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.

Organisation Smorganisation: Getting back on track

I am not an organised person. Someone recently used the term "choreographed chaos" in reference to me. And it's true. I have a tendency to put things down in strange places (or the first available space to me!), I rifle through my clothes drawers and mess it all up and resulting in extra work for me on my days off,  and I have a terribly short attention span. I am a whirling dervish of utter calamity.

Keeping myself organised

I have to go to great effort to keep myself in check. I write to do lists all the time. I use Wunderlist at work and have a running list of every thing, no matter how small, so I don't forget to do something. People laugh at me, but I have to do it. Structure is important for my brain. It's like a climbing Clematis (and yes I have one in the garden!). Without a wall or a trellis the stems flail around looking for something, anything, to attach itself to for support. I am that Clematis! Did I just liken myself to a plant? Holy... someone get me a cup of coffee.

Making plans

When I was a teenager, every evening I'd write a schedule for the next morning. 


7am: Get up


7:05am: Actually get up


7:15am: Shower


7:20am: Seriously, get out of bed you lazy bed monster!


Or something along those lines. Was it going a bit far to attempt to structure every little detail of my day from minute to minute? Yeah, it was so I stopped. I came to the conclusion that it took the creativity and spontaneity out of life. So I stopped organising myself all together!

I'm going to get organised again. Not to the previous extent, but certainly gaining balance is a good idea. The essence of scheduling life, I suppose, is to plan and also be flexible within certain limits. What might I do on this day? Does it matter if I don't do it? Can I move it to another day if I need to? To do this I need a diary.

Paper vs online calendars

I love my tech. My smartphone is rarely away from my side and I enjoy being able to access everything quickly. Lately I've been using Wunderlist (which I mentioned before) and Google calendar to organise myself at work. It's worked really well so far. I can set up reminders that ping at me, my laptop and phone sync automatically, and I can access it from anywhere I need to.

There's only one problem. I like paper. Paper is right there in front of you, reminding you that it needs to be completed. It can't be dismissed, or snoozed, or silenced. It can be screwed up and shoved in a bin, but you know, that would be a waste and I don't like waste. You can wander past it day to day, have a quick glance and remind yourself. There is a great satisfaction when you cross something off the calendar or to do list because you've completed it.

So here's a challenge...

Get organised. Simple and yet my head just had a little panic. Organised! What?! Nooooooo...

I'm going to start here and it's going to be on paper.

  You can download the blog planner by clicking right....HERE or by clicking the picture.

Do you have a story about how badly organised you've been or you're super organised and want to share your tips? Leave a comment or email me. I'd love to hear from you.

:)

Laters.

K-Monster
xo

Vegetable disaster!

I had a rude awakening yesterday morning. I was planning on a lie in, but the potato patch had other ideas.

Blight: Noun. The rapid and extensive discoloration, wilting, and death of plant tissues.

Yes, that nasty little Blight that rots the plant from the leaves down has got our potatoes by the balls ... potatoes... The Mister and I had to utilise EMERGENCY PLAN C which is code talk for digging up the taties as fast as possible to try and salvage our crop.

These leaves will have to be burned to stop contamination! Luckily we caught it before it reached the potatoes so we have a nice half a sack of young spuds and that ain't half bad. :D It must have been a sight for the farmers driving up the track past our house in their massive tractors. There I was digging furiously in my pjs.

Despite the near disaster it was a happy day, particularly as the radishes are doing super well. *high five* and we had a yummy lunch of home grown salad stuff. Please excuse the sleepy, no make up face and mussy hur... at least I'd managed to change out of my pjs by this point!

Laters, Bloggeroos.

Love from The K-monster. xoxo

Our story

This is my Mister and I. 

We met 4 and a half years ago while I was at university He'd just moved to the area for work and happened to go out with some work colleagues one night for a few drinks. On the other side of town, my housemate Anna and I made our way out together to see two separate groups of friends. My group of mates were running late so I stayed with Anna and her friends for a bit. Some time passed, I went to the bar to grab some drinks and as I wandered back to our table this tall man locked eyes with me and said in a really surprised way, "Hello!" Being quite shy...yes, i'm shy...I quietly said hi back and scurried off. One of his work colleagues came over and spouted off some pick up lines... I was not impressed, but I could see the tall guy in the background, pulling faces which made me laugh.  We all went on with our nights.

Later, I walked towards the cash point next to the exit and he approached. 

"I know this might sound a bit silly, but would you like to go out for dinner sometime?"

It must be obvious that I said yes! He later told me he thought I was leaving and thought he'd never see me again. 

Things were good. We were together for a while and life was all kinds of rosy pinks! 

But I won't paint you a faux painting here...He got made redundant from his job. Soon after I left university and couldn't find any kind of job at all. Bills piled up, life hit us at full whack. I'd not long lost my mother to a terribly vicious form of cancer. Life. My grandfather was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. We each had to move back in with parents, me to Cornwall and the Mister to Dorset. We were together and yet miles apart for nearly a year. Life. He got a new job. We moved to Cardiff. We made some amazing friends. He lost his job. He got sick. He was in hospital for 2 months and had a life changing surgery. I stayed with him in hospital 6 hours every day because he couldn't cope. We had to move out of our home while he was sick. For the last month I had no where to stay and our new friends showed so much kindness in letting me stay with them. He asked me to marry him from his hospital bed. He came home. We started again. Life.

Life has been all kinds of wonderful to us and all kinds of not. We're still dealing with the results of the recession. Everything I earn goes to paying off the small debts we owe, which make saving for a wedding really, really hard. We could wait to get married, but we don't want to because it shouldn't be about how much we can spend. Instead I am relishing the challenge of pulling off a super awesome wedding on a zero budget and staying true to our ethics. I am getting as many people involved as possible, calling in favours and getting myself ready for going DIY cray cray! We are aiming for next Spring!

I am super excited to get started and book-end this crazy chapter with a beautiful ending. You with me on this, Blog-o-sphere?

Yeah...thought so. :)

xoxo

Learning.

 

Dust and new finger places,

 Alien to the way they stretch.

In time it comes, but

The wait and work can

Tire these hands,

This brain.

To own the skill

Of musicality is to

Tame the hardest part

Of the soul.