Many of our House of Shine readers use the Planner Pad as a tool for organizing their days and keeping track of appointments. We thought it would be smart to create a physical space on our website where users could share ideas about how to get the most out of your Planner Pad. Share a recent idea you had or a tried and true strategy that you've been relying on for years.

And if you don't have a planner pad, but want to learn more then click on Contact Us and send Claudia an email. She would LOVE the chance to talk about it and she might even rope you into a Planner Pad consultation.

What is a planner pad?

What?!? Robin...check out...http://highlowaha218.blogspot.com/2008/03/behind-every-great-woman-is-planner.html

That was the first time Claudia introduced the Planner Pad on the blog.
But seriously this planner is awesome for all of us that like to have a paper planner (and those who don't think they need a paper planner but try anyway!)

Robin! You are a great candidate for a planner pad. Tell me you are willing to try and I will send you one at a discounted rate. I have two extra ones in my possession and I would happily send you one. $20.00.

I'll even include a phone conversation so we can talk through how to use it.

Have a I mentioned that my friend Tiffany uses one of the "buckets" in her Planner Pad to plan her weekly menu? I love the idea of that, since all too often it seems like we are pinch hitting at the Beeny house. I am committed to trying this.

I use one of my buckets for "me time" things I can do. Many times, my planner is simply all the things I need to do for work, and sometimes lose sight of things I need to do for myself. So, I add items to my "me time" bucket and when there is time, I go there to see how I can treat myself. Things in the bucket might include: send a card to a friend, get a pedicure, trip to Target dollar spot, songs I'd like to download, friends I need to call, etc. Some weeks I may only do one thing in that bucket, but it's important to include "me things" in my weekly plans.

I printed round stickers with little quotes on them... things like "Life is a journey not a destination" and "Hope" and "Scatter Shine" and then I placed one quote on one of the weekly pages. Mine are located at the bottom of the Notes/call column.

When I ran out of stickers I just wrote the quote in colored markers.

Someone just sent me an email asking how I use the 2010 Planning section of my calendar and the month at a glance pages at the start of each month. Below is my reply. Maybe some of you will find it helpful. More importantly, how do those of you who have the calendar use those sections?

Let's share.


Naturally, everyone will use it differently, based on style and complexity of schedule.

When you say the 2010 Planning section, I think you are talking about the pages at the front of the calendar. I don’t typically write much in that section, mostly because most of my planning can happen in two or three month increments and don’t require me to be planning years in advance. When I do use that section, it is to make note of high-level deadline dates. For instance, on my website (House of Shine), we host a monthly activity of some sort. They are annual events in that we’ve been doing them for the past few years, but each event only happens once during the course of the year. I have written each month’s event in that section, so that I have an easy reference when I want to remind myself which month is which event. This is helpful when I have a few minutes of free time and can use it to get a jump on thinking/planning for what is upcoming.

I use the month at a glance section at the start of each month in two ways, primarily. First, I make note of fun milestones for my kids. Friday was Matthew’s first day of kindergarten, so for instance, I wrote that on August 13. I also reward myself with a smiley face sticker each day that I fit in a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise. I put that sticker there. That way, at the end of the month I can get a good at-a-glance idea of how I did. If Housing and Residence Life has important dates (housing sign ups, RA selection, etc...) you might consider putting them in there. Because those pages are literally the month at a glance, you might consider using them for notable dates/deadlines, for which you don’t have direct responsibility, but that might impact your schedule. If you had direct responsibility you would want to put it directly into the mid-section of your calendar because you would need to plan backwards and that requires awareness of what else is going on that month/week/day.