Well Planned Life

I work one Sunday a month.  It’s a half-shift really, four and a half hours.  While I don’t enjoy giving up my Sunday, it’s not bad as shifts go—we’re usually pretty busy so the time goes by fairly quickly.  Plus, I get a day off during the week if I’d like.  All in all, not a bad deal. This past Sunday was my Sunday to work.  We were busy, as usual, and by the time five o’clock came, I was ready to head home.  My commute is 30 minutes, and by the time I got home, grabbed my bag, and got out of the car, I knew something was missing.  My bag felt too light.  Imagine if I left my planner at work—that would suck , I thought.  Horrified, I looked in my bag and realized that indeed, I had left my planner at work!  Now, if it were a normal weekday workday, I would have driven back to get him.  But being Sunday, the library was now closed and I wouldn’t be able to get in. Here I am, a Sunday night, without my planner.  How...

Last week I ventured into Staples —it had been a long time since I stepped foot in an office supply store.  Why, I don’t know.  I chose Staples because I wanted to check out the new office supply line by Martha Stewart .  While she has some great organizing tips and techniques, I’m not an avid fan/follower of hers.  But office supplies are office supplies, and I had to look into it.  She has teamed up with Avery to create a new line of supplies . The display was located all the way at the back of this particular store.  To me, if you want to advertise something new, this is not the best place to do it.  But that’s just my opinion—perhaps they didn’t have room anywhere else.  As for the products: there are some great items that I could imagine purchasing for my organizational use— tabs , dividers , labels , folders , etc.  I especially like the desk organizers and drawers —pieces are sold individually and are stackable, allowing you to...

In a word: yes. I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t use to keep my prior years’ planner pages.  I used to only keep the prior year and throw them out when the new year arrived.  But since joining the Philofaxy community and reading that people keep their planner pages for years, I decided to start doing that as well. Then I got to thinking: is it really necessary?  At some point, I’ll have so many archives I won’t have room to store them, even though that’s a long way off yet. But this weekend I came to understand why keeping past pages is so important.  As a public employee, I have to complete Civil Service exams every couple of years.  Included in that exam is a list a continuing education courses and/or programs that I’ve attended.  I’m pretty good at keeping meticulous records of this—I keep a running list in a Word document.  Then, I can just transfer the information from my file to the online exam form.  But it’s always nice...

As some of you may recall , I have re-purposed my beloved Malden as a stay-at-home binder to house all of the items I want to keep but that I don’t need with me at all times.  I have finished putting all of the pieces together, and so here is a little tour.  Upon opening the binder, you can see I have bits of paper and cards in the slots on the left-hand side.  I have a jot pad, an iTunes gift card, and snips of articles about gardening and getting rid of garden pests (I have yet to do any type of gardening whatsoever, but I am hopeful that one day I will). On the right-hand side, I placed a Life Is Good sticker on the transparent page that comes in new binders.  I’ve had this sticker for a while and I wanted to be able to use it in some planner fashion, so I’m excited that it now has a home.  The only problem is that it’s a little wider than the page, so I had to fold it over at the edge.  Thankfully though, it’s not too much of a ...

(A little history first, then a gripe.) For anyone who doesn’t know, today is Super Bowl Sunday here in the US.  That is, today is the day that the best two teams (or maybe just the two who got lucky, depending on your viewpoint and/or your favorite team) from the (American) football season battle to win the trophy and the title for the year.  It’s a big deal, not only for football fans but for American culture as a whole.  Companies fight to land an advertising spot during the game, and they pay big bucks to do it.  The Super Bowl commercials are well known for their uniqueness, their humor, their drama, and their attempt to shock and surprise.  The point is to win the status of the one commercial that will be remembered for the year to come, not to mention reach the high numbers of viewers watching the football game to begin with.  Then, there’s the halftime show .  Each year, a celebrity musician is chosen to perform during halftim...

Back when I discussed my 2012 setup, I mentioned that it is working well for me with the exception of the Filofax day per page inserts cramming Saturday and Sunday together on one page.  I also mentioned that I had something up my sleeve to combat this annoyance. So what is this idea, you ask? Ever since reading about J’s setup , I have been coveting the Franklin Covey day per page inserts .  The only problem with the FC inserts is that they are wider than the Filofax personal size binders and inserts, thus creating a slight overhang of the FC pages in any Filofax personal binder.  But I had a plan for that too—I decided I would trim and repunch the FC inserts. “But wait,” I hear you say.  “Didn’t you do this already?”  To that I say, “ Yes, I did. ”  And now you say, “But didn’t you end up not liking them?”  And to that I say, “ That is also correct. ”  My main gripe with the first round of trimming and repunching FC inserts...

There’s that age-old question: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you want with you?   One of the things I would want is an endless supply of lotion.   I use it several times a day, so not only is it something I love, but also something I need. I have been a lotion user since I was about 8.  It must show since I have heard the same comment more than once: my hands look like they have never seen a day of work.  This isn’t true though—my hands have seen plenty of work.  I just take care of them (maybe too much) so it doesn’t really show.  I am one of those people who lather on lotion after every shower, after every hand wash.  I have a bottle by every sink in my house, at my desk at work, in my bag at all times, and more than five bottles on my dresser at any given time.  I couldn’t live without it. Not only am I a heavy lotion user, but I love the variety of lotion products out there.  First and fo...