My life is hectic af. Like all of you, I’ve got a lot going on. Between running my blog, working with clients for The Productive Blogger, working on my fitness (lol), spending time with my cute parents and catching up with my friends, my life can very easily feel overwhelming and out of control. If you’re looking for ways to feel more in control and less chaotic every day, read on!
However, I am a planning/organizational FREAK and it is truly the only thing that keeps my life in one piece. I am a colored pen/notebook/planner/productivity app junkie and I am not ashamed. It has always been a skill I’ve innately carried with me since I was a kid. I loved pretending that I was a big deal business lady, on the move and making things happen. I would schedule fake daily routines in my Barbie journal, plan lavish parties and have my Polly Pockets hold business meetings. My life looks a little different than how I envisioned it when I was 9 but never the less, it still often times feels filled to the brim with just…life.
Finding the time to relax and clean my apartment (two important activities when it comes to maintaining my sanity) can feel like a luxury at times but I’ve learned that some weeks I just won’t have time to swiffer and some days I have to limit my meditations to 5 minutes. And that’s okay because while life in a lot of ways is a balancing act it is also a very messy, imperfect and uncontrollable ride that moves forward with or without you. I’ve learned to try to make peace with the fact that I simply cannot do it all and that I just have to decide what is the priority based on the day.
I wanted to share how I keep my life together and what organizational tools I use to maintain some sense of sanity throughout my busy weeks. While I am pretty disciplined when it comes to using these tools daily/weekly there, of course, are times when I get behind, get overwhelmed and throw all prep and planning to the wind. But the beauty of having a system like this is even when I feel totally out of it and like a complete hot mess I’m always able to start fresh and go back to these tools.
I hope you find this helpful and I also hope you take comfort in the fact that no one has their life together 100% of the time but there are ways to make your day to day a lot less hectic.
SUNDAY MORNING PLANNING SESSIONS
This is where the magic happens! I use to do all my planning on Sunday nights but a lot of the time something would come up and that time would either get cut short or I wouldn’t get to it at all. So I switched things up and now work on my weekly planning first thing in the morning. Well, after coffee because duh.
I’m a big believer in getting dressed and moving to an actual workspace when working from home. Working from bed is a big no-no (except for in these obviously staged photos) for me unless I’m sick because I inevitably fall asleep every time. However, I do bend the rule on Sunday mornings because planning my week isn’t just work related. I like to make this time enjoyable and relaxing. So I make some coffee, stay in my pjs, put on a facemask and plan from my bed. It’s cozy and makes that time feel leisurely. It is the weekend after all!
I would recommend finding a time during the week to sit down and plan out your week. It can be 30 minutes or two hours but make it a peaceful time that you actually look forward to. Sometimes after I’m done planning I take a bubble bath and read. It makes me feel like Sunday mornings are all mine. I get to relax and rejuvenate before the busy week and go into it feeling totally prepared and on top of my shit.
PLANNER
Cracking open a new planner literally gives me an adrenaline rush. I feel like I have new toy and I can’t wait to use it. I recently got a new planner (did not need one, mind you) and have been having so much fun using it. Yes, I am serious. This is the kind of person I am.
I use my planner every day when I’m planning out my to-do lists and seeing what’s on the agenda for the week. It completely saves my life because it has my entire life in it. Everything from when bills are due to client calls to what I need to pick up at the grocery store. And while the other tools I’m mentioning in this post also contain this information, my planner is the only place I can access all of it at a glance. This is the first thing I fill out on Sunday mornings during my weekly planning sessions.
I use highlighters to color code my planner (told you I was a freak) so I can understand how my day is laid out even quicker. I use blue for errands and gym time, purple for all blog/freelance related tasks, orange for chores, etc. I even have a color for “me time” and believe me, when I see it on my calendar I get very excited.
Time is just like money in that it can be budgeted. We all have the same hours in a day, it’s just up to us how we use them. If you feel like you never have enough time for yourself then think about how you’re using your time. Can you budget it differently? Can you move some things around so you can get an hour on Saturday mornings to yourself? You are in control of your schedule (other than the random one-off events that come up unexpectedly) so take the initiative and use your planner to create a life where what matters to you is on the agenda.
BULLET JOURNAL BUDGETING
I feel like I could do a whole other post on how I budget (it has morphed into an extremely meticulous practice because ya girl loves to shop and needs limitations) but for now, I will briefly share how I do an overview of my personal finances on Sunday mornings.
