OMG I had to read the paragraph regarding what you get two or three times before my brain went… wait she is talking physical file folders. I love it
Tip I have for people that struggle making sure they pay all their monthly bills each month. (I used to) is I set up an Excel spreadsheet and on the left are all the people/companies I pay each month plus add the one off things like taxes. Across the columns I set up the months. 2 columns per month, one for the $ the other for the date. If I haven’t paid it yet I highlight the field yellow so it stands out. I have not missed a payment since starting this. Also makes it easier to have a feel for how much I am spending each month as almost everything is in there. No more late fees 😀
Because in Belgium nearly all must do's (tax returns, invoicing, payments, travel documents, concert tickets,..) are paperless, I just put a note in my outlook calendar on the day action is needed. With, if needed, a link to the email or website where the info for the action can be found. If I need to postpone something, I just move the note to the new day. Works great for me (and I have all I need always with me on my phone or laptop). And no, I'm not tech savy but I hate to print everything (I hate printers) so this is a perfect solution.
That's great! This was part of a series of articles I wrote intended for people with cognitive problems, due to health problems or issues like ADHD. I had trouble remembering things that were not on paper. So I used a lot of paper. This isn't as much of a problem for me as it once was, and most of my financial papers are now digital.
Cool, Colleen. I have organiser notebooks (Hobonichi for medical data like blood pressure, weird heart events etc; Traveller for poetry, notes etc; Circa for translation notes and historical trivia from reading; sketchbooks). I rarely have paperwork as I have admin help. But if I ever do need to, this is a great system. Thanks.
Hey Colleen! I finally got around to setting up a perpetual organizer system based on yours and today was the day I had a lot of items in the 24 folder that I'd been putting off for weeks. Somehow once I knew that today was THE DAY, the stuff got done.
I don't keep note of such things as much on separate physical sheets these days. But for several years, I've been using the At-A-Glance Weekly/Monthly appointment book, which I adapt to my own uses. I like that the monthly calendar is a two page spread, and on it I note the days where I have repeating payments (like various streaming subscriptions, or monthly bills, like car insurance). And then each new week on the monthly calendar, on Sunday, I'll copy out the current projects I have to work on that week (like work for clients, or personal works in progress). If I actually get some work done on something on a particular day, I'll put an X on that item, so I can look back at the end of the week and have an estimate on how much I did get done.
On the weekly pages, there are columns for each day of the week, but I don't use the printed time slots. Instead, I have a customized "form" that I write in each week -- because there are medical things I track, like morning and evening blood pressure, writing in when I've taken my daily medications, notes on what I've eaten and drunk during the day (not calorie counting, but definitely keeping tabs on how well I'm hydrating). The rest of the column, I make note of my day's activities, but the incidental errands run and the work I actually planned to do. I track the amount of time spent on work by the quarter hour, because sometimes clients are paying me by the hour. It's a form of discipline.
Other than my customized notes, I basically do what Colleen does with physical files. I make note on both the monthly and weekly pages of appointments upcoming events, when I need to schedule something (like having my labs done for my kidney doctor the week before I have an appointment with him).
For me, Xing through items on the monthly calendar is a discipline reminder -- I have to be honest with myself. If there are a string of days with no Xs, and I don't have a good reason for it (like being sick or moving to a new residence) I can't pretend to myself that it's okay. (Avoidance and Denial are symptoms of my bouts of depression, mild though they might be.)
I think there can be lots of ways of organizing our daily patterns. But finding the one that works for you can take a little bit of experimentation. And you need to know why you ... well, need it to work a certain way.
OMG I had to read the paragraph regarding what you get two or three times before my brain went… wait she is talking physical file folders. I love it
Tip I have for people that struggle making sure they pay all their monthly bills each month. (I used to) is I set up an Excel spreadsheet and on the left are all the people/companies I pay each month plus add the one off things like taxes. Across the columns I set up the months. 2 columns per month, one for the $ the other for the date. If I haven’t paid it yet I highlight the field yellow so it stands out. I have not missed a payment since starting this. Also makes it easier to have a feel for how much I am spending each month as almost everything is in there. No more late fees 😀
Because in Belgium nearly all must do's (tax returns, invoicing, payments, travel documents, concert tickets,..) are paperless, I just put a note in my outlook calendar on the day action is needed. With, if needed, a link to the email or website where the info for the action can be found. If I need to postpone something, I just move the note to the new day. Works great for me (and I have all I need always with me on my phone or laptop). And no, I'm not tech savy but I hate to print everything (I hate printers) so this is a perfect solution.
That's great! This was part of a series of articles I wrote intended for people with cognitive problems, due to health problems or issues like ADHD. I had trouble remembering things that were not on paper. So I used a lot of paper. This isn't as much of a problem for me as it once was, and most of my financial papers are now digital.
Cool, Colleen. I have organiser notebooks (Hobonichi for medical data like blood pressure, weird heart events etc; Traveller for poetry, notes etc; Circa for translation notes and historical trivia from reading; sketchbooks). I rarely have paperwork as I have admin help. But if I ever do need to, this is a great system. Thanks.
Hey Colleen! I finally got around to setting up a perpetual organizer system based on yours and today was the day I had a lot of items in the 24 folder that I'd been putting off for weeks. Somehow once I knew that today was THE DAY, the stuff got done.
Stellar! Thanks!
I love a good analog, tactile, paper based record keeping system. Thanks for sharing this!
I don't keep note of such things as much on separate physical sheets these days. But for several years, I've been using the At-A-Glance Weekly/Monthly appointment book, which I adapt to my own uses. I like that the monthly calendar is a two page spread, and on it I note the days where I have repeating payments (like various streaming subscriptions, or monthly bills, like car insurance). And then each new week on the monthly calendar, on Sunday, I'll copy out the current projects I have to work on that week (like work for clients, or personal works in progress). If I actually get some work done on something on a particular day, I'll put an X on that item, so I can look back at the end of the week and have an estimate on how much I did get done.
On the weekly pages, there are columns for each day of the week, but I don't use the printed time slots. Instead, I have a customized "form" that I write in each week -- because there are medical things I track, like morning and evening blood pressure, writing in when I've taken my daily medications, notes on what I've eaten and drunk during the day (not calorie counting, but definitely keeping tabs on how well I'm hydrating). The rest of the column, I make note of my day's activities, but the incidental errands run and the work I actually planned to do. I track the amount of time spent on work by the quarter hour, because sometimes clients are paying me by the hour. It's a form of discipline.
Other than my customized notes, I basically do what Colleen does with physical files. I make note on both the monthly and weekly pages of appointments upcoming events, when I need to schedule something (like having my labs done for my kidney doctor the week before I have an appointment with him).
For me, Xing through items on the monthly calendar is a discipline reminder -- I have to be honest with myself. If there are a string of days with no Xs, and I don't have a good reason for it (like being sick or moving to a new residence) I can't pretend to myself that it's okay. (Avoidance and Denial are symptoms of my bouts of depression, mild though they might be.)
I think there can be lots of ways of organizing our daily patterns. But finding the one that works for you can take a little bit of experimentation. And you need to know why you ... well, need it to work a certain way.