Well Planned Life

It’s coming down to the Christmas wire and there’s still so much to do.   So, I have decided to take a holiday hiatus.   I will return briefly on New Year’s Day and will resume regular posts soon after that.   I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year! In the meantime, feel free to enter my celebratory “Boo to the Mayan Calendar ” give-away!  During my recent trip to The Container Store , I picked up another pack of Calendar Stickers .  I gave these away earlier in the year , and there was quite a bit of interest, so I’m doing it again (click on the link to the earlier give-away to see details of the sticker pack). Here are the details: Give-away is open worldwide. To enter, leave me a comment below. All comments must be received by 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2012, New York time. One winner will be chosen at random using Random.org and audited by my accountant husband. The winner will be a...

As many of my long-time readers know, I have been working on my very own Happiness Project , adapted from Gretchen Rubin’s best-selling book (you can read my review of the book here ).   A few months ago, Rubin published her second happiness project book, Happier at Home where she concentrated on a number of projects within her own household. While this second book didn’t hold the same meaning for me that the first did (probably because I’m not in a place in my life where I need it as much), I did get several great ideas for small projects of my own.  First and foremost, I want to update my Happiness Binder (which I have done and will reveal here soon).  Overall, I enjoyed the book and reading about Ms. Rubin’s projects—there’s always something to be learned from other people’s revelations and outlooks on life. So here are a few things that are discussed in the book and my take on them: The book starts off with this quote:  "The true secret of ...

I just came across a new book, The Address Book by Sophie Calle .   I am not familiar with this author, nor have I read the book in its entirety; I only skimmed it.   I bring it up because of the premise.   Apparently, the author came across someone’s address book in Paris.   According to the author’s foreword, before anonymously returning the book to its rightful owner, she photocopied the contents and decided to call the people listed to see if they would give some insight as to the type of person the owner is.   Some people refused, but some people complied.   So the book is actually a collection of stories and tidbits from the people who accepted Calle’s invitation to discuss the owner.   She also decided that she would only reveal the owner’s name if he/she agreed to meet with her.   The owner is referred to as “Pierre D.” If you click on the link above, you can see that the book’s cover is similar to a Moleskine in that it has the ba...

After two different attempts (both of which failed for the same reason), I have finally found a way in which to decorate the tabbed dividers for my compact.   What I came up with is very similar to how I decorated my monthly tabs . First, I found a small calendar with photos that I like. These calendars are easy to use for this purpose—the paper is thin enough that it doesn’t add a lot of bulk to the tabs, and the photographs are small enough that I can crop them to the size I need without losing too much of the original shot. Using the same method of sizing, cutting, and gluing that I did for the monthly tabs, I created these: Contacts Writing Notes Projects Lists Calendar The back of each tab is blank.   I did that because I tend to put sticky notes on the back of my dividers, and to do so on top of photographs makes the sticky adhesive linger on the photograph itself, as well as make it pointless to even have phot...

Work is busy.   Home is busy.   Everything is too damned busy.   And it’s only going to get worse with Christmas season now upon us.   But I’m trying to take it all in stride.   With that said, there won’t be an official post this week, as in nothing special.   But I didn’t want to not post something.   We spent all day decorating for Christmas, and there’s still more to do.   So rather than stress myself out with yet another thing to do, I’m going to keep this short and sweet (for this week—I have plenty to write about, just not enough time). If you want to check out how we decorate for Christmas, you can (re)read this post .  You can also (re)read other Christmas-related posts throughout the years: The day Well Planned Life was born It’s Christmas Time In the City Christmas Tree & Coffee Christmas Survey What’s In My (Christmas) Bag Happy Holidays! (only because it features my favorite pictur...

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I was contemplating dabbling in the digital planning arena.   I have to say that while I’m still dabbling, I’m also sprinting back to my paper planner.   The thought of going digital was short-lived.   There are several reasons for this, the main being that I can’t seem to find an app that is available for both iPhone and iPad, incorporates appointments with to-dos that I can place on a specific day as well as a running list, and keep other projects and notes.   It seems that I would need different apps for these different things, and the whole point of having a planner to begin with is to keep everything together. I looked into different apps to keep me organized, and while there are some that are very good, they just don’t do it for me, not the way my planner does.  See, my planner can be what I need it to be, rather than me having to tweak my system so that it fits into the confines of what it can do....

Just the other day, I spotted a planner-like binder I had never noticed before.   One of our patrons—a regular for a few years now—was carrying what looked like a planner.   I had never noticed it before, so I don’t know if carrying it is something new for him or if he’s always had it and kept it in a bag.   But there it was, in his hand the other day, and the day after that too.   Of course I eyed it and tried to see if it was an official planner, but I can’t seem to bring it up in conversation for fear that the patron and/or my coworkers would think I’m nuts.   (Well, my coworkers already think I’m an organizational nut, but we keep that hidden from the patrons as best we can.)   I’m not sure that it is an official planner, and I don’t think it’s a Filofax .   But I can say that it has a very similar look to the Slimline Guildford —it is a thin binder (thinner than the personal but larger than the slimline, more like the compact Guildford might be ...