Planning for beginners the 2020 edition Part 1

Today’s topic:  how to plan out 2020 without pulling your hair.

Well, I have news for you...

You cannot, but you can look like you are an expert, but first, let’s talk about planners.

Image by Jess Watters from Pixabay 

Please note:  there are so many planners out there and no one has the same style and technique in that is ideal for everyone.  So, guess what?  You must find it yourself.  I am not being mean about it.  It is like journaling, which is why I am including it with journaling.  Also please note:  I am not an expert in this.  The only way I can teach you is from my experience.   So, here is my experience with playing with planners.

I have had many different types of planners.  The one I started with is called DayTimers.  It is nothing fancy about this system at all.  I worked with this system from the smallest to what was called, the folio size.  I ordered it faithfully, and with its boring green and white style, you could order it in daily only and weekly only.  Both had the monthly layout with them, but you can also order just the monthly layout as well. 

What I liked about this system was I could archive it.  The layouts came in both spiral and binder style.  The last style I ordered was in 2006, and it came in a daily, spiral style, with a monthly layout feel to it.  All the style allowed you to plan things by the hour, which is a plus if you had clients to meet with, not so if you had an event that ran all day.

I stop ordering them and did not keep up at all.  I had no clients, just a job at Archiver’s, and my schedule was easy to keep up without a calendar, paper or digital.  That failed miserably.

Fast forward to 2014.  I was getting bored with entering my dates into my phone.  I was not looking at it half the time, as well as forgetting to enter the date in the first place.  I had all these papers that I carried around in my purse, which started looking like a briefcase.  I had to curb that ish quick.   I was looking at the Daytimer’s website (only because I received a catalog in snail mail, begging me to come home), and I learned that Franklin Covey (yes, THE Franklin Covey), had bought the Daytimer’s line.  I did not like Franklin Covey when I first started planning and my mind were not changing on how I was feeling about the brand, which to me was a little on the “Old man” side of planning.  So, I started researching.  I needed something that made planning fun, and NOT a chore.

Enter Erin Condren.  I looked at it and thought that for a cute planner, it was expensive. Well, so was Daytimers.  I had not learned about Happy Planner at that time and that was 2015 when the Erin Condren website had a sale because it was in the middle of the year.  So, I went for it, and at $35 (as a comparison to the normal $65) I decided to order it.  I was happy with my purchase, and it went nicely with some stickers that I also ordered it.  I have been with the Erin Condren Life Planner ever since 2015, and I love it.  Most of the time, I order when it is on sale, and as long as I am not too late in the year.  If I am, I order next year.  I also like to decorate the pages, more on that later. 

The first question is, are you a planner person?  If you are, great, you are ahead of the people who want to learn.  If not or you want to learn some tricks of the trade, sit back, grab a cup of your favorite beverage (mine is either coffee or water), and prepare to learn.

1.       Choosing your planner.

There are really two types of planners: paper and digital.  Digital planners are on your phone, your tablet, laptop, or your desktop.  They can also be on your TV since televisions are slowly becoming the family hub center.  You access your planner through an application or app.  

Paper planners, on the other hand, were once a dying thing.  There are many planners to choose from.  I have mentioned 4 already:  Franklin Covey and Daytimer’s are the oldest planners, and the Erin Condren life planner and Happy planner are some of the newest planners that came into existence in the past 10 years. 

There is no style that is wrong for it is a matter of preference.  The best way to choose is to think about what you want to do with the planner.  For instance, I have an Erin Condren as I said before.  The way I plan my planner could easily transfer to a Happy Planner, which I have plans to try for next year.  It is cheaper than ECLP, and I can go to any craft store for one.  This leads to to….

