What I’ve found helps is for me to go off on a bit of a retreat. I pack up all my notes, planner, snacks and mp3 player and drive off to a secluded spot to do my weekly review and don’t come home until I’m done.

I took some photos on the way home – as you can see below it’s been raining today and so this was taken from a quick stop on the side of the road. I need to work on my “quick snapshot” techniques.

Field in Rain

I’ve been avoiding posting anything recently as I wanted to make today special since it’s the first day of the calendar year and a wonderful time to start afresh.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been slowly mapping out my goals for 2009 and I decided to restart my 101 in 1001 as well. There’s only a little overlap between my goals for the year and my 101 in 1001 list which I think is good. In my mind, the purpose of a 101 in 1001 list is to attempt things that you probably wouldn’t think to put on a goal listand not a replacement for one. I’ve been looking for inspiration to fill the gaps I’ve made on my previous list due to either completing the task or reevaluating how much I’m actually interested in doing the task. I surprised myself and actually completed 8 tasks despite not really concentrating on the list for most of the year. I completed: Buying a photo printer, Spending time by myself in a cafe, Getting digital photos printed and framed, Collect and grow my own seeds, Donate my time to a worthy cause, Eat a deep-fried moro bar, Go to a street fair or parade and Frame favourite photos.
I’ve decided against reviewing 2008 publicly and I’m shying away from doing it privately as well. The overall feeling I get is one of all-over-the-place-ness and that I lost a lot of time due to minor ailments. It would appear that I’m slow to recover from illnesses despite working hard on boosting my immune system and having normal (or even exemplary) test results.

So some of my goals for 2009:

Also, I got something already knocked off my 101 in 1001 list. I was getting some takeaways in Wanganui today and saw a sign right in front of my face (behind the person serving me) and when they asked me whether that was all they moved slightly and I saw it – Deep Fried Moro Bar! Finally! I have tasted one. Really yummy – not something I’d get more than once a year I’d say due to Moro’s being too sweet for me now … but it was well worth having on the list and I’m really happy I’ve tried it now. :) Now – only 100 tasks to go! :P

Earlier in the year I noted somewhere that there are many points in the year when you can reevaluate things. The ones that stick out for me are your birthday, Winter Solstice, New Years, the end of Financial Year – and looking back at this list I can see each having a goal “category”, Solstice for Spiritual, Birthday for Personal, New Years for General, Financial a no-brainer as Financial/Business. Interestingly, one for Family hasn’t made itself apparent to me – is this because we don’t celebrate any particular day in New Zealand as an obviously family day? Christmas seems like a bit of a reach for this to me – and besides who isn’t concentrating on the celebrating part of that event to take the time to contemplate long term goals.

So leading up to today I’ve been contemplating my lack of clear long-term goals and just when I thought to put that on the too hard basket and deal with it next time round I saw that Brad Issac at Achieve-IT! is running a month-long series on Goal Setting which sounds simply serendipitous to me. So here’s the introductory post and here is the post for Day One: Letting go of the fear of dreaming or goal setting.

So what apart from Learning how to Goal Set, do I have organised so far?

• My Diary – a standard A5 one page a day with no appointment times. Whilst I love the GTD way of working out what to do each day, I didn’t kick the habit of writing up a list each day of the tasks I want to achieve and then carrying over anything not completed onto a later day which kinda defeats the purpose of a custom printed planner. Perhaps this is something to work on next year.
• Sam’s Diary – a tiny one page per day diary for recording her daily activities and new words as a way to encourage us about her progress, and conversely to let us know when we’re slacking off in the providing her with useful activities department.
• A Monthly wall chart showing habits I’m working on. This month’s has Read a book to Sam, Put up a Trademe Listing, Blog Post, Daily Photo, and cringing admitting this some better Oral hygiene for both Sam and I. This is a replacement for the A5 page packed with 45+ daily things I should be doing(!) and feels unsurprisingly very freeing despite it still being a challenge.
• Beginning the 101 in 1001 project – something different and along with that starting the Project 365 and Blog 365 project (pretty self-explanatory – a blog post for every day of the year). I might have bitten off more than I can chew but I want to achieve something this year and I’m looking forward to these challenges. I’m also concerned I’m going from the extreme of not doing much each day that is done purely for enjoyment to not enough
  actual work being accomplished. It’s always a struggle working out the ideal work:play ratio but I hold hope that one day (or even, optimistically, for two days) I’ll get it right.