I use my bullet journal to map out my personal finances every month (I use a professional for my biz, do not worry) and then also transfer all of this info into an excel worksheet. I obviously am someone who loves putting pen to paper so I find this method a lot more enjoyable and easier for me to wrap my head around.
Finances can be a bummer and overwhelming and intimidating so I try to make this time less stressful by using cute pens and stickers and most importantly, by checking in every week. When we leave our finances unattended to for too long that’s when things start to get confusing and feel out of control. I am constantly tracking where my money is going with the Mint app but I also use Sunday mornings to do a weekly overview.
I have a general monthly budget that I adhere to and use a template. I will take this template and tweak it depending on what’s going on that month (friends are visiting from out of town, need to get a blowout for an event, etc.). I then calculate how much I need to put away each week into savings, what bills are due and how much “fun money” I have. I use this time to actually pay my bills online as well so I don’t have to worry about it throughout the week.
All of these amounts, dates and budgeting notes go into my bullet journal. Then I transfer the important dates into my planner (when my car payment is due, when a client’s payment is supposed to go into my account, etc.). I also like to note how much I’ve given myself to spend on each day in my planner so I can make sure I’m following it. For example, if I know that on Monday I’m going to a yoga class and then grocery shopping after I will give myself $60 to spend that day based on my budget for those two activities.
It’s a system that works for me but of course, things come up and I have to adjust my budget all the time. That’s why I love using Sunday mornings to check it and review how I did the previous week so I can make the right changes to my budget for the upcoming one.
GOOGLE CALENDAR
After I’ve written everything down in my planner, I become even more extra and move all of this info (for the most part) into my google calendar app. Yes, this may seem unnecessary. Yes, I am too much. But this is how I get through the day without yanking my hair out so let me live.
I like having my main events and tasks of the day in my google calendar because I obviously can’t always pull out my planner in the moment so it’s great having it at my fingertips for quick reference.
I also love anything I can color code so yes, that’s a big part of it. I know I have a problem.
If you’re someone who does not enjoy physical planners and loves anything digital then I highly recommend making Google calendar your main squeeze! It’s sleek, user-friendly and efficient. I get a notification when a new task for event is about to begin which also helps me stay on track so I can be more productive and get more done each day.
“TO DO” LIST THE SMART WAY
This is probably my favorite tip from this post because it has seriously changed the way I feel about productivity and leaves me feeling so much more accomplished at the end of the day.
I recently read (or listened to, I should say) “Get Your Sh*t Together” by Sarah Knight (if you love organization/productivity as much as I do you will be obsessed) and she shared an awesome tip for rethinking your “to do” list.
Because these lists are typically a mile long and feel totally overwhelming and painful to look at, Knight breaks down how you can make your list way more manageable.
Essentially you start with your actual “to do” list but instead of leaving it long and scary, you then create a “priority list”. Move tasks from your original list to this new one, but make sure they’re only the tasks that need to get done very soon. Then you take this new list and use it to create a “must do” list. This list should only contain the tasks that MUST get done that day. So, in the end, you actually only have a short list of things to accomplish within the next 8 hours.
This requires you to get real with yourself and really think about what has to get done. If you’re like me you can probably easily convince yourself that everything on your list is a “must do” but try to get out of this mindset. For example, if my registration is going to expire in four days, my inbox is insane and I’m out of toothpaste then I can probably knock the inbox off today’s list and focus on avoiding a ticket and bad breath today.
The “must do” will be different every day but you will feel so much better knowing that you got done what actually needed to be done instead of drowning in your never-ending list of not so important tasks. Once your “must do” list is complete, feel free to start working on other things from your priority list to feel extra productive!
REMINDERS X3
If I had a nickel for every reminder notification I received from myself every day I would be guzzling mojitos on a beach in the Bahamas right now.
Reminders. Save. My. Life.
There is always so much going on in life and even as someone with a pretty solid memory I couldn’t keep up with it all without some help if I tried. Enter my favorite apple invention: reminders.
I reach for my phone to ask Siri to remind me to take my vitamins, to pay my parking ticket, to call my mom back, to get toilet paper on my way home, to do EVERYTHING. I can plan all I want but there are little things that keep my life chugging along that I can’t remember every day. Everyone needs to be utilizing this feature because it will transform your life.
What do you struggle most with when it comes to keeping your life together? Tell me in the comments so I know I’m not alone!
Xoxo,
She