 2.      Price

When you first start using a planner, you do not want to go overboard with price.  One reason is if you get bored with the planner, you do not want to feel like you are stuck with it. You can get a fairly cheap planner monthly calendar at Walmart for $5.99 (not sponsored by the company)

3.      Are you a decorator or “Stick it in” person

Image by David Schwarzenberg from Pixabay

Here is the difference.  Are you are a decorator, then you will want to purchase stickers, use colorful pens and markers, and have all the accessories that your little planner can handle.  If this is you, again, do not go overboard, or your $20 worth of stickers, pens, and accessories can rack up to $500 in a heartbeat, and you will wonder what you got for that much.  Trust me, I have been in your shoes, and I still, am.   The best bet is to set a budget stick with 1-3 brands and go with it.  I am on Erin Condren’s, Oh So Paper’s, and Happy Planner’s list.  I have also tried Planner Society, but I did not like the idea of renewing the subscription plan every three months.  I also tried other subscription plans with the same result, and I told you about my beef with Daytimers.       

Now if you are more of a “stick a date in and forget it” type of person, you have no worries.  You might want to use a colorful pen or two, but no stickers and accessories are at a minimum if any.  That is ok too. this means that your planner orders are going to be a whole lot less than “the decorator’s”, and your budget will thank you too. I. just. have. not. gotten. that. point. Yet. This brings me to…

4.      Watch the budget.

My suggestion no matter what your basic kind of planning is to have a budget.  Once you pick your planning system and your “stuff”, make a plan on how you are going to plan, and so forth, please price them out on your budget sheet, and divide by 12, and put that amount in your budget.  For example, if you plan on spending $1000 for the year, divide that by 12, which equals out to $83.00 per month.  On some of the months, $83 would be going towards a planner and some months the accessories.

5.      Have fun.

I am going to say this but have fun planning.  If you are stress over things that leave you ready to smack someone, then you should not be planning at all.  I look at it this way, it is your way of decorating the books.  Anyone can have fun with the project; men, women, and children.  This project does not have any age boundaries.  I hear all kinds of stories about a person who gets organized and loves it. 

There are no set rules of time management, except the following according to Entrepreneur:

1.       Start your day off right.  Not only be positive but meditate, have a daily routine, do not rush to get things done

2.      Plan for what you want to accomplish.  Have a to-do list.  Make that list obtainable and reasonable.  Going out to get ice cream is not a goal, but saying spending time with Angela, who is your 10-year-old is a short-term goal.

3.      Have a set time and day to set up your week. I try to set up my week on a Saturday before.

Well, this is it for right now.  Take care.

Today’s topic: Journaling for beginners

Disclaimer: P. Lynne Designs is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. 

October 23, 2019-This was me a year ago today.  I started covering journaling on my blog.  The reason was I journaled and I still journal. I needed something new to put a spark in this tired blog, so, I started talking about journaling as a way to fill a void and to talk about a form of writing that I am passionate about.  

Have you ever journaled before? 

If the answer is yes, then you know what I am talking about.  If not or have not heard of the concept before, I have a whole series about the beginnings of journaling and why is it important to keep a journal.

I will not rehash the reasons why I do journal, I have them sprinkled throughout this blog: The topics I want to home in for beginners are:

·         Journaling 101: Day 1- an introduction

·         How to journal (or at least how I journal) and included are some topics that might interest you in getting started

·         Types of journals and what they are best for- Day 3 (Journaling)

·         More on the written journal, tools to use, and other goodies Day 4

·         Put it together: Conclusion to journaling

·         Blog Journaling: How-To write personal online

from Pixabay by unknown photographer

It is also good that the rest of the more experienced people who journal to read as well.  I also have some tips to become better at journaling, and some things that I have learned about the process of journaling.

1)       Find Your Why.

It does not matter to the rest of the world your reason for journaling unless you do like me and announce that you are journaling (i.e. this blog).  What matters is you know your reason.  These reasons can go from “I want to know what it is like to journal” to “I want to go back someday to see how I am at a particular time in my life where I was happy, sad, curious, or going through something difficult because a child, friend, or spouse is going through the same thing.”  These are all valid reasons for journaling, but if you are using the entry at a later time as a means for guiding someone through the same situation, be careful.  This person is not you and for you to offer advice on something that you have handed well in the past, may not end well for that person, unless they first ask for help. Wait, they will talk about it if they want to.

