Plan 2 Plan Part 1: Daily Planner

I got a question this week on Instagram that I get often; What is your planning routine?  I thought this would be a great topic for a blog post as I find it interesting seeing how others keep themselves organized.  For me, I have found that breaking everything down into 3 sections helps me stay on track.

 I use a daily planner, I use a family binder system and I meal plan. My daily planner contains the day to day details of our week, it contains notes on what's going on at home, work (school), my blog/Etsy store and meals.  The family binder contains all the details of the family life, for example my 4 children attend four different schools.  This binder contains each of their academic calendars, activity schedules, team rosters and participation responsibilities (snack/chaperone schedules).  This binder also contains important phone numbers for doctors, insurance and close friends and family.  For meal planning I use a notebook and my giant recipe collection to plan our dinners for the week.

Today though, I thought I would just talk about my daily planner.  Like many out there in the planner community, I use the Erin Condren Life Planner.

This is my third year using the Life Planner and I use it primarily because of the way the weeks are laid out.  Each day is separated into 3 sections, morning-day-afternoon.  I do not plan that way but I find it easy to change these sections into Home-School-Blog.  

The HOME section is where I plan all of our family activities, practices for the kids, days off or travel notes.  I usually will record any doctor appointments on a sticky flag to make them stand out as I did in the summer pages above.  The SCHOOL section is for my work notes.  I plan classroom prep, lesson plan and keep reminders for anything having to do with my preschool class.  The last section is for my BLOG.  In this section I plan post ideas, anything pertaining to my ETSY store and any special social media info.  At the very bottom of the page I list what we will have for dinner each day.  Breakfasts at our house are kept simple during the week and we usually pack lunches everyday so dinner is the only meal that needs planning.

Since I do not plan for the weekends, this is where I usually attach my shopping list.  I keep my grocery list and my Target/Home Depot/Michaels list together here.  When I go to the grocery store I take a picture of my list with my phone so the original is always in my planner.  This is a very useful system because on those weeks I don't have the time to meal plan I can refer back to any week and have that weeks meals and shopping list ready to go.

I use an Erin Condren Snap-in-Dashboard as my cleaning routine reminder.  Like everyone, I have a weekly cleaning schedule that I try to follow each week.  The snap-in-dashboard is perfect for this use as I can pop it in and out each week.

So that is how I use my planner each week.  I usually sit down on Sunday morning and do my planning.  Some weeks are better then others but I find the more I plan and the more lists I make the better my week goes.  But like any system, its only as good as you are using it.  It does take a bit of effort in the beginning to get in the habit of planning out your week, but if you stick to it I know that you will feel better prepared for what comes at you.

Next time I will share the Family Binder system that I have been using and loving for over a decade, you won't want to miss it!

I love my followers, please be sure to add your picture to the followers list to the right and leave me a comment to let me know what planning system you use!  

Love your life!

I am linking with the following wonderful blogs  I Should Be Mopping the Floor, A Stroll Thru Life, Coastal Charm Plucky's Second Thought

XOXO,