Sanity Saving Tip of the Week

Hi Friends.

In an effort to share some organizational advice with you, I'm going to do a Sanity Saving tip every Monday. I thought Monday would be a good day to debut the tips because if you're wanting to try it out you'll have the week to work on it. These are going to be thoughts/ideas that I've either heard, read, inherited, or thought of on my own. This week's tip is something my mom taught me growing up, but I've also tweaked it a little to fit my needs.

Sanity Saving Tip of the Week: The Long Term and Short Term List

My mom has a love of post-it notes. Growing up I would constantly find post-it notes everywhere; In the bathroom, on the counter, in my lunch box, INSIDE the fridge. Seriously, everywhere. I believe it's her love of lists that made me so passionate about keeping a journal/list of my own. I've mentioned this a couple times before, but I have two "To-Do" lists that I keep.

The Short Term List is an itemized list of things to do for the week/two weeks ahead. I usually update the list every Monday, but sometimes it's every-other Monday. I keep my Short Term List on a notepad inside my purse. This list consists of mostly errands I need to run, but also people I need to call/get together with. If anyone else were to see my short term list, they probably wouldn't understand it, but the important thing is that I know what I mean. Here's what my list for the week of March 14-18 looks like:

*Drop of clothes at TC
*Pick out paint colors
*RX from Dr. Leet
*classes for Fall
*Josey's vet appt
*6 miles (by Sunday)
*update glasses
*Shoes from Pennies (wednesday)
*Blog research
*Aunt Nancy
*Rach
*Home and Garden Show
*half marathon t-shirts

See what I mean about hard to understand? I know what everything means though, that's what counts. As I complete tasks for the week, I cross them off the list. Also, if there's a particular day that one of the items needs to be completed by, I put the day next to the item.


The Long Term List includes tasks that I basically want to finish sometime in the next couple of months, or even year. I keep my Long Term list in my desk at work so in my free time I can work on it. Here's my current Long Term List:

*Work on photo book
*SEMO bloggers conference
*Arts Council info
*shoe organization
*room design for new house
*NAPO
*FL trip organization
*JD's birth certificate
*Lasik info


These are all things that are important to me, but the timeline doesn't affect anyone but me. That's why they're on the long term list. This is actually a really short long term list for me. I usually have about 20 different tasks I'm wanting to complete. So I've been a busy girl so far in 2011!


 I need to note that I also keep a weekly planner, that usually stays inside my car. My planner is mostly for appointments for me, Daniel, and JD, but it's also for class assignments. As you know I also keep a bi-weekly grocery list and meal plan list in my desk at home with my recipes. I'll go into detail on meal planning in another post.

How do you stay organized for the week? Do you keep a journal/list? Do you have a planner? I'd love to hear what works for you.