The last few days I’ve also been fluffing around giving this site a bit of a makeover and working on Sam’s private site. We have a passworded blog which we’re updating with photos and a bit of commentary at times for family members. I haven’t been very good at the Baby Book thing so this is a chance to redeem myself :P.
I’m also working on getting my Google Reader Starred list down to manageable proportions. I’ve unsubscribed from a couple of rss feeds as they’re adding to the guilt of incompleteness and not much else. One I will undoubtedly access when I need/want to anyway and the other was mainly a source of longterm feeds to read with the plus of seeing what the community on a whole is interested in. I have a ton of posts saved from the second feed I can go through for the first purpose and I question whether I really care about the second point.

• In prominent place (on fridge) and easy to use (move from one side of the line to the other when complete)
• Chores portrayed using photos of area/object at home and written title
• Examples of chores: Make Bed, Brush Teeth, Clear table, Dishes to Kitchen, Dirty Clothes in Laundry, Pick Up Toys before Bed. (age appropriate)
• Add chore each year child gets older
• Optional Chores available for additional money earning (quality control in place) – otherwise set allowance
• Balance between getting paid for helping around the house and working together as a family
• Banked allowance into savings (by choice) is matched by parents

Well, first off, I decided to do this because I wanted to consolidate as much as I could into my control journal, which I’m certain is a lot thicker than would be allowed by FlyLady! :P And I was tired of buying ephemeris, calendars and diaries – especially when they were often not in my timezone or were and weren’t detailed enough.
So I started scouring the internet looking for resources and I found these.

Swiss Ephemeris
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/ where I got for the Sun and Moon Signs and other planetary transits
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/ae/2000/d5ge1_2006.pdf
Those are in UT (universal time) so you have to make adjustments for your timezone and daylight time changes. I found out how they work out the dates for our daylight savings start and finish from our government website.

Then I went to http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications (which is a brilliant site).
And after finding my latitude and longitude for the town I live in (Marton, New Zealand) via another search I grabbed the Sun Rise and Set and Moon Rise and Set (cause I might as well eh) from here http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/rs-one-year-world

Also grabbed the all important Moon Phases from here http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/phases-moon

And the solstices and equinoxes from here http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html

Then I sat down with my printed out weekly calendar from http://www.diyplanner.com and my gel pens (gotta love’em) and started creating my ephemeris. Didn’t take me too long – I chose to go through each step entering it in before moving onto the next piece of information rather than trying to get all January done then Feb and so on.

I don’t have any aspects or their times written in cause I figure work with the basics first then after I understand them (probably a couple of years from now) I could move onto the aspects. I’m only new to astrology really and I wasn’t able to find a resource for Void-of-Course Moons, so that is also missing if it’s important to you.
I have a table showing the best times for particular types of spell/ritual work based on the moon sign and moon phase that I’ve also added and I’ve also added a table showing the best times to do things in the garden based on the moon sign and phase also.

Something else I learnt, if you have a Llewellyn’s Magical Almanac, the colours and incense mentioned each day are from a system created by Amber Wolfe detailed in ‘Personal Alchemy’ which I don’t believe is being published anymore. I personally haven’t seen Daffodil Incense in my travels anyway.

I like the result of my efforts – it has all the features I’d look for in an ephemeris with no extra “stuff” that I wouldn’t use.

