Planners

I’ve been trying to get organized. My biggest need is getting everything out of my head and recorded somewhere I trust. As I’m going through my day I may think, “I should clean out the fridge”. If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget about it until the next time I open the fridge. Unfortunately, when I’m opening the fridge, I’m grabbing something to eat and not looking for something to clean, so it doesn’t get done. My quest for a new system of organization has begun with the search for a planner.

I’m picky about my planners. I want something I can always have with me. It has to be a daily planner with an hourly breakdown. It has to have full pages for Saturday and Sunday. It has to hold up to the abuse of being carried everywhere I go. My first thought was RM Daily Planner. If you served a mission for the LDS church sometime between 2004 and the present, you’re familiar with this type of planner. It meets most of my criteria, but I’d really prefer my hourly breakdown to be a half-hourly breakdown. I want to schedule 30 minutes of yoga, and then 30 minutes of NASCAR without writing them on the same line, because let’s face it, they don’t go together. There was also a lot of wasted space that I wouldn’t really use. It was also a little pricey. So, I tried making my own.

If you served a mission for the LDS church sometime between 19?? and 2004, you’re familiar with the planner I made. Each one holds a week, it folds in three, and has space to track goals and take notes. Oh, and it is made of card stock to give it some durability. In my mission we customized ours a little bit to better fit our needs. They’re compact, customizable, cheap, and just about perfect, but they still tend to fall apart, and since they only hold a week, important information has to be transferred frequently. I really like them, but I’ve opted to just go ahead and get a smart phone.

I’ll always have my phone with me, I won’t need a pen, it will sync with my computer, it will beep at me as a reminder, and I can fit as much information, as far into the future as I want. I think it will revolutionize my life. No more 3-year-old flip phone.

So, the weekend is coming up. Have you planned it yet? You’ve got to take advantage! Have some fun, relax, knock things of your to do list, or take a trip. Monday’s just around the corner. Don’t have any regrets when it comes!