by Kat | Oct 12, 2020 | General, In This Moment
Last week ended on a stressful note… and then some. Oy.
Friday I had a doctors appointment…a stressful thing in itself…and after making it through the “COVID Screening” to get to my doctors office, I thought it would be smooth sailing from there, HA! Sadly, all my fears intensified when I walked into a very packed waiting room – like WAY too many people in a VERY small waiting room. I had arrived about 15 minutes early for my appointment and still had to wait about 45 minutes… gah! I have COVID fears right now… bad. But, the funniest thing happened in the exam room! My doctor is very soft spoken and wearing a mask does not inspire him to speak louder. I was feeling my age when I kept having to ask what he said over and over and over… yes, in hindsight, it was comical. At the time tho…oy.
From there, it was Flu Shot time! (Slightly shorter wait and, thankfully, way less people)
And if all that was not enough, somehow I thought hitting the grocery store would be a genius idea. HA! Grocery shopping at lunch time on a Friday… not so smart. But at least there is some food in the house now!
Our mail delivery has been sketchy at best, most days we get no mail. No bills, no junk mail, no mail period. I have long been signed up for “informed delivery” and you would think the PO would get sick of me telling them things were not delivered, but nope… it does not matter… I think we have Newman “delivering” our mail. Ha!
So mailing our ballots back to the county was not something I was willing to risk. Saturday morning we headed off to drop off our ballots. Yes, there were long lines! But it was like a well oiled machine! Want to vote? Enter Here! Want to drop off your ballot? Enter Here! So we excitedly, HAPPILY!! cast our ballots on Saturday! And let me tell you how amazing it felt to be voting with lots and lots of Biden Voters!! Hope springs eternal in the voting line!! (but again, LOTS OF PEOPLE!!)
After all that excitement, I was happy to return home and stay there for the remainder of the weekend!
I spent a good bit of time Sunday setting up my new calendar insert…and I am so excited to start this week with it! I have set up through the start of next year and it feels good! Now that laundry is underway I am going to spend some time organizing my inserts! Then I will feel ready to attack the week! I hope to share with you all next week how the new calendar set up is working!
Oh, and I have clean and fill some pens with autumn-y inks on my list today too!
How about you? How was your weekend?
by Kat | Jan 8, 2019 | General, Words
First up, I want to thank everyone for their well wishes yesterday! Through the wonder of antibiotics, each day I am feeling the tiniest bit better! Today, I even managed to do a short bit of Pilates and that is a very good thing! No chances of an afternoon walk today though – it is wet and rainy outside and those few minutes of Pilates were enough to expend my energy. No overdoing it for this girl!
Last week, Juliann asked what changes I made this year to my planner system. I managed to work a bit on it yesterday – and I am happy with my results! I need to make a trip to Joann’s to get some Tombow markers – but yesterday, colored pencils worked just fine. I have been finding some really helpful things on Pinterest and have implemented some of them this year. Previously, I had been using a Traveler’s Notebook weekly calendar with the week on one side and grid paper on the other side. This worked well when I was “working” and spent my day attached to my PC and my planner. I used it to track hours worked, and things I needed to complete and by when.
This system was great for that, but in my non-working-for-pay life, its functionality was just not functional for my daily life. First, I am not at the PC like I was when I was working and, therefore, not “attached” to my planner in the same way. Too many pages were unused and so when I needed to replace it, I looked at what I wanted my calendar to do in my day.
Enter my take on the “BuJo” craze. On Amazon, I found a set of 3-dot grid books that fit perfectly in my traveler’s notebook. They are stitched, and the paper works well for fountain pens!
I will set up each month with the calendar and my focus for the month. As you can see, my focus right now is moving and thanks to this pneumonia that is not off to the most auspicious start, but that is okay. It is there, and I am well aware of it. Each week has a section, and I can fill in things that I need to remember that week. I still need to make that page of my yearly “remember” things, i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, prescription refill dates, etc. I am also contemplating adding something in with a gratitude/mental health/focus list, but I am not entirely sure how to work that in yet.
My morning routine now includes, checking in with what is “yet to be done” this week as I spend a few minutes writing in my journal pages… a much better and more productive start to my day!
What about you? Do you “BuJo”? And, if you do, how do you make it work for you?
by Kat | Apr 14, 2016 | General, Words
If you Google “planners” you will get about a zillion results almost instantly. (Actually, I got 139,000,000 in .39 seconds) There is so much information available from Pinterest boards, to blog posts, to YouTube videos all with volumes of information on what people think is successful.
Perhaps the reason that there is so much information is that there is not one perfect system for everyone and this is absolutely true for me!
So, what I have done is taken parts of things from a variety of “planning styles” to create a system that works very well for me. This took a bit of work, because when I worked in the corporate world – Outlook worked perfectly for my needs. I combined that with some other online programs and my work life was well-organized.
However, now that I am self-employed and I work from home a digital planning system did not work as well. I am not sure why – perhaps the fact that I am a team of one, and what I am doing does not need to be accessible to others.
Now, I do use some excellent online resources for my work, Trello, Slack, and Harvest are wonderful resources for working on projects – and they make working remotely seem less remote! But, for my daily, weekly, and monthly goals – I really like a paper planner.
Last year I moved to the Midori Traveler Planner. It has become the best thing I have ever used. I did a bit of modification to it (thanks to Bradley at Stuff & Things) and now it is just perfect for me. I am not an “art” planner person. You won’t find stickers, washi tape, or collages of stuff on my pages – just simple planning – daily, weekly, and monthly/yearly. I use this insert for my planner. It helps me “stay in the week” and focus on the tasks that I need to complete. It helps me know where I need to focus my hours and how many hours I am spending on a project.
I borrow a few things from the Bullet Journal System – not many, just a few.
Sometimes, I have a task that cannot be completed in a week – a little arrow shows me I need to move it to the next week. In the new week, it gets an arrow to tell me this was a carryover project. Sometimes it gets cancelled entirely. I can easily look back to see how my week’s went and can keep clear records of the work I did. I think this will make tax time next year infinitely better.
I also have a journal insert for my Midori, which I use daily for my creative writing. This year, I have been trying to work on my creative writing so I am using Spunky Eclectic’s monthly journal prompts. I look forward to expanding my writing as the year continues.
The last insert I have in my notebook is just a simple graph paper insert. I use it to keep track of inks I like, of projects I would like to make, recipe ideas, Breed School notes, and just plain doodling.
Not in my planner – my monthly calendar – this sits on my desk open and visible. I use this to remember birthdays, anniversaries, personal appointments, etc. Things that are not work related, but I need to remember.
There you have my planning style in a very portable planner. Tell me – what is your “Planner Style”?
