My Best Organizational Tip: A Weekly Planning Ritual

So many of you left fantastic comments last week when I posed the question ”What is your greatest Mom organizational challenge”?

Sorta Southern Mom said:

“My biggest mom challenge is not getting side-tracked myself. I know what’s on my to-do list, but I tend to procrastinate and put off the stuff I don’t want to do… like the budget…not good!“

Christie said:

“My Biggest mom challenge, is balancing, finding the time to do everything I want and keep my 2 toddlers from going bonkers, and keeping my own sanity…”

I think many of us struggle with getting our arms around what we need to do, and then figuring out how to tackle it so that we actually accomplish a few things each day.

Yesterday we dove into the question “What do you DO all day?”, and once we stopped laughing at the question, we worked through some of the issues that stand in our way of accomplishing what we would like to do, and talked about how to spend our day more intentionally. Today I would like to share with you what I think is my BEST organization tool… which is my “weekly planning ritual”. Here’s how it works for me…

Step 1: Gather your information

Gather your various lists- your long running to do list, your calendar, and anything else you have written on a sticky note to remember, and spend a moment reading through them to determine what needs to be done immediately (today or this week) vs. the stuff you are just “hoping to get to someday”. It is this act of reviewing all of your lists and your calendar and really thinking about what needs to get done that makes you feel more organized and more in control. It really helps to remove the worry that “something is slipping through the cracks.”

Step 2: Create a new list for next week

Grab a piece of blank paper, create it in Excel or even in Evernote- whatever works for you… but list the next 7 days of the week on a page, allowing some blank lines next to each day of the week.

Step 3: Plug in appointments from your calendar

If you have scheduled appointment- these are pretty non-negotiable, aren’t they? Get these down onto your weekly list.

Step 4: Determine where you now have some “gaps” in your schedule to do things.

Using the daily schedule that we created yesterday, you need to start re-working it… moving around things to allow for your weekly appointments, and then examining to see where you have room to add things from your “to do” lists. Decide where you are willing to make trades… maybe on Tuesday you eliminate time to read blogs so that you can go to that hair appointment, and you decide you’ll use your project time to knock something off of your list.

5. Plug in a few items to be done each day -but only where you know that they will fit into your schedule!

Don’t schedule something for Wednesday if you already know that there is no available time to do anything. And don’t list 5 things to do in the one hour on Tuesday if you know that you’ll never be able to accomplish it- you are just setting yourself up for failure! Examining the time that you have and committing to work only within that time frame should be a positive step for you- one that you can feel good about.

What do you think of the suggestions made over the last two days- to gain some command over your available time and plan for it each week? I would love to hear your feedback!