Hello my
fabulous ones!!
Lately I’ve
noticed that even with my lovely Filofax and all her decorations and things,
I’ve been feeling scatter brained and forgetful. I’m going to the doctor to
check up on my health and see if there’s any reason there for the way I’m
feeling….I am in my 40s, after all. So I also decided to do some research based
on what I’ve been feeling and cross-checking against people with planners and
such. I found that a lot of people use either a GTD (Getting Things Done) or a
ZTD (Zen to Done) type setup.
Have you heard
of these?
At their cores,
they are both basically the same with the main principle being getting your
tasks under control to be productive and effective in your personal and
professional life. ZTD however, seemed to speak more to me as a SAHM where GTD
seemed to fit a professional type person. ZTD was more focused on goals and
doing the tasks linked to those goals. At the same time, I appreciate how GTD
forces you to review your tasks and actions to make sure they are lining up
with your goals. I ultimately liked both and I decided to blend the two
together for a sort of “Getting Things Zen to Done” remix.
How did I do it?
Heeeeeeere we go….
I still use my
Malden as my wallet and the flyleaf with the pic of my mom will never go
anywhere. I also still have the Filofax card with all the stickies on it. I
used a binder clip to bind together some of pages at the very front
(registration, year at a glance, personal info, etc.) and hook my Frixion pen
to it. I had this in the back originally but it was causing my pen to press
against the sides of some the pages and messing them up.
After all that
is where my remix begins. Now, the ZTD principles would call for me to have
nearly 10 tabs in my planner if I were to section off everything. Same with
GTD. My remix here is the consolidation I did to keep the number of sections to
a minimum. No more than 6, even though I think that’s too many. Hell, what I
was doing wasn’t working so I tried to stick to the plan as much as possible,
but the OCD in me got it down to 4 main sections. They are as follows:
INBOX. This
section is my brain dump and doodle area. There’s a cotton cream to do list for
those 1-liner thoughts, ideas, questions, what-not’s, a couple of sheets of
lined HK paper for those more detailed thoughts, and a couple of sheets of
blank paper for when I need to draw it out. Every day I check these to see if I
need to make them an action, project, goal, appointment, or routine adjustment.
Once that has been done the item gets checked or crossed out and moved to the
appropriate section.
@ACTIONS. This
section houses my context lists. There’s my Master @actions list, @actions,
@waiting, @someday, @blog, @finances.
PPGs (projects,
plans & goals). This section begins with a list of the projects I’m
currently working on only, then my Master Goals list and blog goals. After that
is my Projects section that holds the plans for my blog, notes from a free
graphic design course I’m taking, and a couple of things I’m doing.
LISTS. My final
ZTD section holds all my other lists like my bucket list, my wish list, gift
lists, movie list, and stuff like that.
Those sections
are divided off with the Hyundai dream car dividers I made and Martha Stewart
tabs I was RAKd with. Following the GTZTD sections is my Diary. I don’t have an
MS tab for that section because I use 3 Today rulers. The 1st one is
for the daily section, the 2nd one is for the WO2P section, and the
3rd is for MO2P section. I also have a future planning section that
is separated behind the Filofax calendar dots sheets. Those have a little tab
at the top so future planning is easily accessible. The future planning section
consists of 2 fold out year planners. One for 2013 and one for 2014. When this
year is over I’ll add my 2015 planner and take out the 2013. I use the FF dots
on these and they work great.
After my diary I
have my most cherished section and that’s MVPs…Most Valuable Priorities. This
is where my color code gets its life from. My MVPs are: Hubby,
Kids,
131/2.0T, Finances, Me, Projects. Each subsection
only contains information pertaining to its name and it’s mainly for reference.
Anything that needs to go on a calendar about one my MVPs gets a daiso dot in
the same color. Projects and goals are treated the same way. That allows me to
only need to carry one Frixion pen instead of 6. J
Finally is a
card holder with some needed but seldom used cards, a zip lock pouch (with no
zipper) I got with the very first planner I had a million years ago that has
some old coins, labels from my Erin Condren Life Planner from last year and
some other doodads. In the notepad pocket I keep a couple sheets of ‘whatever’
paper, my MS dew drops, also RAKd, and extra to do sheets. In the full length
pocket I keep a stash of my stickers from my daiso dots to my bear paws. In the
pen loop I have a goofy, thin ‘government’ pen. I’ve stretched the pen loop
with a sharpie and some lotion, but my Frixion pens still won’t go in without
the grip interfering…boo!
So that’s the
setup I’m testing out now for next year. I’ve been using it solidly for about 3
weeks now and it’s really nice. I like how ZTD allows me to adapt one of habits
at a time instead of GTD sort of ramming it all down my throat at once. This
month I’ve been working on collecting and since my husband started going to
school this week, I’ve been tasked with keeping his class schedule and I’ve
been able to incorporate it into my system with no hiccup at all. Even though
he has a Filofax of his own, he likes it when I use mine as sort of a “back up”
to his….ok.
Anyway…I think
this may work! And I think I will talk each of the 10 ZTD Habits and how I’m
progressing with them in future posts.
Stay Fabulous!
