The Beautiful Why of Planning

November 7, 2017 2 Comments

Plan Your Life So You Live Beautifully – The Why of Planning

Someone very near to me (who will remain unidentified) questioned why I plan. They didn’t see a point to practicing my handwriting and my lettering. They suggested that I get my priorities in order. Um… Isn’t that what I am doing when I am planning? This conversation devastated me, and probably took a month or longer to shake off. It was with someone who I expected to back me up and to understand me – no matter if they understood what I was doing. Their suggestion stated that they did neither.

I don’t know what they were meaning when they told me that I should get my priorities in order. I took it to mean that they thought I was wasting my time. But the thing is…I have so many big plans and so many ideas! Tired of sitting, doing nothing but I had no purpose. It wasn’t until I started planning that I felt like I had a purpose to my life. Before I started planning, I was wandering blindly through life, not enjoying anything. To be completely honest, I was miserable and I made everyone else around me miserable too.

I realize a lot of people out there who might not understand what I do or why I do it.

I came up with a list of reasons why I plan:

I plan so we, as a family, know what we need to do.
So we don’t miss an appointment.
Personally, I plan so I can have more time to carry out what I want to do.
I plan so I can get my errands done in record time so we can do other fun things like go to the park, go on walks, so we can play outside, or watch a movie as a family.
I plan so we have more quality time together.
I plan so I can live better.
I plan so I don’t spend as much money on eating out.
I plan to save money.
I plan because I like feeling accomplished.
I like to set goals.
I like to see how far I’ve come.
I plan because it helps balances me emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

I plan so I can live more beautifully.

This has become my planning/life mantra when I came up with it a couple of months ago. You may have noticed in earlier blog posts. Now you know why.

There are lots of different ways to plan.

There are many planning systems to use: hardbound, traveler’s notebooks, spiral bound, pre-dated, disc bound etc. Styles of planning are endless – minimal, art journaling, weekly, monthly, daily and a mix of these. Add accessories such as stickers, washi tape, doodling hand-lettering, or stamps. None of these options is wrong if it works for you. I like the bullet journal because I can change it to suit my needs. One week I may need a very clean, minimal layout, the next, I may need to immerse myself in a full-color water-painted page with pretty lettering and motivational quotes. Creating is part of my ‘why’ for planning and I like a variety.

Re-discovered Talent and Passion

I used to paint and draw every day. Then life happened to me and I forgot. I literally forgot that I liked to draw and paint for 12 years. When I started keeping a bullet journal as a planner, the pages were open for my interpretation. I started doodling again. Then I started drawing again. Shortly after, I found a paintbrush and I tried something new for me – water coloring. I had never attempted to watercolor before. What was this magic I had missed? Not long after this, I started seeing this concept of hand-lettering words and phrases that looked like calligraphy.

I practiced calligraphy a long time ago, but this looked different to me. I started trying to make the thin and thick lines that were so clear in this newfound version of calligraphy. And quickly fell in love with it.

Personal Changes Accompanying the Filled Pages

As I filled up the pages of a dotted notebook, I realized that I was changing too. I had passion in my life and I loved more deeply, not just journal-related things, but the people in my life as well. I found that I wanted to improve – as a person. Setting goals became a regular thing in my life; I haven’t liked to set goals before I started planning and keeping a journal. I do now and I enjoy it. Seeing the improvement is addictive.

What’s more, is I have started to accept myself as a person. I have started to see my worth.

This change is the most significant change I have seen in my life. Ever. Because there were times that I questioned if I belonged anywhere.

So to the anonymous person that questioned me and told me to get my priorities in order. I am. I am more than you know. This little book has brought me from the lowest of lows in my life to a place where I enjoy living again.

So friends, ask yourself why do you plan? And be honest with your answers. Certainly, you’ll discover some real gems in your life.

I plan so I can live more beautifully.

I hope you live your life so you can live more beautifully as well.

