointments, etc. I really enjoyed having a separate place to record all his “firsts”. When my daughter was born a few years later, I purchased another one to save all her important dates too. I found myself referring back to my son’s calendar, remembering going through all the same developmental stages with him.

Then I decided to use my regular wall calendar in the same way … without the cute stickers. I put everything on that calendar, combining the whole family’s schedules. As the kids grew older, my calendar pages really filled up with all their activities and school schedules.

I have saved all these calendars. Over the years, usually during the week between Christmas and New Years, I have gotten into the habit of paging through these old calendars. I usually go through and write birthdays on my new calendar at this time. Sometimes I’m looking for a specific event, other times I’m looking through them to be reminded of old memories and reminisce.

This year, I’ve decided to try to combine my hope of keeping a journal with documenting events on my calendar. While browsing on Pinterest, I came across the idea of a perpetual calendar. Each day of the year has it’s own card. Each daily card would have several years worth of events that happened on that date. The idea being that I would write a quick sentence or two about my day on each card. Then the next year, I’d write my short journal entry on the same card as the last year. Over time, I would be able to look back over many years, all documented on the same card for that date. I’m hoping that since it’s only a sentence or two, I won’t feel overwhelmed by trying to come up with profound thoughts while staring at a blank page in my journal. Some days will have exciting entries, some days will be boring … but they all add up to life 🙂