Planner Challenges

OK, I'm going to 'fess up. I am planner challenged. Seriously planner challenged. Over the years I have purchased numerous planners, calendars, electronic organizers, and the like and totally failed at every one of them. I can't figure out if I've got too much going on in my life or too little, but I just don't take well to writing things down on a little calendar and then remembering to check it every day. I've even been to the 2 day Franklin Covey classes that cost a bloody fortune, but I still fell off the wagon after a couple of months.





I think the problem is that my life in some ways is very routine. My job is basically Accounting, so I'm typically doing the same things over and over again month after month. Same thing at home - Scouts is on Thursdays, Karate is on Fridays, stamp class is the 2nd Tuesday of the month. Pretty routine stuff, so I mostly just keep it in my head. Of course that way isn't particularly foolproof, because anything out of the ordinary tends to leak right out of my head somehow. I mean, tomorrow I'm supposed to go to the church at 10:00 and help take down the decorations. Fortunately someone called to remind me tonight because it drifted right out of my head the minute I walked out the church door last Sunday.





I do have one thing that works for me. My Outlook calendar at work. I do love that and it pops up with these little reminders at 15 minutes and then 5 minutes before every meeting or event. Plus you can put recurring events, so if you need to pull a certain report every Friday, you just put in a reminder and it will pop up every Friday without fail. But, unfortunately, that only covers me for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The rest of the time, my poor brain is on it's own and it's too little to be out there alone....





So, what's a girl to do? Well, I've got a couple of things. One thing is to find a calendar that will fit easily into my purse. The problem with the Outlook calendar, and the calendar hanging on my wall at home is that I don't have them with me all the time. But if I got one of those dimestore calendars that fits neatly into my purse, I'll have it at work, home, and at church. Of course, a PDA or a Blackberry (Crackberry) would be even nicer, but that's out of my budget right now, so I'm sticking to the paper.





Here's the other thing I've found - my new To Do list. Look at this nifty little list I found while prowling the Franklin Covey store trying to get my nerve up to try yet another planner (I didn't!). I actually like To Do lists and I find them very effective, but I don't use them as often as I should. The problem is that I feel kind of weird putting my personal stuff on my work to do lists and vice-versa. This solves the problem quite nicely, I think. It has three separate sections, each with a little tear off pad with a pre-printed list, complete with check boxes. I think the check marks are half the fun of a To Do list anyway.



I've only had it for a couple of days, but already I think it's helping a lot. I had a very productive day at work. I remembered to do a couple of tasks at home that I've been putting off, and I put down several ideas for blog posts on the play section, so I'll be covered for most of next week on posts. I even put a few things on there for myself - like exercise, and leave work on time.

What organizational tools do you like best?