~ Tricia

Read: Give your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline or View my November 2017 set up

Give Yourself a Little White Space – in design and life

November 3, 2017 3 Comments

Good morning! Well, its morning here and the start of a new day. Thank goodness for fresh starts! It is amazing what can happen when your baby doesn’t wake you up in the middle of the night. But I did have a terrible dream at the end of the night – it involved two of my old bosses. In the dream, they were Nazis and had to go through all my stuff and claim anything of worth for forgiveness of their own sins. I really didn’t want them to find my laptop but I was most upset that they were making my husband do the dirty work. The psyche is an interesting space, especially in dreams.

Looking at next week’s plans, I don’t have much on the agenda. For that, I am grateful. That dream was cause for some reflection. I think I need some downtime to organize and think about goals and priorities for the next year – just like I suggested in my last post. I like to call downtime ‘white space’. White space in design (also called negative space) is ‘the space between the design or the unprinted area’ (thank you dictionary.com). It allows your mind to rest and process the design. If you filled an entire page with ‘stuff’ in an advertisement, nothing would stand out and the message would be lost. Then it would become wasted space. The ad would fail and you would probably lose your job…eventually.

White Space in Design and Life is Necessary

White space is necessary for design. I would say it is needed for life. I refuse to call it ‘negative space‘ in context to my life – because it is anything but negative. Speaking in a design sense, the ‘negative space’ is probably the most positive space in my life. I would love to start a revolution to the term when referring to life from ‘negative space’ to ‘positive space’ because of the significant positive impact. But changing terms would be confusing and all the designers would be angry. I like what they do so I won’t start the revolution.

Leave whitespace in your life and in your planner to easily adapt to life's unpredictability and don't forget the whiteout

Correlations, Parables & Fables

I love these plays on words. I also love life correlations. In the New Testament, they are known as parables. Where there are but there are levels of understanding in a story. The more you study, the deeper the meaning. Aesop’s fables are another source for life correlations. Open for life interpretation. If you haven’t read the fables in a long time, the Kindle edition is usually very reasonably priced. I’m not saying that I have incredible insights and you should read more into what I am saying but it sure is fun to look for alternative meanings and deeper insights in the everyday.

Add Margins to Your Life and Designs

I designed this week’s layout with a significant amount of margin keeping with the simple, minimal design. Filled with white space. In my previous week’s post, I talked about my horrible day. Here is a preview of that day on my mood tracker. I woke up the next day determined to see a better day because I don’t intend to have an entire mood tracker filled with red and burgundy. What I fully intend is to have a lot of purple, yellows, and greens. I have to allow myself to recover from these bad days and the only way I know how is to leave myself some breathing room.

Mood Tracking - First Day Flop - Tracking moods by activity

How to Bounce Back

To bounce back from a truly terrible day, I knew that I needed to take full advantage of the margins I built into my days. Scale things back a little, enjoy some sunshine, make sure I play outside with my kids, go on an impromptu mini-date with my husband. Slow down and enjoy the things in my life.

Adding margin to your life allows for the unexpected. If you have room to adjust for surprises in the day-to-day you’ll be more likely to bounce back.

While I was setting up this week’s spread, I completely miscounted the top boxes. If you look closely on Friday, you can see my whiteout (though I use correction tape, not whiteout) I don’t mind using correction tape. It fixes the problem and I move on.

In life and planners whiteout mistakes and move on!

Here are some questions for you:

I’d love to know what your response is. Or you can just use them as journal prompts.

How do you plan white space into your day?
Do you include intentional downtime in your daily activities?
What impact does this have in your life?

I hope you have enjoyed a little insight into my life, my planners, and my dreams. We are all journeying to something bigger & better – at least that’s what we hope. Journaling and planning have certainly propelled me on that course.

I wrote an early post on who I give credit to here. I’d love to know who you credit in your current journey’s progression.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

Add margin and whitespace to your planner and your life

And like that…It’s November – 1st Week of November – Minimal for Function

November 1, 2017 9 Comments

And like that…It’s November.

