Mommy Monday - Take Care of the Minutes and the Hours Take Care of Themselve

Towards the end of last year, I was feeling like I was accomplishing nothing.  It seemel like I was crazy busy, but nothing was getting done.  My house was messy, my kids were watching movies/tv ALL the time because I wasn't around to turn it off, zero renovations were getting finished... you get the idea.  It was making me extremely grumpy.  Then, the beginning of December, we found out that I was going to be losing my job at the end of December.  I was super stressed about how we were going to pay our bills (I still am, but thats another story!) but part of me was relieved that I would be able to stay home more and feel like I am actually doing what I want to do.  My job ending ended up getting pushed back to the end of January, but I knew the end was coming.  I immediately began thinking of what I wanted to change in my life.  And the planning began. 

I mentioned in a post last week that I got a new planner.  I've also mentioned I'm a little OCD.  I love organization and I love having a plan.  I used to have some serious issues with over planning.  I would expect way too much out of day.  My to do list would be completely unrealistic.  I'm getting better.  I also used to have a hard time adapting to changes in my scheudle.  I'm getting better, but still have a ways to go.  Ok, I'm getting off topic, back to the planner.

After doing a lot of research, I decided to go with the planner Crystal designed for several reasons.

{1} It's super cute.  I mean look at it!  It's so colourful!

all images from here
I used all of Crystal's pictures b/c she is a much better photographer than me!

{2} It fits in my purse.  In September I had bought another planner, and I loved everything about it except that it was on 8 1/2" x 11" paper.  It was so big that I never carried it around and it didn't get used.

{3}  I love that the daily schedule is split into 15 minutes.  It makes my planning much more realistic and gives me more checkpoints throughout the day.

 {4} It has this great section to list ten minute projects and one hour projects.  So, each day I schedule in two or three ten minute projects and, depending on the day, at least one one hour project.

{5}  It has a great meal planning section with a place to write recipes (which is great since I find so many of my recipes on pinterest!)

{6}  I love the weekly excercise planner.  It makes it really easy for me to wake up and know what I'm going to do.  I don't waste time deciding which video or whatever I'm doing.

{7}  I love that the budget section not only has a place to plan my monthly budget, but also an expense tracker for both my personal and business expenses! 

There are so many other things I love about the planner, I really love every aspect of it!  One of my very favorite things about it is that she has really designed it to promote finding balance and being inspired.  There are great quotes throughout, places to record your thoughts and inspirations, a whole section to list ways to be more balanced... Honestly, I could keep on going!  I only have one thing that I wish it had, and that is a grid style monthly calendar.  It does have a page for monthly appoinments, but I just function better with a grid I guess!  Even with working in January, I found I accomplished SO much more!  I'm hooked!  The best thing was that it is really inexpensive.  It's only $30 plus the cost of paper & ink and a binder (Staples for $6).  Total was about $45-50 dollars.  Worth every penny!  And next year I won't have to buy a binder!