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Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat... If you know me at all, you know I'm an Auburn University alum and darn proud of it. I LOVE my tigers. I bleed burnt orange and navy (I have to be specific because I accidentally married into a family of Gators, but it could be worse, at least we both hate crimson/garnet.) Well, we are not having the best season. It tends to suck the fun out of football in general when your team has only won one conference game by late October and your toughest opponents are still ahead. I look forward to Fall all year for three reasons - the cooler weather brings my favorite clothes, pumpkin spice everything, and seeing my Tigers return to the field! It hurts my heart (and stomach and head) when we go into quadruple OT and lose because we couldn't catch perfectly good passes throughout the entire game. I mean really. As a receiver this is your job. When the ball lands in your hands, you hold onto it. *Deep breaths* Ok. Let's move on.
I work full time outside the home and like everyone who does this, my job takes up most of my time. In the past, I've struggled with time management and organization of priorities. I have realized that I'm a paper and pen kind of girl. I like my electronic devices and I definitely need my iPhone to "ding" at me with a 5 minute warning that I need to be somewhere but to really succeed, I need to write things down. On paper. Apparently I'm not alone. I've recently realized there is a crazed community out there of planner people. If you haven't seen them just google "life planner" and you will see what I mean. These people are passionate. And for good reason. The life planners I've seen look really nice and well organized but they are also really expensive. I knew that price tag wasn't something I could swing so I started brainstorming and I think I've found a solution in the form of a planning binder that I've put together for approximately $0.
I already had a binder that I cleaned out and printed a new cover for. I found the cover here: http://chicfetti.com/monograms/free-printable-monogram-binder-covers/. Seriously it's so cute and was so easy to do, I actually printed a second one for the back because I couldn't make up my mind. I printed monthly calendar pages from here: http://www.iheartnaptime.net/2015-free-printable-calendar/ and a daily docket from here: http://theartofsimple.net/daily-docket-2-0/. After using this system for about a month I can safely say, I love it. I have three divided sections in my binder. When you open it you see the current day's daily docket with blank ones behind it, next is a divider that says "calendar" with the monthly sheets for the rest of this year and all of next, then another divider that says "daily plans" and in here I put my previous daily dockets with the most recent on top. That way I can refer to them to see what I've done or need to add to the current day. I use the pockets of the binder for loose pages such as event posters for upcoming events that I've requested to be printed or floor plans for upcoming projects or plans for projects and events currently in the works. After the project or event is complete I can file these papers away in a nice labeled folder in my filing cabinet. This makes me feel so efficient and I can rest easy knowing that I'm not forgetting anything. This makes the whole work-life balance thing much more attainable.
