All the planner things. Meet my brain.

Half letter with rings down to passport size with strings. Behold, my draw of planner things!

* I would like to take am minute to pause and honor those planner who tried so hard but just didn't end up in a successful relationship with me.*.............. Thank you, let's proceed.

When I say I have tried many, many things, let my planner coffin speak the truth. Here are some items just to name a few:

• Erin Condren Life Planner
• Filofax in A5
• Filofax in Personal (times two)
• Disc system (Staples and Levenger) in personal size (times two)
• Midori-style passport
• Midori-style custom made
• Livescribe Notebook both lined and grid
• Moleskine
• Inserts, Inserts, Inserts from custom made to Etsy purchased to name brand.

But still, I struggled with not finding something that worked all of the time. Lots of resources later I realized...it's just too much. Back to basics I went.

Beautiful Planners make me....happy, yet sad?!

The beautiful pictures on Pinterest or perfectly neat planner pages displayed on YouTube are absolutely stunning and make me happy when I look at them. And I LOVE to look at them (just ask my husband on a Wednesday at 11pm when I have a 5am meeting the next morning...)

But they make me sad all at the same time.

 I didn't know where to start when I was new to the community and began my planner journey. 

I then struggled to think I couldn't live up to those gorgeous, pretty planner pictures.

And those pictures became my planner goal.

For me the hard reality was that it just didn't translate from my busy and complicated life of remembering all the things into a functional planner. It certainly can be incorporated to make you love what you touch (and this is important!). However, function first my friends, function first.

The hats I wear and struggles.

As a wife, mom, and business professional including project manager, people manager and operations manager lots of people depend on me to keep it together and be on top of things without fail. If I look at the big picture it might drive me to margarita it up at 10am and announce to everyone "Good luck with that, I'll be in the pool." I'd rather drown in an actual pool than metaphorically in an office or play date. 

We have all struggles, it's what you do with them that counts.

Trust me when I say remembering is an issue for me. (I have issues with my memory due to an injury).

Knowing your weaknesses means nothing more than knowing where you have the opportunity to grow. And when you grow, life is better. Let's be very, super real with who we are. Without this "whole truth facing event", things are a lie (very much like the cake).

I don't need no, satisfaction. WAIT. Yes. Yes I do.

Planning for me has become a way of coping, giving me focus, and making life simple in a complicated space. Balancing needs of those around me with my own. It's a way to put all the things going on side of my head into a place outside of my head. To relax my mind instead of speed thinking about all the things I need to do causing me to lose sleep and be even more stressed out about not having the energy to actually DO all the things.

I personally contribute planning and organization to be part of my foundation of success and see this as instrumental.

Planning for peace.

The planner community has this term called "Planner Peace". It's finding a system to navigate your life with something which feels natural and easy to use . Essentially, planner peace is an intuitive organizational tool allowing you focus at the right time on the right things. Thus eliminating stress and feeling amazing about all the things you achieved and as well as feeling prepared and at ease for things to come.

I'm here to tell you, finding planner peace easier than you think.

So often we over complicate and over think things. Go with your instinct, you know better than anyone else how your brain works. And stop. for the love of God, stop comparing yourself to others.

My approach to planning is organization of the chaos. A road map broken into visually easy to understand directions.

As a coach to those I mentor I see the same cyclical issues. 

• Forgetting things. 
• Being overwhelmed by the big picture. 
• Not knowing where to start. 
• People typically have the best intentions, they just don't know how to action those intentions. 
• People aren't lazy, they are unmotivated because they lack reward or focus.
• Everyone can achieve success, it's using the right tools to get you where you want to go.

While life coaching and approach is the overall big picture, planning to me is the piece of the puzzle right smack in the middle of the finished picture that with out it, there is a very large annoying hole that stops everything from coming together. Planning is a very important key to unlocking the door to a calm, organized life. (Feel free to groan at my very very cheesy analogies.)

Adulting. It's hard and makes me want to kick and scream sometimes. But alas, it's easier with organization and planning.