Remember that agenda you bought when school or work first started that you haven't touched since the first few weeks of writing in it? Yeah, that one. Well it's time to bring that bad boy back out!!!
Being organized can be hard. We're no longer at that age where our teachers can give us a star every time we use our agendas for writing down our homework properly. Although being organized comes easier to some, there's no denying it takes a lot of effort to constantly keep track of things and write things down all the time, especially when you have a busy schedule, like myself. But once you get into the rhythm of being organized and keeping tabs on things that are going on in your life, it can actually save you a lot of time.
For those of you who know me, you're probably reading this and thinking. .. Nicole you are the most un-organized person in the world, why are you writing about this. And to that I say VERY TRUE. For a long time I was a mess, I literally never wrote anything down, my desk was always cluttered and I didn't really have a clue what was going on. This went on all through out university and a couple months into the summer until I got my first real big girl job and all of that had to stop.
When I first bought my agenda I used it for strictly work matters, but as I started to use it more and more it became the destination for all of my "to-do's" including bill payments, plans with friends, work events, family dinners etc. It just made things so much easier to coordinate and structure out.
For those of you who may not know, an agenda increases your productivity, it makes you more time aware, pinpoints the important tasks of the day and really just makes you feel less stressed out. I can't explain to you how many times my agenda has saved my life with bill payments and work deadlines. It just keeps your life so much more structured and makes you feel accomplished when everything you've written down is completed.
With my agenda I try and keep it fun, so if I want to go to the gym on a Tuesday I'll write: "Stop being lazy and hit the gym" or "if you didn't go yesterday you better go today". I also, like a loser, color coat my agenda, highlighting my important tasks in yellow and appointments in pink. This ensures that if there's a highlighted section on my page, it's something that has to be done/dealt with ASAP. In addition I also use post it notes to mark important days or important pages (like my blog post topic page where I jot down all my blog post topic ideas for the month!)
I try and make it a habit that every morning and every night I look at my agenda,. This makes it so that, in the morning I can go over the things I have to do and then the night I can write down the next days tasks or put in important dates I have gotten news of that day.
The agenda I use (and featured in this post) is from Bando, I know this makes me "agenda shallow" but I only ever use agendas that are bright fun and cute, and this agenda is the cutest freiken agenda I have ever owned. Aside from the fun colors, the color coated tabs and the coolest cover that reads "I AM VERY BUSY", it also comes with STICKERS, who doesn't love cute stickers?! This agenda also has very positive and uplifting messages written on almost every page, and I'm being honest when I say that some days (especially bad days) when I'm writing in my agenda those messages come in handy.
An agenda isn't the only way I keep organized of course, it's all about having that healthy mindset. Wanting to be productive and time efficient will lead you into having everything organized and de-cluttered. For me especially, it really came down to my job and being professional and taking away the un-necessary stress. I know for some of you in school juggling multiple classes and deadlines can get stressful and exhausting, trust me when I say I wish I could go back in time and slap my self with an agenda so I could relieve myself from all the useless worrying.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post on how I keep my self organized! Now that the new year is slowly creeping up on us, it is an awesome time to invest in an agenda and set the tone for an organized, less stressful and happy new year! I hope you all have a lovely evening and until my next post I will talk to you guys later!
Lots of LOVEEEE
Nicole J