2)      Use entries as lessons learned

Let me address one of those reasons.  The reason is “I want to learn from this”.  The real reason could be that you are going through a situation and you want to be able to learn from it and teach someone when they go through it.  Let me address the art of financial planning as an example.

You may be having problems with keeping money in your bank account month to month.  This is a common problem for people these days. You may want to keep a journal documenting what is happening, what you are saving for (if you are trying to do that as well), and another money situation the average person is having: getting out of debt.

This is how I would do this type of journaling.  There is no wrong way of doing it, but it is necessary, at least for me, to document this, in case you need to show this to someone at the bank for advice.  For this type of journaling, I might suggest that you buy:

§  an inexpensive notebook binder, Tabs (Jan-Dec)

§  Using a spreadsheet, like MS. Excel or Google Sheets, or software like Quicken Books (your choice, no right or wrong, it depends on your experience and your tech budget)

§  Some notebook paper or online journal. 

·         Note: You may also want to print out your statements from online banking app (if applicable).

§  Divide your notebook from Jan-Dec (using dividers, like the Avery Customizable Table of Contents Dividers, Jan- Dec Tabs (11847)). 

§  Add in the following each month:

·         your spreadsheet

·         Goals and Aspirations

·         Journal entries (reflections)

§  At the end of the year your feeling on how it went.

o   You never know, this could turn into a book.

3)     Project entries

I have often had journals where I wanted to document a trip or a project.  Same thing as the other journals, where I have entries and reflections within those entries.   These looked a little like this:

Project:  Christmas card

Materials Used:

o   Christian Merry Christmas by Stamp Simply - Acrylic Stamp for Card #1. $20.90

o   Snowflake Christmas Stamp Set by Inkadinkado- Acrylic Stamp set for Card #2. $10.63

o   Embossing powder-Rose Gold Metallic By Ranger Ink for card #1. $3.99

o   Embellishment Mousse -Pure Platinum By Nuvo for card #2. $6.39

o   Bazzill Basics - Card Shoppe - 8.5 x 11 Cardstock - Premium Smooth Texture – Marshmallow (100 sheets) for Card #3 to get a head start and to replenish my white cardstock-$.48 each

Budget for the total Project:  $150.00 for the project.  I spent $89.00 so far.

This can be applied to any home improvement, business, or trip project.

4)     Document everything

If you want people to learn from the mistakes you have made as well as your successes, list everything no matter how big or small.  I will say something like this (using the Christmas card project as an example):

      “One of the things I have learned from making Christmas cards is I need to start early finding everything I needed for them.  First, I did not anticipate the cost.  I thought that if I had a budget of $150 for the project, I would come out ahead.  I had so much fun that I made 3 more types of cards and I ended up spending $200 for everything.   The next lesson I learn is to estimate the time of arrival for the products I ordered.  Amazon did what they said they did, which was to deliver in 2 days.  As for the products I order from Scrapbook.com, they were out of the Nuvo Drops I wanted for the impromptu 4^th card I decided to make.  They were rose gold, which would have been perfect for the rose gold embossing powder I order from there, and I ran all over town going from craft store to craft store.  This prompted me to finally order from Amazon, again, who got it to me in 24 hours, after I put a rush on the order.  I guess it pays to plan ahead.”

Even if this documentation is for your eyes only, it serves as a reminder for the next time to plan ahead.

5)     Plan ahead.

Yes, I am will ask you to plan to make a journal.  The reason is so you can research into what type of journal you want to have.  Not every journal is a narrative journal (the “dear diary, I had a bad day type).  As you see from the examples above, I did not have a narrative journal.  I had a planning journal.  Well, did you know you have to plan a planning journal?  Even if you were to follow some examples, you may not want everything you see in the example journal.  For example, if you were to follow my plan of attack for the Christmas card project journal, you have to ask yourself, “should I sketch out my card to have a general idea I want in the card?” “This example does not show that.” “I also do not see how many she was making; I want to put that in there.” “I really want a spreadsheet of my inventory and cost, should I put the journal in a binder instead of a regular notebook?” (trust me, it is perfectly fine to make that decision).  In other words, you can make your journal any way you want.  There is no right or wrong way of writing a journal.  It is what you make of the journal.  It is what makes you happiest. You are the master of your own journal.

