Despite having a pretty marginal year from a health standpoint, I really had a pretty good year. My blogging and writing was in an amazing place and I even had my first paid writing gig. Even better though, my relationships were pretty good which was fabulous given that the symptoms of my health problems were emotional chaos. So how did it happen?
By being intentional. And finding a few methods and tools to help me BE more intentional helps, too.
1. Visual Life Management
I found that regular planners don’t work for me because I am a highly visual person. It either needs to all be on one page or out somewhere for me to see it. So I can’t have separate blog planner, homeschool planner, day planner & meal planner. It just creates extra noise in my head.
Everything I do has to be visual. EVERYTHING. Here is how visual planning works in my life.
Blog Planning Calendar
I bought a desk calendar for my office and started mapping out my work blog posts on it with sticky notes. It worked so fabulously that I had to get one for my regular blog. I bought this vertical 3 month calendar and 5 colors of post it notes (one for each category). The post-its let me move posts around and when they are written & scheduled, I pull them off so I know what I need to work on next.
Weekly Plan
At the same closing sale, I bought this weekly dry erase calendar. It works great to give me a big picture overview of how busy my week will be and helps me plan when I can fit errands in.
Meal Planning
I also purchased this meal planning board at the Office Depot closing sale. While I don’t do a ton of meal planning, I do plan special days and extra busy days and days where I want to try something new.
2. Goal Setting with the Flourish Goals app
I have 5 main areas that I try to concentrate my efforts in– God & Faith, Self Care, Marriage, Parenting & Homeschooling and Home Management & Work. After reading the 7 Minute Life Planner, I really like the idea of setting 90-day goals and I use the Flourish Goals app to track my goals for the quarter.
Read the full review of the Flourish Goals iPhone app over at CatholicMom.com.
3. Brain in a Book (AKA Bullet Journal)
I am one of those visual people who doesn’t remember anything unless I physically write it down. I used to have notebooks of notes, ideas, and lists everywhere. Then I found the Bullet Journal.
Go visit my post at Success Homemaking to find out more about about how I use a Bullet Journal and the 7 Minute Life Planner ideas to be very intentional about my day.
If you suspect that you may be a visual planner, I hope these 5 tools help you organize all the pieces of your day so that you can plan for your best year ever. Taking the time to consider the top 4-7 things you could do to blossom right where you are in the life you are living and then being intentional about making it happen can help make this your best year ever. Even if you don’t achieve EVERY goal, you will be closer than if you haven’t planned. Things will never be perfect — plan to live your awesome today!
