I started this blog because the reality of my life did no reflect the expectations that social media had set me. Life in London and in general moves so fast. If you are a mum, if you have a job, if you are a student, life isn’t so linear. Organisation isn’t a skill I naturally have, like every skill, I needed to keep perusing it, and finding out what works for me. I have been asked many times how I juggle everything on my to do lists, If you have known me in the past you would always expect me to be late. But now, I have a system and I swear by it .

 

 

 

Obama has a 5 minute increment diary, that is how precious his time is. So running my life in half hour Increments is good enough for me (maybe if I ever become a president, I’ll upgrade to 5 minutes). I discovered this incredible diary called Passion Planner. Having tried so many calendars on my phone, paid for several apps, nothing worked for me. I just seem to prefer a physical object that I can carry around with me and can see a whole week of appointments and times I front of me as blocks colours which I can easily remove, add and move around 

 

 

As a skeptic, I opted to print a few pages and test it out, to see if I like the layout. Started by printing a week, and stuck it in a book, and I was so sold, and have purchased Passion Planner since then! 

 

 

The colour coding system: I started with highlighters as I like to see my time used up as blocks. It makes you understand how you are spending your time and how long things take out of your days. I started to factor in travel time and rest time, and downtime (yes I schedule down time !) . 

 

I sometimes go by this system of colour coding your plans…

1-      Fitness –>  Yellow

2-      Teaching –> Green

3-      Office –> Pink

4-       Social –>  Blue

 

 And everything that was completed goes purple, or just scribbled off, depends on my mood at the time! I never gave up on my to do lists, and on every page, there is a personal to do list and a work to do list (breaking it up to a personal and work related helps break you break it into more manageable to do lists!). 

 

 

 

Passion planner was born as a Kickstarter project. It did so well that the 16 year old (at the time) genius behind the diary continued with it following its success as a fundraised project. They don’t only have yearly and academic diaries, they also have downloadable printouts to help you sort your life out, (Financial trackers, water trackers etc) which you can stick straight into it. Click here to snoop around their website.