Every December, one of my favorite gifts is my shiny new planner. Yes, I said every… I always manage to con one of my gift givers into making that their Christmas gift to me because I love my planners so much. I have never been much of a phone calendar person-yes the alerts are nice but I like to have something I can open and see all at once, easily flipping back and forth between months or weeks.
I spend my winter December evenings, filling the pages with birthdays, upcoming events, work days, etc. Then I start filling in my book list and movie release dates. Last, but not least, I list my monthly homesteading tasks – my favorite part.
Before the first of each month I take out my planner and make sure everything is down that needs to be. Of course life happens and things get added and whited out, but this way I easily remember all the things that need to be done in my homestead life, work life and social life.
One thing I try to do, is to have a different color pen for each category of life. Because I didn’t start this year off thinking of our homestead as anything different than a baby hobby farm, all my homesteading activities are in light green pen, which is my social life color! I still don’t find any farm chores to be “work” so it still fits.
Dark navy is my work color, royal blue is for appointments, purple is for my list of books I’d like to read and turquoise is for the movies coming out that my husband and I would love to see. I utilize stickers as well for important events, our pets’ heart worm medication and pay day.
After I’m done filling out the dates of my calendar, tasks that have no specific dates yet go into the “Notes” section. This is also where I put the list of movies and books as they have no specific dates assigned to them either. Just whenever I get to them!
For the weekly view in my planner, I have half hour time slots and a column for a list. Very few things go into the time slots as life on the homestead is not that structured. However, my work day hours can, as well as any special events like weddings. And I’m really OK with this arrangement… it makes me feel like I have more free time!
My system is by no means perfect, since we just officially started this homesteading adventure, but it works and helps tremendously. I’m sure as the months go on and the years pass I will tweak it here and there. Regardless, putting everything down in one place helps me simplify my life and remove unnecessary stress.
*Would you all like to see what my planner looks like each month? Let me know in the comments!*
