In a recent “Happier” podcast, Gretchen Rubin challenged her listeners to choose a theme word that will guide this year. After much internal debate, I went with “systems” and am dedicating my year to figuring out how use systems and tools to best plan//organize/schedule so that I can do more of what I love and hopefully start to approach the much coveted term/feeling/idea of work life balance. I say this as a decidedly non-Marie Kondo type who usually resists organizational strategies like my 3 year-old resisting any normal foods, but that wasn’t working for me, so here I go on this organizational journey.

So, I started workflow boards on Trello, blocked off time in my google calendar, and finally got a planner that I actually use. It’s the planner that I’ll give the shout out to now because it’s been nothing short of revolutionary as far as how I handle my day. I started with the daily Passion Planner which forces me not only to plan out my working hours, but also to reflect on my progress to my “game changer goal.” Not being a planner person, I’m surprised how much I use it! I missed the big picture review and went back to order the weekly planner, which is the one I’ll keep going in the future. Am I converted? Only time will tell, but for now I’m grooving on having a checkpoint for my goals.