Organise Me: The use of a calendar

When I was younger if you'd asked me what a calendar was for I'd have replied with something along these lines:

For looking at pictures of my favourite boyband/mancrush, duuuuh. *rolls eyes* *huff*

Although I was quite an organised teen (I'm sure my family are reading this and thinking to themselves that they remember me being super messy...ignore them.) but the idea of writing anything on one of precious calendars was utter ridiculousness to me. I kept all I needed to know in my head and scheduled myself each day down to the minute, which subsequently I never stuck to. I had a friend who had a calendar and she used it properly. She had everything on there from assignment due dates to the days she began and finished her period. I remember going to her house before school every morning and being in awe of this life organisation tool she had on her wall.

Life map

Calendars are certainly a life map to help plan where you are going to be in the future. It's hard to keep all that information in your head and when you're thinking about the interview you've scheduled for a months time and you're meant to be working on something else...well, you're probably not going to be bringing your best. I know I haven't and it's the most annoying thing to know you could be focusing better and working harder.  This is something I am working on.

One lump? Or two?

 Is one calendar enough. For me it's not. I made myself a wall calendar and found that I needed space for notes to fill in the blanks behind a Write blog post. In a months time will I remember what that blog post was meant to be about? Probably not, or if I do it negates the point of having a calendar to clear out the head space. My solution to this was to get a separate day planner diary with a page a day and enough space to elaborate and leave myself little notes. It's amazing how quickly you get used to syncing the two, looking to one and then the other to supplement information. It makes me feel super organised already and I've not done that much yet!

A word about colour coding...

Do it! I've begun to colour code everything. The calendar gets the full on colour treatment:

Red = Bills
Green = Life stuff
Orange = Work
Blue = Blog 

I can tell at a glance what I'm supposed to be working on. *high five*

Want to download and print the calendar I made for August? Click HERE.

How are you organising your life? Let me know in the comments or drop me an email.