It’s never too late to get organized. My Poketo planner.

Never a wrong time to get organized

Even though we are three months into 2015, I’ve just switched how I organize myself when it comes to my blog.  I know, crazy right?  It might be, but so far it has been well worth the effort.  Now, before we go much further,  I should share that when it comes to calendars and planners I am mostly a paper gal.

Up until now, I have had sheets of paper, usually 4 at any given time, taped up on my office wall.  One sheet is the whole year calendar at a glance, one page is always the current month and the other two are for the next two months coming up.

Although they provided a great ‘at-a-glance’ visual, they were messy (washi tape can only do so much) and more importantly they were difficult to write on; remember they were on the wall. Not to mention my wall is only so big.

Simple, durable, clever design

Here’s where Kyla over at House of Hipsters came to my rescue.  I recently bought myself the large monthly planner by  Poketo that she had blogged about.  I love it so much I thought I would share it with you because it is like no other planner that I have ever used.  A few of the things I appreciate about my new planner:

•  the size, lots of room to write in each square.
•  love the left side column is blank. allows for customizing each week or for jotting down ideas.
• no date/year restrictions. you can jump in at any month, any year and get started.
• love the bold caps for days of week, plus the red on Sunday adds just a bit of jazz to the whole page.
• the thick kraft paper cover is simplistic, durable and a clever design all rolled into one.

Planning in pencil

And so, here I sit, trying to get organized doing my best to apply these ideas:

• Always work in pencil. Not only to erase mistakes, but to remove some activities when life gets too busy.
• Map out 12 month calendar seasonal events in advance. This can apply to blogging topics or family birthdays.
• Be flexible. After all it is your calendar.  Change something if it doesn’t work.
• Look ahead.  Consider what projects, goals  you want to achieve 1 month from now and what you need to do this week to make it happen.
• Look back.  When 2015 is over, don’t throw out the calendar until you have reviewed and done a ‘debrief’ with yourself on what you want to repeat for next year or what you wouldn’t touch again in a million years.

What tips do you use to keep your calendar organized?