Minimize It Monday: "To Do" Notebook

As I was writing down this week's activities on my "To Do" Notebook, a feeling of great satisfaction came over me. 

Long time ago, I had loose lists of all sorts.  A clothes shopping list, a GROCERY list, a to do list, a cleaning list, scrap papers with phone # that had no names on them (thinking I would remember whose number they belong to. Ha!), you name it.  Anything that came through my head all got jotted down on little pieces of paper, oh I was such a SHE!!!

{In case you wonder, a SHE means Sidetracked Home Executive (a FLYlady term)}

The Lord took mercy of my short coming.

One day, I was visiting a friend, and we were going through her calendar to see if we could pencil in a date for an event.  As she flipped through the calendar, I was amazed at how organized that looked.  Now her DH works in a fire station, so he was given a calendar with all his schedules on it.  Which in turn, helped my friend a great deal to see what her week looked like and schedule activities around her HD's work/home days.

When we "bingoed" the date and penciled it in, then she moved to her kitchen counter and pencil it in again in a yellow notepad.  I was so curious by then as you can imagine.  So I asked why did she mark it twice?  She replied: "the calendar gives me a glance at what I have going on in a month, my yellow pad lets me know what I need to do on a daily bases."  So matter of fact!

I went over and checked out her yellow pad and saw that there was a page for each day for a few days.  The first page was full and the following ones were filled in but there were room left for more.

"I love crossing out the tasks I accomplished." Said she.  "Then when the day is over, I just rip up the page and move on to the next day."

I was so inspired to say the least.  When I went home I decided I wanted to do the same thing.  But I have to tell you, An old habit is hard to die.  Took me what seems forever to change that habit from jotting down on pieces of papers to a notebook format.

Speaking of notebook, yeah, I could not bring myself to purchase the yellow pads (for some reasons they were very expensive)  so I just used the left over notebooks from my kids and started to write thing down on them. 

At first, I did a page per day like my friend's, but quickly realized that I didn't have a heavy schedule as she did, so I sort of just gauged my days and grouped some lines to each of them.  It has been working out so well through these years.

No, I did not rip the page off at the end of the day.  I saved the notebooks.  Those were days before blog.  I treasured the notebooks as they witnessed my days with my family. I did say I was a sensible (or sentimental) minimalist, right?

I have a calendar, too, and it is marked with days that Robert will be home.  Also another notebook to keep track of my checking account balance (I check my balance over the phone daily and it really helps to know I have the money to pay the bill :)).

I do have a FLY control journal but it houses my daily routines and other more regular "to dos" while the notebook is more portable, sometimes I just grab the book with me as I am running out the door and check on/edit things in it while I was waiting for the kids music lesson to be over.  The notebook is so tattered  loved.

Moving from pieces of paper to notebooks was a big step.  My next step is to determine which notebook I could let go (I am guessing the checking balance one).

One small bite at a time.

I finished writing down the week's activities and I am so happy that it seems like it will be a lighter week coming up.  Praise the Lord!

Love how my week look so far...

This stack is from year of 2007 - mid 2009 (not sure how I got a yellow pad in there.  Must be from some kind of give-a-away)