Knowing what is coming up and how I am going to get things done, really gives me the confidence to let go of those aspects a little bit. If I have a plan, I don't have to THINK about it all!
Along with my monthly wall calendar where I keep track of the bulk of my day to day events (classes, meetings, trips, birthdays), and my smart phone calendar where I keep track of the day to day minutiae (library books due back, subscriptions and bills due) I also take time each weekend to create to plans for my upcoming week - one for meals and the other for our homeschool plan.
Before I go further I should add that I am not a natural planner. I don;t feel a strong need to map things out like this, but that doing so stops the daily panic of 'what ARE we going to eat tonight?' and 'WHAT did we do for school last week?!'
My meal plan is a really basic affair, and one that I received as part of a bundle from Waldorfish, but I really like the simple layout, and that there are blocks for breakfast, lunch and grazing platters (affectionately known in our home as monkey platters!) I've written before about how I tend to go about creating my menu plans, here. It's still working for us!
And before I go any further with my homeschool plan, I should add a humongous caveat.
Yes! - I make a plan each week.
No - I don't expect us to do this each week.
Again, I've found that if I make a plan, it frees up a little extra brain space for me. When we are ready for our next 'school' project, I can just check my book for inspiration. I'll write more on how we homeschool another time, because honestly that's a huge multi- post project all by itself.
After struggling to find a homeschool planner that I loved, that had the flexibility I wanted for our family's schooling needs, I created my own out of a 50 cent composition book. I used this post as my inspiration, but honestly my planner has evolved so much since I first started doing this at the beginning of the school year. But that's the beauty of it! - now it's my own creation,a nd it perfectly fits my needs. Joy!
And lastly, my To Do book. This is a newer addition for me, and was borne from the need for me to write out to do lists and random notes. Am I the only person who finds that physically writing something out with pen and paper helps me remember it better?!
This one is still a bit of a work in progress, and I know it will be evolving over the upcoming months, but it's good to have a collected place to jot everything down, and a beautiful book at that, rather than the countless scraps of paper.
I use a lovely Moleskine notebook for this; it had all the features I wanted; a ribbon for marking my place, an elastic strap for holding it closed, and a pocket int he back for any random scraps of paper that may just need to be contained (ahem).