Well, it is late, and I must get some sleep.  I hope you will find this very helpful as you begin your journaling process.  Oops, my bad, I did not get to planners.  This is part 1.  Part 2 is around the corner and will be addressed next time. So stay tuned to this blog for hopefully an exciting post.

Scheduling 2.0

Caution:  May contain Affiliate Links

Lately, I had a lot of things on my mind, so I had to take a break.  Not too much of a break because I am loving the page views I have been receiving, but enough to get myself back on track.

I have started some posts to put up this week, but they have been pulled back to next week. I have not been mindful to myself, but thankfully, my family nor my church has not asked me to do too many things.  The reason I said this is as of this morning, my left ankle has been acting up, which mean one thing:  I am having a slight flare-up of gout, and I do not want to slow down my intake of seafood.  The other things that have been slowly flaring up are my shoulders and my eczema, which is concentrated on my face and chest (started to say the other thing in the chest area, but I remember about my G-rating on this blog, LOL). Except for the worry that I may not have enough money to finish paying for my trip in September, working on my YouTube Channel, and working on my friendship swap (my third scrapbook/mixed media swap with this woman), this has been a laid back week.

Well, enough about me, how has your week been going? 

Topic of Scheduling: What is it?

Today, since I mentioned my schedule or the sort of lack of a viable one, I thought I would post about making a schedule.  Not only a schedule that works for your writing but a schedule that contains everything you do in your life.  Let me first say to those who are new to scheduling, it is another way of planning.  In this case, you are planning out your day, week, month, or year. (Trust me, I know people like that). I have mentioned in many, many blog posts, and now some videos, planning is a way of knowing what you need to do, and want to do.  Planning keeps you sane, it keeps you on track, and it keeps you from duplicating tasks.  When you were in school, it was called a syllabus. Another name is called a “To Do List”.  Rather you call it a planning guide, syllabus, To Do List, Honey Do List, or scheduling, it is all the same, which again, it is a list of things that need to be done.

How to make a schedule?

Making a schedule is not hard to do, but for some reason, this is something that most people struggle with, myself included.   Even as a single person, with no kids, and not currently dating, it is a struggle.  Why?  Because I have so many facets of my life that I have to place into motion, such as time with the family (both biological and church family), church services, regularly scheduled meetings to attend, blog posting, videotaping, writing assignments that I suddenly feel that I need to do, and handmade projects that need to be made.  Oh, let’s don’t forget things, such as doctor and dental appointments, hair appointments (getting your hair twisted is an all-day appointment, even when you have 3 African braiders in your head at all times), pedicures, grocery shopping, and spring cleaning and decluttering (in the process now).  The list goes on and one.  You wonder if I will have time for baby when I adopt. Sleep, yes sleeping and pooping (OK, TMI)

To do that, you have to first prioritize.  Yes, that nasty little word called prioritizing.  What is important to you, may not be as important or more important to another person, so you have to place, in order, the things that need to be done.  Let look at my list:

·         Family time (D)

·         Worship services (W)

·         Meetings for church (M)

·         Meetings for business (AN)

·         Blog writing, editing, and posting (x3 W)

·         Video filming, editing, and posting (x2 W)

·         Freelance writing assignments (AN)

·         Handmade product creation, pricing, and placement (W, Q)

·         Doctor and dental appointments (Every 3 months, 6 months, A)

·         Hair and feet appointments (Every 2-3 months)

·         Personal and grocery shopping (AN, 2 weeks)

·         Spring cleaning and decluttering (Q)

·         Technology stuff (M)

The symbols are

·         A=Annually

·         AN=As Needed

·         D=Daily

·         M=Monthly

·         X#=Number of times during the week, month, or year.  The word Every in front shows importance for me.

