There is so many things swirling around in my head to tell you.  Each one different yet mostly connected which is why I’ve not blogged because I don’t know where to start!  I guess the big one is that Ben has quit his job to start a new business and to help me with my business!  We took two days and schemed and planned our next steps.  This is where all the various alleys branch from that I could blog about.  It’s exciting.  And a bit scary…. ok, a lot scary.  But over all exciting!

I feel like we are packing to climb a mountain.  The gear that goes in the pack will likely change as the climbing starts.  But I want to tell you about the first bit of gear that I’m packing – planning and organization. I’m hopeful this will help us reach our goals.

A while back I blogged about a book I was reading called Organized Simplicity.  The author has a great blog – www.SimpleMom.net.  On it she has free PDFs you can download to organize your day.  After using the system, I figured out what worked for me.  I borrowed a few ideas and added my own and came with what I think will work for me this year.

I discovered that I needed something I can take with me – smaller than the binder I was using.  Something I could slip into my purse.  I needed something that I can write on because using my phone or various task organizer apps just don’t work for me.  I like writing them out with a pen and checking or crossing them out.  I also didn’t want to keep printing paper so wanted something that I could re-use.

Here’s what I came up with –

First, since I have a tenancy to save things… I went through my junk and found a cool book cover that I’d saved.

I cut covers off and drilled holes in them so that I could add rings to hold it together.

I then made my pages using some of my favorite photos.

Then I laminated them!  (Side note: I’m now looking all over my house for things to laminate! So fun!)

Viola!

“S” for Sugar.  I love it!!  It’s going to need some modification like the rings are too big and I need to buy a fine point Vis-a-Vis but so far it’s working!

Here are the pages –

1st page

Middle pages –

Last page –