planners- home and work

My job is office-based but I spend a lot of time out on the road running errands and shopping. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds but I do love the fact that I get to change the radio station to whatever I want, turn it up as loud as I like and sing along as badly as humanly possible (for reals! Dying seals make a prettier sound than me).

I don’t have a dedicated company car (we have several cars and you just book one out when you need it) so I can’t store things in the car, I have to carry them with me in my handbag. Luckily, because I’m a mum I have a huuuge handbag so I can carry my work planner and my personal planner plus shopping lists, print-outs, tape measure, cash etc.

I thought it might be useful to show my planners and how I juggle the two so I snapped some quick iPhone pictures in the Officeworks carpark earlier today.

The large A4 planner is my work planner. It’s just a day-to-a-page diary. Where something has to be done on a certain day, (for example, when I have a meeting) I just write it straight into my diary. Where something is variable (ie I know I need to have some prices on 2 door cabinets by the end of the week) I’ll write it on a post-it note and stick it in the side column.  That way if I don’t get to it that day, I just move the note to the next day rather than having to re-write it for each day.I mainly use my diary as a “to do” list but I also write down when I’ve made important phonecalls, sent important documents etc so that I can go back and look up that information if I need to, even if I’m out-and-about.

I use a similar system for my personal planner. It’s a Filofax Metropol personal size planner and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve had mine for about 3 years now and there’s not a mark on it despite the fact that I carry it everywhere and have even broken two (yes, I’m a klutz) pens inside my handbag. Well worth every cent! The official diary inserts are quite expensive so this year for the first time I am experimenting with some cheaper substitutes. They’re not quite as good as the Filofax ones but they’re about half the price so definitely worth putting up with the slight dip in quality. They also have smaller boxes for Saturday/Sunday so I rely on my post-it’s a bit more heavily. I’ve also made my own notepaper as that is also expensive to buy and I tend to jot shopping lists or extensive notes (ie party planning) .

Another benefit of the post-its system is that I can transfer post-its between my work and personal planners (ie to remind me to pay a bill on my lunchbreak or bring something from home in to work). To make my work planner a bit more user-friendly, I’ve added simple tabs to the calendar and address sections with scrapbooking paper so I can find those sections easily. 

Laura x