If you are like me, a list and a planner keep my life in some semblance of organization. I have found that starting the year off by looking ahead at what is planned, jotting things down and putting together a rough draft of the year to come. This makes it easier to schedule things each month because we already have everything important or reoccurring penciled in. Even if you don’t have specific dates you probably have a rough idea on when certain things will occur, so using a planner that has a notes section each month is a great place to put them! For example, if your child plays a certain sport you know roughly which month that starts; jot it down! Another example would be a family reunion; that most likely happens the same month each year. By looking ahead and planning, we can eliminate a lot of stress or chaos from over scheduling or missing something important. This doesn’t mean that a planner will magically erase any conflicts, reduce stress to zero or anything like that; but it will give you a better idea of our schedule and help you balance your events. Our family goal this year is to be more intention with our time, the best way to do so is managing and updating our planner on a regular basis.
Types of Planners
Before you can fill a planner, you have to find one! There are SOOO many options available nowadays so you should be able to find something that suits your specific needs. Some different focuses include: family life, personal, business, homeschooling, spiritual, gardening… the options are endless! I personally have purchased, downloaded and created a variety of planners. I began writing them here and realized there is just too many so if you need some ideas check out this post here!
Year at a Glance
New Year’s Day is our families favorite time to look back at last year’s resolutions and see which ones we achieved (and those that we didn’t). Each NYE or NYE day, we jot down some goals for the upcoming year that each of us would like to accomplish in the back of our new family planner. Then, while it’s out, I write down any important reoccurring dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. If I know the dates of anything else in the upcoming year, I like to write those down at this time too. Since we homeschool, I will typically add when I plan to finish and make a rough draft of the upcoming school year too (I write this in pencil for now!).
Depending on the planner you have chosen, there is likely a notes section either in the front and/or with each month. Here would be a great option to add other pertinent information that may not have a specific date but needs done yearly or seasonly such as: cleaning, maintenance, appointments, holiday planning, birthday plans, etc. You should have a rough idea on which month you want those done or started, so utilize the notes in the margins and jot down things like “January – start planning seeds for garden” or “March – find location for summer vacation”. There is no such thing as too early to start planning for anything in my opinion.
Once we have the year at a glance done, I like to hop over to my homeschool planner and add in any important dates for the remainder of this school year. I don’t print a new one until April or May, once we are wrapping up the current year. (A lot of companies start having sales for curriculum around then!) Once I have done that it is time to look ahead at January and start breaking it down by month.
Monthly Breakdown
Towards the end of each month I like to look ahead: i.e. in December I begin filling in the monthly part of January. As we get closer to a new month specific dates and times are much more likely to be known so I fill them in. This is especially helpful for calendars that have time slots on them (if they don’t, you can still add the specific times down next to your event).
This year, I am also trying something new and you can too! Since one of my goals is to be more intentional with my time, I have added certain things to my “notes” section each month that I want to prioritize. My priorities are faith, family and good friends so I have added things like “1 lunch with a friend”, “24 hours no electronics”, “1 family date night”, “1 day outdoors”, “host a dinner 1 evening” and “1 day serving others”. Now that we are breaking down the upcoming month, you can add these priorities to specific dates that fit your schedule. Adding them to your calendar ahead of time will keep them as a priority and make sure they make the cut of your busy life!
Now that all your priorities have been scheduled in, make all of your appointments like car maintenance, haircuts, doctor’s visits, etc. Let’s not forget that “notes” section we added to during our Year at Glance. Schedule anything seasonal or yearly that needs to be added. Things like planning your garden, making party plans, deep cleaning the kitchen. It may seem silly at first to write all of these things in your schedule because “I’ll just do that when I have free time” right? But realistically, it will get shoved to the back of your mind and forgotten until it gets incredibly dirty or the garden needs planted and you just buy random seeds you might want. We don’t want to spend hours cleaning when we could have scheduled it in or buy excessive packets of cucumber seeds when we really wanted to try a new variety of tomatoes this year but forgot. Plan ahead, save time and money!
Weekly/Daily
This is an additional section that some planner may or may not have. If it does, this is your lucky day! (If not, just skip it and happy planning!)
Pick a day from Thursday through Sunday that is slower or less busy for you, for us that is Friday (we use it as an extra day for homeschooling to finish anything we didn’t complete during the week). Use this day for planning the upcoming week. You will have to adjust these tips to your specific calendar. Some planners have time slots, block scheduling or just broke down by the days/weeks. Honestly at this point the customization is endless so you can adjust it and make it your own!
(Skip this if you don’t use time slots!) Our planner has time slots, which is ideal for us as our kids grow and become more active. These are also great for homeschooling families, homesteaders, business owners, detail oriented employees to schedule meetings, etc.
I like to get a little detailed by adding our daily routine. Below is an example of adding details to a time slotted planner. You can now schedule around appointments, planned lunches, practices, etc. All your priorities have already been prescheduled so everything else can fall into place. This becomes second nature gets planned relatively quickly once you get the hang of it!
For example (not our actual routine)
- 6 am: Mom Wake Up & Morning Routine
- 7 am: Kids Wake Up, Breakfast & Chores
- 8 am – 10 am: School Work
- 10 am: Go to the Park
- 11:30 am: Wash Up & Lunch
- 1 pm: Nap Time
- 3 pm: Outside Play
- 5 pm: Read Together
- 6 pm: Dinner
- 7 pm: Bath & Bedtime Routine
- 8 pm: Kids Bedtime
- 9 pm: Adult Routine & Bed
(Jump to here if you don’t have time slots!) For those who prefer scheduling blocks or daily blocks you most likely don’t like being as detailed and work better with a more generalized schedule. These are ideal for those who have a separate planner for work, use your phone for more detailed scheduling or just plain don’t like writing down things to the hour!
Ideas to utilize blocked planner are as great as your imagination! You can still do all of the other yearly and monthly planning the same up to this point. This is even simpler because you have priorities already penciled in and can schedule all other things that come up. Add a little more detail by penciling in times next to your event or write them in order of times. Keep it simple by jotting down things each day so you know when you are busy & what your availability is!
There are endless possibilities when it comes to utilizing your planner. It all depends on what you need it for, your priorities and how much detail you want penciled in! Don’t forget to check out the post about my favorite planners and all the different types I’ve found useful. There are hundreds more and countless ways to use them. Share with all of us your favorites and how you use them! If you found any of this helpful in your planning journey, let us know.
*Stay tuned for our homeschool planning post!
