- The best way to stay organized is with a simple planner.
And I have some little tricks
that will keep your days, weeks, months,
and even years running smoothly.
Now, if you are tired of missing appointments,
feeling overwhelmed with your house,
and generally feeling kind of like a failure
because you can't keep on top of it all,
then this video is for you.
Now, I used to be just like that until I realized
that I needed to make a few tweaks in my life
to keep things not only running well, but thriving.
(upbeat music)
Hey, I'm Robyn.
I help overwhelmed people declutter all of the excess
so that they can start living their lives.
Okay, now, here is my trick.
I use my phone and my planner,
but it takes very little time,
and nothing gets missed, ever.
Grab your tea and let's go.
Now, I want to thank Dawn from "The Minimal Mom"
for this playlist,
and this topic is seriously one of my obsessions.
So after this, please check out the other amazing channels
in this playlist because it's going to be real good.
Now, how I use my planners is year, month, week, and day.
Now, there are many different planners you can get.
I'm going to get to that in just a minute.
Now, for the year, I like to plan out holidays,
vacations, birthdays, and important days.
So I put all of those in my planner.
- [Robyn] Start with the year.
Go through when you get a new planner,
and just fill in any important things, like birthdays.
I go through, this one I had customized,
I'll get to that in a minute, but birthdays, holidays,
well, Remembrance Day is a day of remembrance,
Zac's birthday, those sorts of things.
After I do the yearly stuff, I get into,
what are things that I'm going to repeat year after year?
So I put, because it's November,
and I like to get ahead on Christmas,
"Buy the advent calendars, get the wrapping station set up,
decorate, seriously."
- And then, I plan my month.
So my husband and I are shift workers.
So we put down our work schedules, any appointments,
and goals, because goals are really important.
Financial goals, work goals, whatever.
If you make those goals,
the chances of hitting them are much, much better.
- [Robyn] After I've got the yearly stuff done,
then I go into what's monthly.
So there's a massage scheduled.
There's a Pro-D Day, those sorts of things.
And weekly, this is actually where it starts
to get really fun.
This is where I plan my meals.
I review any appointments coming up.
I make my cleaning schedule
because, you know, I like the "Clean Mama" system.
So, I decide what I'm going to do for that week.
- [Robyn] After I've got the monthly stuff done,
then I get into the weekly stuff.
So weekly stuff is,
"What are the home tasks I want to do for that week?"
Now, I use the "Clean Mama" book and I choose,
based on how busy my week is going to be,
what things I want to do.
So I've got "Wipe appliances, vacuum furniture,"
nice, easy stuff that week.
I could also put in "Clean light fixtures."
And that would be like kitchen
'cause that's sort of the area I'm in.
And then, what are my business priorities for the week?
"Write, update website," of course, you could do whatever.
In this one, I just sort of had this customized
however I wanted it, but you can just do whatever you want.
If you have a bullet journal, do that.
I really like this section because these are things
that have to be done every single day.
So, did I get my dinner out in the morning,
like is there chicken that needs to be defrosted,
anything like that.
"Laundry," have I got done a load of laundry?
I need to wash one, and fold and put away one.
Have I done my chore, which would be one of these.
And also, did I do the bathroom,
that sort of thing for the "Clean Mama" system.
And exercise,
I don't really need to remind myself to do that, but.
And then breakfast and lunches for the next day.
Very, very important.
Now, after we have that part done, I like to make sure
that I've got my meals planned for the week, you know?
So Monday, chicken shawarma, Tuesday, chili.
- And then daily.
Now, in the morning, I review my dinner plans,
chores, any extra things, laundry,
what area I want to declutter.
And I will often add times.
I want to get these things done.
And so, I will just sometimes even put times down
next to them, so I can stay on track
when it's like, a really busy day.
- [Robyn] Then I get into the daily stuff.
So, I'm working Monday.
So I put that in there, under Priority,
because that's obviously what I'm going to be doing
most of the day.
Same on that day.
On this day,
because I'm not doing my normal nursing job,
I will be writing.
That is one of my business priorities.
I'm doing that first because it is a priority.
And then this day, if I get the writing done,
I will update the website.
And so I kind of play it by ear.
I don't go crazy filling everything in
because things change.
And really drives me crazy having tons of stuff,
like, crossed out, and that.
And so that is how I organize the day-to-day stuff.
And I will get more into this planner in a minute.
- Before I get to the amazing integration
of planner and phone,
I'm going to show you the three options for planners
that I use; and that range, well,
I don't use the middle one.
But they range from some moolah to almost no moolah at all.
- [Robyn] I really started getting into the planners
in the last couple of years.
- And last year, I got into the Plum Planner.
Now you may have heard it, but don't worry,
I got ones that don't cost this much moolah.
So, just hang on.
Now, I'm going to link this below, but this is one I love!
I've customized it.
Like you can see, I've got my name on the front
and it says "Creativity Takes Courage."
So, I put that little reminder for myself
because sometimes I need to remind myself.
Now, I have customized it.
I have set it up to just how I like it.
This is actually my old one.
And I will show you my new one.
- [Robyn] So this is the planner that I use.
Just give you a quick tour of it
before I get into the other options.