What in the world? It’s November! I just got used to writing 2017 as the year. We are in the thick of holiday season (or very near to the thick – is that a thing?) and I am definitely relying on my minimalistic weekly designs to guide me through this busy time of year. I decided this month to start at the beginning of the month instead of half the week’s spread from October and the other half as November. So I ended up with a couple of half-week layouts.

I had big plans for the start of this month

My big plans were to start this month off beautifully. I even went grocery shopping this morning to get ahead on…well.. life without having to drag my three kids along. All those good intentions were met at every turn with something just trying to bring me to my knees.

You ever have one of those days you know, the day that just won’t quit? That was today for me. I have worked very hard to simplify this next month and show more gratitude. I firmly believe that if I wouldn’t have tried so hard to include these two things in my life today could have quite possibly knocked me down for a good part of the month. It was that bad. I didn’t realize I would gain strength from simplifying my life and having an enhanced attitude of gratitude.

This week has just five boxes on this page plus a ‘to do’ section – it’s strange how a minimalistic design can bring such peace and tranquillity amidst chaos.

What do you do for tranquility?

So I would like to know what you do that helps bring tranquility to your life when your whole day goes awry.

Do you meditate?
Do you exercise?
Yoga?
Eat Chocolate?
Binge-watch your favorite show?

After I post this, I am going to go mindlessly doodle. Maybe it will be amazing. Maybe not. Today it doesn’t matter because I need it to mentally recharge. Regardless of the outcome of my doodles, I feel like because I planned – not just my day but planned my month to live beautifully I am able to overcome and bounce back ready for a new day with renewed resolve.

Dimensions of the Spread:

Here are the dimensions of the single page plan – this could be used for a work week with just 5 days and fit two weeks to a two-page spread.

Tomorrow is a new day hand lettered quote

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Tricia

Starting in the middle of the week with the beginning of a new month? Here is a minimalistic weekly design for your bullet journal, minimalism

Give your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline

October 31, 2017 7 Comments

End of Year Planning – Don’t Leave it to the Last Minute

Start Early on Next Year’s Planning with a Super Simple Planning Spread – Give Your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline. November seems like a great time to set some goals for next year. Specifically the first two weeks of November. Why then? Well because Halloween has come and gone and Thanksgiving or other holidays have not come yet. Visiting family will not arrive yet, and if you are vacationing or leaving, you have some time before the packing begins. There is a certain quiet about this time – the air is still buzzing with excitement that comes from the end of the year activities, but parties and plans have not started up – yet.

Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline - setting up for this month, next month & next year

The other reason it makes for perfect planning for next year is that next year is close, but not too close. You have some time to think. You have some time to reflect. The time is perfect to think about what you want from the next year. I am not talking about achieving anything – though you can certainly include achievements – I am mostly talking about what you want to become as a person. Become what is important to you. Decide to spend your time doing the things that will give you happiness, joy, and peace in your life.

Use the quiet spaces in the month to plan ahead and define your goal timelines | Start your goals with a timeline, not an obscure 'someday'

Define Your Timelines

This is my variation of the short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal planning. I was never good at using those planning terms – I needed a definition for the meaning of short-term, mid-term, and long-term. So I defined the timelines for me. It makes me work harder because I now have an accountability to time.

Short-term for me is Monthly.

Mid-term is something I want to accomplish in the next 2 months (sometimes I extend it to 3 months). In this case, I will be planning to complete by the end of the year.

“Next Year” I define as ‘by the end of next year’ – these are long-term goals**. I will define these more in-depth for the start of the year. This section is actually the reason I created this spread. I wanted to start thinking about my plans and goals for next year so they didn’t get swept away by the flurry of the holidays.

**I have an even longer-term goal type (more than a year) but I did not include that on this spread.

Break Your Goals into Achievable Times

Break your goals down into achievable times – when you expect to get these things done. Start where you are and give yourself a timeline – not an obscure ‘someday’. Stretch yourself a little, be patient with yourself and make goals realistic.

