A Color Coded Planner

Not only am I am a visual girl...I love to color code anything in my life I can. I like to be able to see things at a glance and know what's going on. I do this with my colored post-it notes on the plot board for my books, so it makes total sense for me to carry that over to my planner. And it keeps "Tony" from looking boring (the horror!)

On the far right in the picture above are the little Avery dots. Since Tony isn't a very big planner (he's the Franklin Covey Compact size) and I prefer the week on one page view (see last week's post) - I don't have a whole lot of room for anything bigger. These dots are a good size to stick right next to an appointment or task, so I can see a glance how my week is shaping up.

Green is always money. Money coming in or going out (usually going out *sigh*) - but if it's something like a reminder that my daughter has to bring Girl Scout dues to the meeting at the end of the week, that green dot it a nice reminder for me.

Yellow, is always my family color - because they are after all, the sunshine of my life! So if it's a family thing on my calendar, it gets a yellow dot.

Orange are my errands...and when I start to see too many orange dots, I know it's time to juggle a few things off to someone else or at least move them to another day.

Pink is ANYTHING writing related. Writing meetings, brainstorming dates with the writer girls, or time I've set aside for promo, blogs, marketing, etc.

The colored dots not only keep me on track - they also have a way of keeping my life balanced. If I see a few weeks with a LOT of pink dots and no yellow...I know I've shifted my focus away from the family and that's not the mom and wife I want to be.

I've tried to be supermom and the only thing I really succeeded in doing was stressing myself out. Life is about balance, learning what's important to juggle and what we sometimes have to let go of for a while.

If you use a color coding system to plan your life...what's your trick?

Happy travels!