Staying Organized

I love being organized!

There is nothing like getting a new planner and filling it with birthdays, meetings, appointments, and other activities. I love being able to glance at my planner and see what my days, weeks, and months will look like. I have a planner that is always with me, a calendar on my phone that is connected to my computer, as well as Justin's iPod touch. Unfortunately, despite our extensive list of scheduling resources and devices, there are still times when one of us has something going on that we forget to put on our shared computer calendar.

I have always wanted a family calendar somewhere in our house - one that we could easily look at multiple times a day without having to pull it up on a phone or computer. I had planned on putting one in our home office but unless one of us is working on a specific project, we don't spend a whole lot of time in the office (although that might change with Justin's new endeavor). One place that I know we pass through multiple times everyday is the kitchen. It didn't take long to find the perfect spot - a blank wall that was just screaming "hang something here!" I measured the space and started my hunt for a calendar.

I found many different calendars that I liked, but most of them were dry erase. The reason I didn't want to a dry erase calendar was because it would be really easy to accidentally erase things from the calendar. Also, people (Justin) are always tempted to wipe a finger (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not) though the writing. Finding myself at a dead end, I decided that I would make my own.

Here is the list of materials you will need:

• Bulletin board
• Paint
• Post-its
• Ribbon
• Push pens
• Ruler
  

I set up shop in the garage and started spray painting. I thought about sanding the trim but wanted to get started so I skipped that and just starting painting.


I knew it would take a few coats but after 5 coats of the paint just soaking into the cork I knew I needed a new plan. I really wanted this to work to I took a few days and did some research and found that using real paint would work better. We were painting our kitchen cabinets at the time so I just took some white gloss paint we had for the cabinets and started painting. It worked! I still had to paint three coats but the paint was much thicker and adhered to the cork much better than the spray paint. It turned out just the way I had planned.


Here is a close up view of my paint job. I was a little worried that the paint would scratch off but it has proved itself very durable.

The next step was also very time consuming. I knew I wanted to use Post-It notes as the paper to write on since they are cheap a small. After laying out 30 post-its on the board I found that they were too big. I looked online for something smaller but came up with nothing. So, I decided to just cut the Post-It notes to the size I needed. Since each square would be 2.5''x2.5" I cut the post-its a little smaller than that. I don't really have an exact size but that are around 2x2". This part was easy once I had the right size. Here are the materials you will need:

• Paper cutter
• Post-it
• Temple
• Pencil
• Pen
  

Use your template to trace out the 2x2 square. Next you will use the paper cutter to cut the square. I found that my paper cutter would only cut about 3 or 4 Post-Its at a time.


After you have all the squares cut and the dates written on them, its time to write out all your plans (my favorite part)!

I have not color coded my events but I think that is something that I might be doing in the future. I do love using all the fun colors. Once I had cut all the Post-Its I laid them out on the calendar and used my ribbon to make the columns. I didn't take any pictures of this part...sorry. But once you have anything pinned up you have a wonderful custom calendar.


I have really enjoyed using this calendar and I feel like it is keeping both Justin and I very organized. You will also see a white paper pinned to the calendar - that is our dinner menu. That way Justin can just look up there and see what we are having for dinner and does not have to ask. Or if he is in a good mood he can start dinner. HINT HINT!!!