This month with my focus on simplicity, I made a planning & goals page extremely simple so I was not distracted by all the ‘shiny’ things. I tend to flit from one place to another and never get anything done. So I laid out this page with simple functionality in mind. (The bottom picture shows without lines for an even more simplified look).

Start Early on Next Year's Planning with a Super Simple Planning Spread - Give Your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline

Whatever Your Plans, No Matter Your Goals

Whatever your plans or goals for the coming months or year might be, take a moment to begin your planning for next year, whether it be to spend more time on self-care, cook more, lose weight, de-junk your house, using a planning & goals page is a good place for jotting down your ideas for yourself.

Do this now before life becomes more hectic so when you are sitting down after Christmas laying out your January planner you smile knowingly at yourself and can think “I’ve already set my goals for next year”. Go ahead, call yourself an overachiever. Because you are ahead of the game.

View the entire Monthly Planner Set up

I’d love to hear what you do to plan out your next year’s plans & goals.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Use the quiet spaces in the month to plan ahead and define your goal timelines.

Tricia

November Plans – Focus on Simplicity and Gratitude

October 29, 2017 7 Comments

November Journaling Focus

Simplicity and Gratitude

After the fun holiday of Halloween comes a period of anticipation. It feels like there is almost an electric quality in the air – a magic that only comes with the holidays. With that comes the flurry of activity, the parties, the traveling, the family gatherings, the traditions, the end of year hustle that is born around the end of October and dies after New Year’s day. During the first two weeks of November, there is almost a calm before the storm. For me, the holidays become overwhelming. So this is why I chose to focus my journaling and blogging efforts on Simplicity and Gratitude.

Instagram/Twitter Challenge – November 2017

I decided to host an Instagram/Twitter challenge focused on those two things. If you’d like to take part, find the prompts here and tag me @ChocolateMusingsCreates using #DailyWordMusings on either Twitter or Instagram. I’d love to see how you create Simplicity and Gratitude into your holiday plans.

As I am writing this, I can’t help but wonder if there’s the same feeling for those outside of the United States as compared to in the US. September/October bring a change of season heading into the colder time of the year, the end of October is Halloween followed a few weeks later by Thanksgiving (US) and you can feel the excitement mounting in the air. Christmas time brings another change of season and is of course highly anticipated and headed up with New Year’s celebrations and the start of clean, fresh, new year. Where I will struggle writing the new date until June.

Allow Your Mind Tell You What You Need

For me, I know the last three months of the year blur by in a flurry of activity. Earlier this week I gave a sneak peek of my welcome page. Every time I thought of doodling a turkey or Thanksgiving feast, I would postpone planning for a while longer. I didn’t like the idea. So as I listened to my mind’s reaction, I closed my eyes, relaxed, and let my mind wander. I imagined walking through a forest of aspens crunching through the frozen snow. The scene was quiet and the word “serene” came to my mind. I could tell that is what I needed for the month of November.

With this in mind, I planned the month of November and all the weekly pages in one planning session. Each of the weeks are very minimally designed – using the same square shape to create unity, but varying the layout for each week.

Plan With Me Video – November 2017

Here’s a video of November’s set-up. I plan on highlighting each week just before it starts. Check back each week for each new download of the layout with the measurements. The minimal design is something completely new to me (with the exception of this layout) and thrilled to try it out. I have come to realize that when life gets complicated or hectic, it is time to simplify. Check out the video below and be sure to hit like and subscribe for more content.

I will put together another post with the collections for this month – the Planning & Goals, Meal Ideas, Habit Tracker & Mood Tracker where I’ll track moods based on activity. I can’t wait to doodle on my weekly pages. Because I left lots of room for doodling.

Save to Pinterest for later – and while you are at it, follow me on Pinterest for more inspiration!

Follow @ChocolateMusingsCreates

I’d love to hear what you want to see in future videos so leave me a comment below.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Tricia

Want to know what I used in this video? I’ll tell you. (Contains affiliate links – if you click through and end up purchasing a product, I receive a small commission – though the cost is the same to you.)