But this one, I always, I like I can have my name on it.
I put my little quote,
"The secret to getting ahead is getting started',
the year, et cetera.
I always put a little tag for whatever week it is,
so it's easy to find.
So I customized it based on daily chores, home tasks,
my business priorities, that sort of thing.
I also put in a,
there's a neat little section here on meals,
because obviously meals are a huge deal.
And this section, I don't really, I mean,
I could, like, do favorites and all that.
I haven't gotten too into that, but this,
I put down-- it's shopping lists,
but really I just made a list of all of the dinners
that I like to create.
So these are, like, our favorites.
And I can add to it, I can subtract if I need to.
Lunch ideas and breakfast ideas.
Breakfast is just a struggle sometimes, right?
So, I've got yogurt, sausages, ham, all of the protein,
all of the carbs, granola, yogurt, those sorts of things.
And then lunch ideas because lunches, like,
aren't they just such a frustration?
So I can look through this ahead of time,
decide what we're going to have for that week.
So my goal is to sort of just like give ideas for myself.
And then for that week, we buy that sort of thing.
And then another thing that I really like
about this planner is, I chose the Goals section.
So, what goals, what's my big goal for that month,
and all of that.
So I really, I'm into that sort of thing.
I will show you my old one just so you can see.
This one I put "Creativity Takes Courage."
This is the old style, the inside,
instead of going vertical, like the last one is,
I did horizontal.
So I put, because we were homeschooling, I put my name,
what I was going to create for the day, a child's name,
child's name, child's name,
what we're doing for the home.
Crossed this kid out, 'cause he was so on his own.
He was in grade 10.
He didn't really need a lot of my help.
So, what was I going to do for the day?
I was going to plant something that day,
I needed to call the insurance company.
What was I going to work on?
I actually put down, like, to the hour, to the minute,
really, what I was going to do, because that was a busy day.
And I also put down, sort of like, my goals for the day.
I think I was sort of planning the next planner.
And then, over here I've got what I plan on cleaning
and what is for dinner.
So you could see why this didn't,
this layout didn't work out as well for me.
This one was nice because it had,
I had also put like an extra scrap piece of paper,
which my new planner doesn't have,
which I'm kind of missing.
There's also the option of, like,
the academics for the kids with their homeschooling
and then fitness.
You can do all that.
I decided not to go that route,
but that is an example of this one planner.
- So, the next option is a less expensive planner,
and it is amazing.
And I think you might really like it.
It's called the "Clever Fox Planner."
Now, this one is available on Amazon,
and it has a ton of different colors you can choose from.
There are also a couple of different options, as well.
And it actually has a lot of the awesome things
that my personalized planner has for way less of the price.
There are goals, priorities, to-do.
There's a work to-do section, life balance,
all sorts of things.
There are just so many awesome options for it.
So, I will link that below as well.
Now the least expensive option
is just a good old bullet journal.
So I've got these guys at Costco,
they came in a two-pack.
There are also many you can choose from.
You can get, like, super cheap, at like the dollar store.
But what you do with a bullet journal,
you number one to 28 or 31,
whatever number are in each month.
And then you have your months, you put those in.
And then you put down what you plan to do each day.
It's very simple.
It's very efficient.
I really like that planner as well.
That's kind of where I started.
And since then, I've moved up to the Plum Planner
because I just really like how I can choose the cover and,
you know, customize it even more to myself.
Because I'm all about efficiency.
Now, not everything in your planner
needs to get to your phone.
So let's get to that integration.
But some of the things,
you are going to want to put in your phone.
So, as far as like the yearly stuff goes,
I plan for my year, funny things.
Like even, like, the soap I'm going to order.
I don't like a lot of extra things in my house,
but I do want some things that are fun.
So for example, in the spring,
I like the peony soap from Mrs. Meyer's.
It's not always available, so I order it,
and then I got my soap.
I like a fall soap, the cider soap,
and I made a video on that.
You can check it out, I'll link it above.
But, I order that and I have it in my phone
to remind me to order it.
So I'm not, like, caught off guard
when there's no soap around.
I also put down when to fertilize my tree,
because four times a year, I need to fertilize my trees.
And if I don't, then I will realize
that I haven't done it and I've completely missed it.
And then I feel like a total failure because I'm falling
behind on things that I don't want to.
So I put these things on auto, pretty much every year,
so I get the reminders.
Monthly things, you can put down appointments,
things you need to remember.
I can get pretty forgetful.
As a mom and a woman, there is so much I need to remember.
So, I don't want to be forgetting these things.
So I put them in my phone to remind me.
Daily things.
Sometimes there's an important phone call I need to make.
And I might not check my planner
before I need to make that phone call.
Like, maybe I need to call the vet or something like that.
So I put a reminder in my phone to let me know to do that.
So using this system of planner and phone,
you can have a much more organized and simplified life.
But if you find that you still end up
not keeping things in place
and that stuff is getting cluttered,
I made a video about five things you can do
to keep clutter at bay.
So you can click here.
The other thing is,
I really think you need to check out the other videos
in this playlist because it will help you find
the perfect solution just for you.
And I will see you in the next video.
Bye!
(cheerful piano music)