Speaking of DIY Planner – I was browsing their forums yesterday and came across a post about bags that interested me. Okay, so it was actually discussing Man-bags, but I figure with my love for compartments, pockets and closures, a bag styled for men is probably more me than the lovely leather bag I currently have that carts around all my stuff currently. Plus when I purchased it the store apparently forgot to tell me they’d thrown a black-hole in there as well.
So anyway, the post had me searching the web looking for the ultimate Me bag. Some of my issues are that I like to have a lot of stuff onhand and currently my planner doesn’t fit in my bag. However, big bags dwarf me as I have a small-boned figure. I think I need a tall rather than wide bag because of this. I also have small shoulders and shoulder straps don’t stay put most of the time even with the weight of my bag. This is especially so when I’m juggling a small child and assorted paraphenalia. I need my cellphone easily accessible and a place for my car keys which I can get to with ease. Currently, I either “lose” them in my bag pockets or in my own pockets and end up doing the frantic scrabble through the bag and/or slapping of my person looking for them next to the car – only to realise I’ve put them in the stroller cup holders!
I also want to be able to get into the inner compartment with once again – ease, yet still have that compartment protected from prying eyes and bad weather (thinking more wind than rain although they’re equally important.
So the results of the search are these.
Lewis N. Clark Bicentennial Travel Organizer – Whilst I like the tall shape, one fastener for the main flap and the promise of many, many pockets, the problem with this bag is that it is just too darn small for my needs. I liked the style so much that this lead me to a better match for me.

The Lewis N. Clark Bicentennial Travel Shoulder Bag – Still has a tall shape, the promise of many, many pockets, and a nice capacity. The problems for me with this bag is the two fastenings for the main flap, the lack of externally accessible pockets (despite the highly visible side bottle pockets which I’d be unlikely to use for that purpose), and the top handle being attached to the flap which if I picked up the bag when it was unlatched would gape unhandsomely.

I’m a procrastinator from way back so I’ve had a lot of fun putting together my planner for the remainder of this year and all of next year. Just so you know, this isn’t me just going off the rails in a bid to get organised. I used to hate using a diary – and I’d often only use the first few weeks then my use of it would peter out but that’s all changed. Now, at the end of the year my diary always looks Used! The way I got into using them was at the end of high school – that year I had the usual notes from classes, Homework assignment instructions, Exam and assignment due dates, but then on every available space I would paste in a witty quote, a joke, grafitti from friends or a picture that inspired me (nothing deep, more along the lines of something I wanted to own) – but mainly the jokes. It was passed around the room in a boring lesson and it’s amazing it never got confiscated. I think it was that though that cemented my love for diaries – the ability to amuse another.

When I’ve used a planners I’ve always made it from an A5 Ringbinder. Coming from New Zealand, Letter and Legal sizes are a little foreign :P but A5 is a slightly fatter 1/2 Letter size and is about the same size but a lot thicker than the diary I would use otherwise. This means it’s easy to cart around and can be opened in front of you while sitting in the drivers seat of the car.

I thought I’d share the organisation of my planner for this year. I took the equivalent of a weekend to put this all together – including time cursing the printer for multiple paper jams. It’s roughly based on the one used at FlyLady.

