Journals, Day Runners, etc

We all need a way to keep track of our lives. If we don't have someway to know what's going on we just kind of function in a constant state of emergency- putting out fires.

Now, if you are blessed with the kind of mind my husband has, that is all you need. He seldom forgets anything. Ever.

But most of us aren't that way, so we need to find what works for us. Nothing works for everyone. We each need to find our own thing.

I've done a great deal of experimenting over the years. I used to use a Franklin Covey organizer that also functioned as my purse. This worked real well as long as I actually looked at it. Unfortunately I would go days without opening it and find myself behind, but most of the time it worked. It contained my calendar, recipes, random notes and ideas, addresses, etc. I called it my Memory Chip and basically my life was in it.

I woke up one night with a horrifying thought; "What if the house burned down and I didn't grab my purse on the way out? or what if it were stolen? or I left it behind in a restaurant?" I immediately got up and began looking for ways to do the same things as the organizer but electronically and backed up on the cloud.

After several electronic years, I have partially gone back to print, but not entirely.

My Calendar

I use Google Calendar as my main calendar. It's free, I can have as many calendars as I want, turning them on and off as needed. I have:

• My main family calendar with birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, the days we bought appliances, etc all filled in. It also contains basic reminders for annual chores.
• My menu calendar where I plan out a rough idea of what we are going to eat each month. Hint: I set each meal on a monthly repeat, so other than tweaking around holidays and events like camping trips, I do very little actual monthly planning.
• My garden calendar where I keep track of what needs to be done when and what I did when. 
• My church's calendar. This one is even linked to the church's website.
• Calendars to plan out what I need to do with each blog I write, and what needs to be done with my direct sales business.

But we also have a print Flylady's calendar. No one else in my family will use the online calendars (though I have shared them and asked them all to do so. They simply don't always go on electronics, and when they do, don't think to go to that page/app). Flylady's nice big calendar hanging in the middle of the house's major walkway works great to keep everyone up on what's going on (they can't not look at it), not that there is a lot at this point. We're a pretty quiet, boring family. 

Address Book

Google Contacts. And since I bought an Android phone when my old iPhone decided to take a drink of ice tea without permission (:-P) I already had all my numbers right there after I signed into my google account.

You can add labels (doctors, business, repairmen, family, etc) to each contact so they function like separate address books. Or just use Google's search bar in the app and whoever you want pops up.

School Records.

Old school here. I use a spreadsheet I created in Excel. I tried just using it on the computer (Google Sheets) but it just didn't work. Pen and paper are much more convenient in the middle of the school day when computers are all doing math lessons and writing assignments.

Daily Journals and "stuff." 

It's simply easier to brainstorm with old fashioned pen and paper. And I don't always want to open up an electronic for the daily or weekly planning and notes. So I have gone to a paper bullet journal (the one shown above). It feels so rich and comforting I love opening it, which means I open it much more often.

I use a basic bullet journal format; weekly, not monthly or daily. I don't generally do any page decorating, though I have been using it to take notes during the sermon on Sundays and sometimes draw pictures with that.

It's just a plain place to write what I need to remember and plan to do each week.

Sections:

• House- a list of chores that need to be done this week. It always starts with the ones that repeat each week. Then I add those assignments for the week from Flylady that apply to my house (for example, I don't have an office, so when she says to dust the office, I kind of can't. So I'll look over the rest of the house and see what needs to be done the most and do that instead).
• Phone- a list of calls I need to make this week.
• Computer- things I need to do on the computer not related to my businesses (print math drills, look up x, order y, add z to the calendar, etc)
• Church- first the weekly church chores I need to do like update the bulletin for next Sunday or pick the music for worship. Then all the extra stuff that needs doing. 
• Events- just a reminder that I have a doctor appointment or that the handyman is replacing my bathroom floor Friday.
• Business- everything I need to do for blogs and my Lilla Rose businesses. 

The format is simple and easy to understand at a glance. A . means "to do." an X means I finished it. I circle things that are priority, and cross off things that are canceled. That's it. Nothing fancy or complicated. 

Now if you wanted to you could do all sorts of art work, and if you look up Bullet Journals on Google and Youtube that's what you will see. But all that business is too distracting for me ( a bit of ADD here). Just 6 simple lists is enough.

I put a number at the bottom of each page and list its purpose in the blank pages I left at the front for a Table of Contents. this way, when I devote a page to brainstorming, random notes, or lists, I can find them again! 

So I do have pages devoted to my daily routines, blog ideas, garden plans, and so on. I just use the next blank page when I need one.

The only exception is that my prayer lists are in the back working towards the front.

Recipes

I have used Plan to Eat for several years now. All my family's recipes are stored there and when my kids move out I can buy them a year's subscription and then "friend" them. They will have access to all those recipes. (After the first year they can download the recipes they want, or re subscribe, whichever they want to do).

These recipes are fully searchable, so it's easy to find what I want at any time.

The Menu tab lets you plan each week by simply dragging and dropping recipes from the sidebar into the proper place on the calendar. Each meal is automatically color coded, and prep notes are added to the "notes" section.

And when you drop a recipe into a spot on the calendar, it automatically adds all its ingredients to the third tab, "Shop," where it is sorted into your prefered store for that ingredient. (Now, I do most of my shopping at one store, so I don't need that, but since my kiddos help with the shopping, I named my "stores" after them. Each item is put into the list of the child responsible for that section.

You could use the app on your smartphone and then the "shop" tab would be your shopping list. This doesn't work with so many of us in the store, but if you were shopping alone, it would be quite handy.

PTE also has a "freezer section" to keep track of your freezer meals, as well as a place to add your staples and non grocery items to a shopping list.

It's just $40 a year, though if you watch for emails at Black Friday time, you can get it half off (which just adds 12 months to your subscription. So if you were to sign up in the summer of 2019, but take advantage for the sale in November, you would not owe anything more until the summer of 2021.) Oh, and the first month's trial is free.




All in all, I find this hybrid of electronic and paper works best for me. What about you? What do you use to keep track of your life?