The busier you get the faster time seems to go. If you’re not organizing your time, you are losing it. A planner is the best, and might I say prettiest, way to organize your time. However, a planner can help with more than just your schedule. If you’re like me, you operate best when everything is in one place. To celebrate DIY Adulation’s first birthday, here are my tips for organizing your planner as well as a giveaway to give you all of the tools you need to do so.

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Your Planner

Choose a planner that works for you. My personal favorite is the Happy Planner which I have been using for a year now. There are a ton of reasons I love it but the biggest reasons are:

1. It is easily expandable.
2. It can be folded completely in half due to its unique disc system.

Your Responsibilities

It is important to consider what your household responsibilities are when organizing your planner. If you take care of the cleaning and cooking in your household then you need sections in your planner for keeping track of these. With the Happy Planner, you actually have 2 options for achieving this.

1. You can buy the Home Planner set which is what I have (and totally recommend).
2. With their awesome punch, you can create your own. Simply design you planning and organizational pages. Next, punch them and place in your planner.

Accessories

Let’s be fair: the accessories are the most fun part of your planner. They make it unique. They make it yours. Some of the accessories I use are:

• Dashboards – These are a unique idea from Create 365. They are plastic inserts that are perfect for sticky notes and to-do lists.
• Pocket Folders – Frankly, I feel like these are a must. You definitely want folders in your planner to help you organize.
• Washi Tape – While not a necessity, washi tape makes organizing easier and prettier. I use it to block large events such as when Hubs goes to drill or when we go on vacation.
• Sticky Notes – Create 365 actually creates ones that are perfectly compatible with your Happy Planner. These are handy for a multitude of things such as your to-do list.
• Colorful Pens – I’m a little OCD when it comes to my planner so I use colorful pens to color-coordinate tasks and appointments.

Your Sections

At the very least, you should have monthly and weekly calendars. Put your important events on the monthly calendar so you can see everything at a glance. It is important to note that you need to make sure you move these items to your weekly calendar as soon as they come up. You don’t want to plan out your week and forget about an obligation you have.

Case

A case for your planner makes the entire organizational process so much easier. That is the one regret that I have. I wish I would have bought my planner case sooner. It is so convenient to have all of my supplies in one place. I’ll show you how I organize my case in a later post but for now, trust me, this is definitely worth the investment.

A Peek Inside My Planner

My planner has to work overtime for me. I tried having separate planners for both my blog and my personal life but it just didn’t work for me. I need everything in one place. That’s another reason that I love my Happy Planner. Now, I am more effective because everything is organized and at my fingertips.

My Dashboards

• I use 2 of my 3 dashboards. One holds post ideas that I want to write. The other holds appointment sticky notes and the tops items on my to-do list.

Monthly Calendar

• Those post ideas I talk about on my dashboards? I put those on my monthly calendar. This is excellent for bloggers especially. It allows you to rearrange your editorial calendar as necessary. For example, if a sponsored post comes up.

Weekly Calendar

• On the weekly calendar, I lay out my daily schedule. It is important not to do this more than a week in advance because of how quickly things on your schedule can change. The Happy Planner allows me to block my activities and responsibilities into morning, afternoon, and evening categories. This is incredibly helpful when blocking things such as doctor’s appointments and kids’ activities onto the weekly calendar.

Cleaning Schedule

• I love the daily cleaning checklist that comes with the Home Planner set. There is plenty of room for me to add my own cleaning tasks and the basic ones already included are helpful and relevant. This can be a life-saver for staying on top of the household clutter.

Meal Planner

• The last important section I include in my planner is the meal planner. It has a calendar for scheduling your meals and it also have an itemized shopping list. We like to have use a dry erase board on the fridge for our grocery list so, instead, I use the shopping list to keep track of what we have available for meals. It is my pantry and freezer list.

The Home Planner set also includes a budget section. If you do yours on pen and paper, this is excellent. I keep track of ours electronically so this isn’t a section used in my planner. One last thing I want to point out is that your can get expander rings to enlarge your planner (you can see mine in the photos above). These are perfect when you need a lot of items in your planner, like me. Whew! That was a lot of information to cover and those are just the highlights. It is time for the birthday celebration, though, so here it is! Help celebrate the One Year Anniversary of DIY Adulation where you could get the gifts. Enter for your chance to win the basic necessities to start organizing your time and responsibilities below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

See where I’m linking up!