This past week we sat down to plan for the fall and since I love seeing how others plan and organize their lives, I thought it might be fun to give you a glimpse into our planning process and how we do things! So here’s what we do:
Getting on the Same page with Goals and Priorities:
I think it’s a great idea to use the start of each new season as a touch base point for you and your partner. Make it fun! Set up a date night either at home or out for supper somewhere and chat about how you both want life to look going forward. Sometimes we just get so caught up in the busyness of life that we forget to check in with each other and make sure that we’re working together towards similar goals, helping each other conquer dreams, and just getting on the same page with life in general. Once you have this conversation and get some things down on paper, move on to what we like to call the “brain dump” stage.
Brain Dump:
I know that I personally often struggle with having so many ideas and things I need to do for all the different areas of our life that I feel so overwhelmed and don’t even know where to start. By getting everything out of my mind and down on paper, it helps SO much. We like to call this a “brain dump” and we’ve made a printable template for you to do this yourself, here! We jot down a bunch of different headings like “home” “fall clothes/supplies” “homeschooling” “work goals” “trailer to-do’s” “fall meal planning” etc., and then we get to writing lists together for everything that we want to accomplish. By breaking it down into different categories instead of one giant to-do list, it feels so much more manageable and then it also prepares us for the next step which is “plugging it all in”.
Plug it in:
Now that we have agreed on goals and priorities for our family and as individuals and brain dumped all our ideas and to-do’s on paper, we’re ready to plug it into the calendar, get organized, and make it happen! I know some people like to use digital calendars and others like it all down on paper - we use a combination of both! Ron uses google cal which is shared with me for referring to, I use an actual planner and then we have a giant calendar on our wall. For “plugging it in” we take our brain dump page and plan out how and when we’ll tackle it all. So for example, we will plan an afternoon for fall shopping for the kids, an evening to content plan for work, another afternoon to organize our homeschool room - you get the picture!
And that’s how we do it! Hope this might be helpful for you if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with where to start as we move into a new season, especially after having been in lockdown for so long with nothing on the calendar at all. So, it’s a good idea to regroup, dream again together, and put those plans into action! Thanks so much for reading and don't forget to download our printable here!
