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A New To Do List

July 27, 2011

When I was visiting the U.S. last month, I was wandering through an office supply store for some reason (any reason will do) and found the coolest To Do list ever!

It is a 3M Post-it Weekly Planner with 52 tear-off sheets (with no sticky glue on the back) and 6 small Post-it note pads (with sticky glue). It has four parallel sections for all seven days of the week, presumably so you can organize four people. But I'm going to use it to organize all the bits of my life.

The first sheet I used as a monthly planner, actually, to organize all the events of my mom's four-week visit. I used the bright orange sticky notes for things we were doing with other people. When the weather changed our plans, I could move the sticky note to another day.

I used a green sticky note to list all the things we might want to do but I wasn't sure if we'd have time to do and I just left it at the bottom of the paper. The white stickies were for things Mom and I would do alone together, but that might be changed due to weather. The white note above with the Art Gallery was moved a LOT due to a week of rain.

And for dinners with friends, our night at the opera and other items that wouldn't change, I wrote them right onto the paper. The next time we have guests, I think I might use this again. It was a wonderful planning tool. You could easily see what you were going to do, and what was still left that needed to find a day to do or see it.

When Mom leaves next week, I'll start using one sheet a week as is intended.  🙂  Since there aren't four people in our house, and John doesn't have a hundred things planned every week, I think I'm going to use the bottom section for People – times John will be away, my girls nights out, Skyping with friends, calling family, etc.

The top one will be my Writing To Do list. There are five lines in each box, so I can write up to 5 things I mean to do with my writing on each day. Some weeks I'll write “blog” every Sunday through Thursday and other weeks I'll try to write all five blogs on one or two days because of other deadlines and commitments.

That leaves me two more sections. Because we might move, and due to the state of our living conditions after 18 months of priority-one homework, then a month of being away, then a month of guests, I've decided that Housework/Cooking will be the second section down and Organizing/Packing will be the third section down. Since I don't know for sure how best this planner will work for me, I'm glad the sheets tear off each week and I can try something new every week if I want.

Another way to use it would be to put Writing in the top section, Career Work in the second section (research, paperwork, etc.), and have the bottom two for personal/home work. Or all four could be different aspects of career. Or whatever you wanted to do!  🙂

I bought this pad for about $16 at Office Depot somewhere in Los Angeles, and here is an Amazon link so you can see it. If you get one, or have something similar, tell us how you could/would/do use it.

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