·         Q=Quarterly

This is my breakdown of the overall schedule.  Note that I have not put any times on the scheduling part.  This when I do my calendar.  More on that part in a moment.

This is how I do my scheduling.  I write it on a big sticky note, handwritten, nothing fancy.  I usually will plan out my week on Sunday night (Sunday to Saturday scheduling).  So tomorrow, I will sit down at my desk, and look at my calendar, and plan out my week.  This process will take about 15 minutes to an hour, depending on what I have.  At the end of the month, I will throw in what I have to pay in bills, so it takes longer (towards the hour mark), and the rest of the month is usually towards the 15-minute mark.  So, if you are wondering how I throw in bill paying time.  There you have it.  I usually do not schedule in a separate bill paying time because I pay online, and it is like an internet session for me (before social media time).  I go to my credit card and utility sites, my banking, and Paypal in one session, jump back and forth between screens and in 15 minutes, I am done.

Next level:  Calendar

My Erin Condren Calendar
(c) 2017 Photo by P Lynne Designs
(c) 2017 Erin Condren 

Once I have all of that stuff straighten out, for the most part, I turn to my calendar.  I have 5 calendars:  Two paper planners (personal and business), My Ipad, and My smartphone (no the smartphone and the Ipad are not talking to each other (IOS and Android).  They do not play nice with each other, when you are on the family plan with your parents, and having an Ipad and an Iphone is not in the plans when your 21-year old nephew has one. So, until then, I have to deal with devices that do not talk with each other.  I mentioned a 5^th calendar, that would be my desktop, I nicknamed, Della because she is a Dell computer. (Get it, Della). OK, so I have a quirk. My car is Baby J, the desktop computer is Della, Smartphone is Sammy (for Samsung phone), Ipad is Izzy, and my Cricut Explore is named Carmen.

Sorry, for going off track, where was I?  Oh, yes, my calendars.

A view of how I schedule through EC
(c) 2017  Photo by P.Lynne Designs
(c) 2017 Erin Condren 

Like I mention, I have two Erin Condren Calendars.  I love this brand because it is the first calendar that allows my style of recording things.  I have looked at others, but I am happy with the EC.  They offer three styles and I love the horizontal style, which allows me to write as much detail as I care to.  I place the topics of the blog post or video titles in there under the date.  That way, if I feel like I am repeating, I can turn to the month that I thought I wrote it, and decide on a different topic if I need to.  I can write down detailed things I need for appointments, meetings, and even directions.  EC has a dashboard which I use both as a white board and a place to put sticky notes.  My only wish is those planner creators who design stickers for the EC planner would have more horizontal formats.  

When it is time to make my schedule, I turn to that week to see if I have any meetings, appointments, and so forth.  I even record what I spend, and how much I have to spend.  Sammy, Izzy, and Della are online backups to my EC calendars, and I can enter in dates on these devices when I do not have the paper planner with me.

Is this a foolproof system?

No system is completely foolproof.  You have to put it in action to see if it works for you. Feel free to tweak any scheduling system that does not work for you.  Also, one tip:  no system is going to work if you do not use it.  If you keep putting it off and do the same things you have been doing, it is not going to work.  For me, a system will or will not work if you do not use it for at least 3 months.  3 months is plenty of time to tweak along the way.

So, give it a try.  You may need to tweak it to your style of doing things, but if it does not give you the satisfaction of a foolproof system, try another system.  I will tell you what does work for me, scheduling apps.  To me, they are so limited, especially the free systems.  The way they work and the way I work did not meet my needs, especially the last one.  Who knows, you may find an app that works for you.

Have a good evening

5 reasons why I do not like to write…

Photo by www.plannerisms.com

I do not like to write.  I have said it a dozen times and now I feel like I have to explain myself to you all.

