Whether you are a stay at home mom, a working mom or a stay at home entrepreneur mom, the truth is mom life is a juggling act. There’s so much to be done and managed that sometimes it can feel overwhelming. One of the best ways I find to organize myself is by using my mom planner.
My mom planner contains EVERYTHING I need to organize my life, all in one place. Over the years, I’ve tried different planners but found that while every planner has something I like, there’s also plenty I don’t like. So, in order to have a planner that worked me, I had to customize my planner. By using a base planner that fit my needs and adding in key elements catered to my life, I created my PERFECT MOM PLANNER. My planner, a Day-timer desk size measures 8-1/2 x 5-1/2 which is exactly half the size of a regular letter size. It is also small enough to easily carry around in the purse or diaper bag yet large enough to comfortably be able to write inside. I’ve been perfecting this planner for a few years now and to be completely honest, I’m sure I will continue to tweak it as things in life change but for now, here’s what I have in this planner.
The planner has a button which closes to keep everything contained inside. Inside the cover of the planner is a pocket to keep essentials. Here is where I keep printouts of memorization lessons I am working on with the kids. I also keep extra large stickers here, and a card (it’s actually an old hotel room key) to help cut washi tape.
Most of the planner additions are inserts I have laminated and added in to the planner. Having the inserts laminated allows it to be reusable. You write on the insert using a wet erase marker, and later when you need to make changes (new goals, new tasks to complete, or new bills to add in), you can easily erase the handwritten portion by wiping with a wet washcloth. Unlike dry erase markers, the wet erase will NOT wipe away simply by brushing your fingers across the page.
The first page of the planner is a goal setting worksheet. It breaks down goals into 3 categories: spiritual, health & exercise, and personal. The first set of goals are for the entire month. The second row is the weekly goals. Here, you would list achievable tasks to do during the week in order to help you reach your monthly goal.
The back of this sheet contains a worksheet for a more broader goal setting, the lifetime goals. This section breaks down the goals in 4 parts: 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, and 3 years. If you wanted to, you could set goals for even longer (5 years, 10 years, etc). For me, however, life is too unpredictable and 3 years is the longest that I can think about.
Next, I have a poly envelope that I use to store most of my stickers in. I punched holes in the envelope so that I can keep it contained within the planner. The stickers, which are used for my weekly planning, are printed every three months. The sticker sheet contains stickers for the kids’ afterschool activities, school early release days and holidays, monthly halaqa obligations, car wash, pest control, book club, blog assignments, and my weekly cleaning tasks.
The next section of the planner has the monthly planning sheets for the entire year. Each month is laid out when the planner is open and laying flat. Here, I add all the school obligations when the school calendar for the year comes in, bulk trash days, hazmat drop off days and any other obligations and commitments I have set months in advance.
The monthly calendars are followed by a notes section. Each category is separated by Avery plastic tabs. The sections that I have are: travel, home, kids, and an unlabeled “personal” section. I left the personal section unlabeled because I wanted this section to attract as little attention as possible since most of the time my planner tends to stay opened on the kitchen counter or my desk.
Along with filler paper, you can also use dot paper (using a paper cutter, cut a regular letter size dot paper in half), plain white paper or any other paper your heart desires.
The first section, travel, has in it a detailed packing checklist that I use every time we are packing for vacation. The checklist can be found HERE. Along with the checklist, this is where we write down our travel bucket list, and keep track of details as we are planning our upcoming travels.
The home section contains an annual bill schedule with a list of all the bill and it’s due date. Every month, as I pay a bill, I mark the corresponding box (J=January, F=February, etc).
The monthly budget (seen on the left side of this image) helps to plan out the finances and set a reasonable monthly budget. On the right, is a spending tracker to help keep track of your monthly spending.
Also in the home section is a debt tracker, 6 months savings log and a detailed cleaning checklist.
The last section of the planner is the weekly planning spread. The weekly planning spread has an hourly layout starting at 7am and ending at 7pm.
To help easily find the current week, I use a diy bookmark with a tab sticking out on top. The bookmark doubles as to do list and a to call list. On the back of the bookmark is a habit tracker and meal planner. In addition to the bookmark, I also keep a zone cleaning checklist based on the fly lady’s method.
On the back of the checklist is my morning and evening routine as well as my general weekly cleaning schedule (Mondays – dusting, planning & bills, Tuesdays- vacuum, mop and take out trash, Wednesdays- groceries, etc).
