Seeing is Organizing

I am not an organized person in general.

I am just being honest.

My craft room is organized logically, my craft room is organized, and my jewelry is organized. But I am not much of a planner - as a matter of fact, if you really want to make me mad, ask me questions about something that is three months from now. I'll go ahead and tell you right now that I'm going to a) punch you in my mind and b) tell you I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen, because I won't "plan" it until the night before.

But BECAUSE I'm not a planner, when it comes time for something to get done, I need a system, both for physical stuff and for digital stuff, because I will leave myself ZERO time to go hunting for something or wonder what date something is happening on. All that needs to be right in front of me so that the three hours I DO dedicate to a 20 hour project can be as productive as possible. Actually, it sort of seems genius now that I look at it in black and white - and you know I've always said that procrastinators are more productive because we HAVE to be. We've left ourselves no other option.

Well Kristina Werner said something not too long ago that changed my digital life forever. It was on a Crafty Chat episode, and she talked about how she kept a paper planner on her desk for her blog to help her make sure she was keeping both variety (products, techniques) and consistency (days, videos) on her blog and YouTube Channel. I decided to give that the old college try, and I bought a paper planner.

I was AMAZED at how much more productive it made me on my blog and how much more content I created when I could just visually see the gaps and the bunched up projects I was randomly creating.

So today I'm amazing myself and doing something I'd have laughed at you for suggesting I'd do - and that is, play along with a PLANNER products blog hop with my friends at Hero Arts. PLANNER PRODUCTS! That's right. Don't faint. Now I'm still not organized enough to have a traditional planner, but one product in particular has changed my blogging schedule F O R E V E R. I've been using this new system for several weeks and have kicked my paper planner to the curb. Check this out.

Isn't that cool? Now I've told y'all before my desk (my computer desk) is very tiny. Very short front to back, and I just don't have room for the two page spread of my old calendar. So it would sit there closed until I dug it out from the pile, knocked the cats off it and opened it up. For a visual person, that's not the best way to keep the important stuff in front of you - out of sight, out of mind. The new system is always in front of my eyeballs, along with my perpetual birthday calendar and weekly planner sheet. BOOM. Desk is clean AND I can see everything I need to do.

Here's what my October looks like with the perpetual blog calendar I made with the

And here's the birthday calendar.

So simple.

I use fine tip sharpies and my FAVE ultra-fine tipped dry erase markers (these are crazy cheap right now - $5.99 for 8 of them) - just depends on if you feel like you'll be accidentally rubbing off the dry erase or not - I like the dry erase for the actual blog info because it changes a lot as I swap things around, play in challenges or blog hops, etc. And this laminator will laminate things up to 9" wide.

Anyway - this is life changing and I love it. And I will continue to buy cute planner stuff to use on cards, because all the washi, the stamps, the dies - all of it is so CUTE.

So of course I couldn't resist some of that for cardmaking purposes, or maybe I was just rationalizing - LOOK - it's none of your business! :)

And here are some of the smileys I stick on those Audrey Blue envelopes I send my birthday cards out in. Hope it gives the mail carriers a smile.

InLinkz.com

Now if you want LOTS more smilies - check out the other people on this hop and leave comments for a chance to win one of three shopping sprees from Hero!

The Hero Arts Blog
Kelly Purkey
Jennifer McGuire
Yana Smakula
May Sukyong Park
Mariana Grigsby
Amy Tsuruta
Amy Tan
Wanda Guess
Lydia Fiedler
Jen Carlson
Barbara Picinich
Brooke Takara
Krista Wells
Jamie Waters
Nadia Azni
Kari Stiles
Libby Hickson

Hope I left you with a little smile!

Loveyameanitbye.