1. Diary – This year I’m using a slightly modified template from DIY Planner (link below). I just made a few adjustments like removing the times from the boxes down the side of the page as I have very floating awake hours (generally 11am – 2am or thereabouts). I printed this out on old business runon pages and the paper was of a thicker quality. The entire diary printed out took up the entire ringbinder so I’ve only got 3 months in the diary at a time since I know that I only ever refer to previous dates for notes that shouldn’t be on a diary page anyway. This works fine especially with the other parts of the planner.
2. Daily – This is the section where I have my daily routines (courtesy of FlyLady)
3. Weekly – I have my fixed weekly schedule including those provided by Flylady once again.
4. Monthly – This is where I’ve made up for only having 3 months in the diary part of my planner. I have sub dividers for each month in this section and I rotate them so the current month is that the front. Within each month is a monthly calendar for at a glance needs. I also have my important dates list – with everyone’s birthdays and public holidays that don’t move. This way I can reuse the list next year with no problem (especially if you put in the year rather than the age of the event ie 1979 instead of 26th birthday. I also keep a blank page in each month so I can jot down notes quickly.
5. Projects – I use this a lot as I have much on my plate. I have 5 dividers in this section. Each indicates a project that I’m working on. For me, I’ve got one tab for each of my businesses, one for an ongoing work project, one for home, and one for short term events – like Christmas. Under each tab I have my lists of things to do – both shortterm and longterm and notes for ideas, products, information etc. At the front of this tab I’ve put a small stack of paper that I replenish every so often.
6. Not currently using this for anything.
7. This tab is labelled Food! In here I keep my meal plan for the week, and the recipes that go along with it. Perhaps I should quickly mention my meal planner – it’s very simple. I have a box each for 8 meals for the week (8 so I have 2 to fall back on – and one night is “can’t be stuffed cooking” night). 4 boxes for Dessert Ideas/Recipes, Breads to bake, Breakfast ideas, and Baking for the week. And finally at the bottom of the page I have a checklist to ensure the recipes have a bit of balance (I have a tendency to go for Carbs and Chicken!)
8. This is a bit of a hodge podge – just misc information that I can’t find another place for – but can’t chuck out yet. At the moment I have two pages in there, one has instructions on using our new phone system – which is designed for people with photographic memories and the other has okay … It has the coordinates for the town I live in, a login/pass for a website, and a quick family tree going back about 10 generations. Believe me, at the moment I actually use this information. When I look at it and go “Why?” then it gets biffed in the bin.
I almost forgot to mention, today I finally printed out a map of New Zealand, a local map and a world timezone map to add to this section.
9. Also not being used at the moment but Emergency Information is meant to go in here when I make time to write it out. The survival kit list, Emergency Numbers, Insurance Policy numbers – you get the drift.
10. The ultimate address book – once again more dividers for A-Z (in 12 dividers). Pretty self explanatory but I also keep bank account numbers for suppliers I deal with in here too.

Other parts of the planner are:
Bookmarks – one has Today written on it for the diary and the other just floats around depending on where I’m spending the most time.
Clearfile Sleeves (Page Protectors?) – I have these in each Projects section for misc bits of paper and receipts, and in the Food section for receipts.
Bags – not sure what to call these but they’re put out by the people that make Day Runners. A side sealable clear pocket that fits pens etc nicely.
Post-its – Taped to the inside front cover so I grab them when I need them.

One of the downsides to my planner is it doesn’t have all those cool pockets that larger sized planners do. I haven’t found an A5 portfolio that doesn’t have a 6-hole ringbinder attached. Another downside is the thickness of the paper I’ve used has meant the planner is a lot thicker than I would have liked.

Oh and just to be a bit out there and because I hate ringbinders normally for this reason – being left-handed I’ve made my planner open from the left instead of the right so in effect I’m working from the back of the ringbinder. Probably sounds really crazy so just ignore me :)

Finally, I thought I’d share links that I’ve discovered on my journeys. Please bear in mind that I’m coming from the perspective of running several home businesses as well as a household so some of them are more professionally-minded if that doesn’t offend anyone for me to say so.
http://www.diyplanner.com – I can’t recommend this site enough. They have a *lot* of templates that are adaptable and in different page sizes too!
http://www.flylady.net – Well I had to include this site eh.
http://shesorganized.com, http://organizedhome.com, http://organizedchristmas.com – separate sites but part of the same group, they all have something to offer.
http://www.lifehacker.com – There are some real organisational gems on this site.
http://members.tripod.com/~frankysj/org-00.html – some useful stuff here as well.
http://www.43folders.com – I guess you may have to go looking to find information that is useful to you but I found a couple of techniques that have helped me at work – and the comments from viewers are always eyeopening.

Think that’s enough from me for now?
If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

I think Getting Things Done appeals to nerds for a lot of reasons. Overgeneralizing for effect:

* nerds are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention-deficit issues
* nerds love assessing, classifying, and defining the objects in their world
* nerds crave actionable items and roll their eyes at “mission statements” and lofty management patois
* nerds like things that work with technology-agnostic and lofi tools
* nerds like frameworks but tend to ignore rules
* nerds are unusually open to change (if it can be demonstrated to work better than what they’re currently using)
* nerds like fixing things on their own terms
* nerds have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff