Quick Tip Wednesday: Goal Check In

It’s never too early to review your goals. I sat down this year and set goals on my birthday (Jan. 1) for the year. I chose six areas of my life that I wanted to focus on this year and wrote why I wanted to focus on these areas (I did add one more area later on). Since I started late I went ahead and wrote goals for the first quarter and broke them down for the month of Jan. I just finished writing my third quarter goals, reviewing second quarter and reviewing June.

When I completed my recent reviews I went back and reviewed what I had wrote down during the 1st quarter review. I was shocked that I had let some really important things slip through the cracks during the second quarter. This was primarily because I didn’t go back and review my notes from the 1st quarter review when I wrote my second quarter goals. Argh! This is so important because it helps me to see where my roadblocks were so I can make adjustments. Otherwise I’m just repeating the same behaviors and getting the same results. So, yes I need to review my notes from my most recent review. It sounds silly but it will save me time and keep me accountable.

This week’s tip – Check in with your goals by reviewing your goals at least monthly but as often as weekly to make necessary adjustments as needed. Bonus tip – Keep all of your goals in one place (binder, notebook, etc) for easy retrieval and review.

Quick Tip Wednesday: Save your rings

Almost 20 ring binders 🙂

I LOVE ring bound binders! They are my favorite because I can move things around as much as I want or simply take out sections that no longer serve my current season of life. I’m also not limited to what inserts I can use. There are pre-printed inserts, I can create my own inserts, I can hole punch a cute sheet of scrapbook paper and put it in my binder, or purchase printable inserts. The possibilities are endless!

Ring bound binders can be an expensive investment so taking care of them is critical. One of the things that is vital in taking care of my binder is saving (protecting) my rings. Constantly opening and closing my rings can and will cause damage eventually. This is a problem because the damage to rings means that they won’t close all the way and your pages will snag when trying to flip through.

The solution to this issue is to grab a pair of sharp scissors and cut a small slit (on the left side) in each of the holes of the paper. This allows you to pull paper out and pop paper back in without having to open and close my rings. Once I’ve made the slits in my paper and want to take the paper back out of my planner. I will grab the top right side of the page and pull down GENTLY! I want to be able to put the paper back in the binder once I’m done. If I pull too hard I risk tearing my pages. You can fix this with hole reinforcements or by adding washi tape and punching the paper (but try to be gentle to keep from doing this step).

Creating a slit in my pages also solves another problem that I tend to have which is writing in my planner. Taking the sheet of paper out of my planner gives me plenty of room to write and flip through my planner if I need to reference information.

Quick Tip Wednesday: Color Coding

Today I am sharing a couple of great tips from Toni at A Bowl Full of Lemons. I absolutely love her website and IG feed. Not only does she share her love of organizing her home, she is a fellow paper planner lover! One of my favorite planner related posts from her website is about how she set up her planner back in 2015. One of the things that she talks about is her color coding system. It’s a great article and you can check out the details here.

I was recently gifted a set of Franklin Covey Blooms in Compact size and the pages are gorgeous! I knew that I wanted to color code my monthlies when I started setting up my pages. In the past I have used color pens for each event and appointment but that looked too busy and it required me to keep those pens with me at all times. It had to be functional and I immediately thought of Toni’s planner.

Snapshot of June in my planner

I enjoy using color coding in my planner because I can quickly see what I have going on in a particular category. I always have a black pen with me so it’s easy to jot down an appointment, which eliminates the need for me to carry more than the pen that’s in my pen loop. I can always go back and add the color dot at a later time. The categories that I use are red for work (everything work related), purple for me (dr appts, meetups with friends, etc), orange for household (haircuts, budget meetings, etc), blue for our boys (school stuff, dr appts, etc), and pink for important dates (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries). These categories match what is in my google calendar, which is color coded as well. Like Toni, I also use highlighters to mark if something is cancelled, rescheduled or postponed. I always hated the way my calendar would look at the end of the month with things scratched out. This takes care of that. The categories that I use are blue for rescheduled, pink for cancelled, and green for postponed.

Categories in my planner

Quick Tip Wednesday: Family Calendar

I’ve used a family calendar off and on over the years. I recently added it back into our routine after not using it for about a year. I needed something that would help my family know important information without relying on me to tell them. In the past I used a paper calendar that I hung on the wall in the kitchen. This time around I decided on a erasable black magnetic monthly fridge calendar that I purchased from Arteza. It being erasable allows me the ease to change things without having to mark through them like I did on a paper calendar. I’m using it in pretty much the same way as in the past. It has holidays, birthdays, and any other events that I need everyone to know about. This time around I have Marc crossing off the days since he has a hard time remembering what day it is (don’t we all? LOL!). It also came with a small to do list that I am using for Marc’s chores and tasks for the day. I love it! I can ask him to check the fridge and he can go down the list of tasks and mark them off without me having to run through the list verbally and possibly forgetting something. It’e been a lifesaver!