How I Stay Organized + Free Printable 2019 Calendar
I get asked “how do you do it?” probably once a week LOL. Between overseeing marketing for an e-commerce company, freelance marketing and consulting, running two e-commerce websites (one with the help of my fiancé thank the heavens), renovating our home, working out, cooking, keeping up a house (no, I do not have a maid service because I’m too anal about cleanliness and they just don’t clean to my standards HAH), taking care of our new puppy, staying up to date on my books and podcasts, and finding time to spend time with family, friends, and travel/adventure…I’d say my life is pretty jam packed.
Some people might think I’m pretty neurotic and Type A and yeah, sometimes I can be. But I also love to have fun! Danny also really helps keep me grounded and without him I know I would’ve probably had about ten too many stress anxiety attacks by now. One of my major goals that I set for 2019 was to C H I L L. The past few years my goals have been about my career and trying new things, but this year I am SO ready to become a homebody. I want to garden, cook, read more, blog, be outdoors, spend more time with friends, learn how to take a nap, plan our wedding without stressing, and literally just sit in a hammock for hours.
Yes, I will always innately strive for more and be working toward goals…but this year I’m going to tell myself that it’s o k a y not to achieve them right this minute and to just enjoy the journey. Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and anything in this world that has lasted took time to build up. It’s said that the less time you put into something the less it means to you, and it’s totally true. This is a lifelong journey of entrepreneurship that I’m on, and nothing good in life comes without some effort!
Oh and YES, I get at LEAST 8 hours of sleep per night! Honestly sometimes, I actually don’t know how I do it myself. And no, I am not on some crazy drugs or adderall or anything! I just truly love my life and love everything in it, and when you love something it doesn’t seem like a chore.
So answering the initial question of “how do I do it?”…if I were to attribute anything, it would be organization and efficiency. I am a highly organized person (I literally have grocery shopping scheduled into my calendar, sorry not sorry) and I always have to kill two (or ten) birds with one stone to maximize my time for efficiency. So, here are some tools I use to keep me organized:
DAY PLANNER
I have officially become a planner person! My life has gotten so insane that I had to break up my to do’s and meetings – so I keep all appointments and meetings in my phone/iCal, and all to do’s and daily tasks in my planner.
I scored big-time though when I found this one from Target. It helps you break down your goals, set the big picture, design your days, and help you stay on course. It has a monthly and weekly view, and my favorite part is a section for “this week’s top priorities” so you don’t keep pushing your to do’s to the next day! I would always just put everything in my calendar, and it would keep getting pushed back further and further if I didn’t accomplish it that day. It got kinda overwhelming so I just wouldn’t check anything off at all. This way with the week’s top priorities, I will knock one or two of them off one day if I have some free time, knowing that I have the rest of the week to knock the others off. I can also assign a priority to the next week if it’s not urgent. And by Friday if I haven’t accomplished my priorities for the week I make it a point to spend extra time Friday to get them done.
TRELLO
Trello is my absolute life saver and how I manage the back and forth between brands/clients so easily. I also have a personal Trello board, too. Each of my brands/clients has a different board on my Trello, where I store things on different cards like this:
- Logins and important information (hopefully it’s secure enough to keep logins on here, but this is the easiest for me to store them in an organized way)
- List of ideas
- Social media: Tags I use for that brand, inspiration, etc.
- Calendar: I have at least 30 days planned out, plus all the major holidays throughout the year. There is a calendar “power up” function where you can view in calendar mode which is a life saver, and I have my Trello calendars integrated to my iCal so I can see how it fits into my day-to-day too.
- Other relevant items: Each brand/client is different, so everyone will have their own cards
CALENDARS
My favorite online calendar is iCal, just because it integrates with everything like Trello, and all my personal appointments with booking apps, etc. I have different calendars for different things, so it’s all color coded in there. I used to put all my to-do’s in there but it got way too cluttered and I started becoming immune to it and actually missed a few meetings because there were too many things in there. So I’ve gone to putting just meetings/appointments in there so it alerts me – I also like how Google Maps is integrated alerts me right when I need to leave and tells me how long it takes to get there.
For home, I made my own calendar and uploaded it for you to have free here! I keep it pinned up on our chalkboard in the laundry room for the stuff Danny and I have together like vacations and friends birthday dinners, etc. Yes, it’s annoying having to keep it in multiple calendars but it’s a good way of communicating with each other and organizing our life together.
Also, the iCal logo is my birthday LOL just thought I would throw that in there ok bye.
