I have been frantically trying to get a grip!

I am always organizing and listing and calendaring each January as a new year begins. I honestly love it! I cannot function until I do it.

One of my favorite things about organizing my life is the fact that I (best case scenario) “Have a place for everything and keep everything in it’s place”. When I do, I feel calm and orderly. I can focus on what needs to be done, and not worry about what doesn’t need to be done at the current moment.

So this is what I do:

• I usually buy the new wall calendar and my new planner early in the previous year. That way, as I make Dr. appointments and things that I plan for six months or so down the road, I can put the appointment information right on the calendar.
• When I have a minute here or there, I start adding birthdays to the calendar on the upcoming year.
• I go over in my mind what things we have discussed as a family we will want to put on the calendar. One example is that Emily will be home from her mission in 2014. We will want to plan all kinds of activities around that event.
• In my LDS ward, I’m the Primary President. That means I’m in charge of the children and their teachers and leaders. I have two counselors and a secretary that I couldn’t live without! We meet weekly to discuss our primary. We want to be prepared for all of the upcoming events and celebrations as well as making sure everyone’s needs are met. So we start listing all of the activities and events, and plan a date for them to take place. We need to get them on the calendar for our ward so others know when they’ll take place too.
• Right now I have several lists I’m creating and working on. One for Primary, one for my second job, working for a local dentist, and one for my family and extended family. We get together at least once a month, and I help plan those. Also, I am making a list and planning for our taxes. Because I do daycare, I will finish organizing my records so that they are orderly and complete. I will need to make receipts for those parents whose children I tend.
• In each of the categories of my life, I have a binder. NO floating papers! I love it. Of course I decorate them and then I feel like I’m being creative too.
• I made a binder for each extended family, my family and my darlin’s. I will keep papers that tend to get misplaced that have to do with these families is each binder.
• One more thing I do, that happens as the year goes by is I will use a folder for planning a particular event. When my parents had their 50th Wedding anniversary I organized food, and kept track of those who were invited. We recently put a new roof on the house. In the planning stages I got quotes from a few different roofing companies. I kept the quotes and measurements and anything else we may need to get it ready in the folder. I even took a small piece of the roofing shingle to compare colors. In the end what I have is a record  that can stay with the house if we ever sell it, and we know how much we spent and how we did it next time we need to re-roof the house. I file that folder away in my file cabinet with other informative files.

That’s about it. I love to be organized. I am not always organized, but I love it when I am. I hope this helps anyone who is not sure what to do with all of their calendars, lists, and binders!

Happy organizing!!!

P.S. In case you notice the little colorful dots on my little Moleskine Planner and calendar, I have my daycare kids color coded. Each color represents a family/child. Then all I have to do if I’m tending them on that day is put the dot. Then I’m not filling up the calendar with information that takes up a lot of space. FYI.