Do you have a system in place for organizing your life? I have tried a few different methods over the years and am finally just going to stick with what works for me.

1. I have an old school family calendar in our kitchen that has birthdays, events, and appointments written on it for all to see.
2. I also put appointments on a phone calendar that is shared with Jason.
3. On our fridge I have my daily rhythm (see download below) which includes household tasks that need to be done. We don’t have a ‘house cleaning day’–it just happens all week long. Once in a while (not often at all), I get this feeling where I just want the whole house cleaned all at once, but normally we just clean a little every day and as Olivia grows older, some of these responsibilities also fall on her.
4. I still like the paper and pencil day timer and dream of having certain ones that are quite pricey and oh so pretty, but this past year I decided that it just wasn’t in our budget to have a fancy expensive day timer that in the end usually lands up not getting used because it’s not custom made for my needs. So, I went on a dollar store mission to find something that worked and it’s amazing what you can find at your local dollar store:

5. I don’t love writing daily routine things into my day timer–repetitive, so I took my weekly rhythm list (see #4) and made a label for each day of the week, sticking them into the day timer, leaving plenty of room for my own ‘jottings’:

I love it when a system works. Sometimes it takes years to develop it and throw out the things that don’t work, while keeping the ones that do. True, there are many technologically more advanced systems I could use, but I find that in the end I always come back to paper and pencil.

Which system do you use? Do you have a need to write things down or do you fly by the seat of your pants?