1.       The first reason why I do not like to write is this stigma that you are only as good as the red marks on your school papers.  That seems to be true.  I am the #1 queen of the red mark papers.  I would get started on a thought, totally screw up the sentence, and the teacher would come behind me with his/her red pen.  I hated those pens, and if I had a second chance, I would have banished those red pens.  (Hummm, I would like to know how they grade now with all of this technology.)

2.      The second reason why I do not like to write is criticism.   Criticism can come in the form of not liking the subject matter to the style of writing, to that equal of the red pen marks.

3.      Third reason why is I am afraid that I will write about the same subject over and over again. 

4.      The fourth reason why I do not like to write is if I am stuck, I have nothing to write about, and if I do not have nothing to write about, you do not have anything to read.

5.      The fifth and finally reason why I do not like to write is….I LOVE TO WRITE.  I found that out when I started my journal a few years ago.  These are the reasons why.

a.       I overcame my first problem by first telling myself that I am no longer in high school, so therefore, I no longer have the red marks.  I found out that teachers have red pens to point out what a child has to correct, but the problem with that is when a child has a question, some teachers’ zone out, and never answer that child’s question.  The last two years of my high school was the most critical, but guess what people?  At that time, English was not a required subject to take.  I graduated in 1982 and according to the curriculum that I was given, I had choir, music theory, and a few study halls. I had really finished my schooling in the 11^th grade.  Thank God they revamped the curriculum.  You learn by doing, and so it was practice make perfect or else.

b.      So people criticize, no big whoop there.  Well guess what, it is a big whoop if you want to monetize your blog, and you want readers.  That is what I have to tell myself, and I still tell myself that as I put fingertips to keyboard.  You have to know what you are talking about.  You have hold an interest to not just the person who has the same passion that you do, but to a person who is looked for something new to do.  It is not easy being a blogger.

c.       This brings me to the third problem…the same subject.  You have to know your subject, which some people call a niche.  Now if you are talking about coffee, and you love the taste, the aroma, and all things coffee.  Do not just have subject after subject about Starbucks.  It can get rather boring even for the people who worship Starbucks.  You may even get sick of writing about Starbucks.  If I was to start a blog about coffee, I would first introduce myself and my love of coffee, and why you should read about it each week.  Next post, I would talk about the beans and why it is important to have the perfect beans.  Next post, I would talk about the different types of coffee, and so forth.  When you get enough, a few friends told me about spinning it in a different way. 

d.      This bring me to the fourth problem…being stuck.  Now, in the last paragraph, I started talking about spinning the post.  There are different ways to do this, but to me the write (right) way is to take a piece of the parent post (original post), and elaborate on it to make a child post.   Again using “coffee” as our subject, say you could create a post about the different types of coffee; pod, whole bean, and ground.  You have 3 child posts from that one parent post.  Here is how…Your first post, you may talk about pod coffee and the different types of pods, and what machines uses that pod.  Next post would be about whole bean coffee.  You would talk about what to look for in a whole bean coffee and that you may want a grounder for that type of coffee and why.  The last post talks about ground coffee and what is the difference between the “real” stuff and instant.  Now you have 4 posts (the original and three child posts).  From that, you may be able to break it down further.   I will write more on how that is done at a later time.   DO NOT USE SPIN SOFTWARE! It will only make the Google gods mad at you, and cause your blog to shut down.

e.       Finally, do not just like writing, love writing.  If you are a freelance writer or just started out to be one, it can be the most reward thing to do, once you get started.  Research every subject, unless you are just writing for yourself, but research things anyway.  You do not want the wrong information to get out.  Even if it is how to spell a word.

 Pour your heart and soul into every piece, but give yourself time to relax.  You have the same rights as a musician (I do both, so I know), only you are a composer of words instead of music.  Having those rights means you follow rules and you are mindful of everyone’s works.  Know when a person is copying your work, because words cannot be duplicated if they come from the heart.   I say to you…WRITER, KNOW THYSELF.