5 Tools That Keep Me Organized

Something that I am really passionate about is organization and planning. Organization comes pretty naturally to me and is one of my top strengths. I love making lists and keeping my inbox clear of clutter. I also love creating trip agendas and itineraries to have with us when we are traveling. Is anyone else like this?

If you aren’t, no worries. I know a lot of people who struggle with organization. It can be really challenging to keep your life in order when you are trying to manage a family, travel, activities and clubs. Today on the blog, I want to help you and give you some pointers on how to stay organized. Below are 5 tools that I use to keep my life in order. I can confidently say that I use each one of these tools on a daily basis. If used to their full advantage, these tools can be complete game changers when it comes to getting organized!

1. Simplified Planner
   • This may be surprising to some people, but I am still using a paper planner in today’s day and age. I am not one to write much down on paper, but I do like planning out my week with the Simplified Planner. Every Sunday, I take out my planner and write in everything that is going on that week. There is also a space to write what we are having for dinner each night.
   • I use the weekly version of the planner because I like opening it up and seeing the entire week in one place. I don’t write down anything work-related in this planner, so I am using it more for personal appointments and keeping track of errands that I need to run. This planner is also good for keeping track of blog posts and what days I plan on publishing those posts.
2. Google Docs
   • I create a new Google Doc for each trip that we go on. I create an itinerary and list out any reservations that we have. This is a really easy way to stay organized when you’re traveling. It is super convenient because you can access your Google Doc directly from your smartphone. I can also share the document with friends and family and allow them to edit the document and contribute their ideas.
   • This was extremely helpful to have while we were traveling abroad in Spain because everything was in one place on my phone. We had all of our confirmation numbers listed out in the document along with the times we had booked for certain events. If you aren’t using Google Docs to organize your travel plans, start doing it now! It might save you several headaches down the road.
3. OneNote
   • Another tool that I use to organize our travel is OneNote. I think of this tool as a big digital notebook. You can create new sections of your “notebook” and new pages within those sections. It is extremely helpful for organizing my blog content and travel plans. I have a section dedicated towards each one of those areas.
   • For the blog section, I have several pages with different information. I have a page that is for brainstorming blog ideas, and I have a page for each month of the year. For example, I have a page called “September Blog Posts,” and I will use that to plan out all of the posts I want to do in the month of September.
   • For the travel section, I follow a similar approach. I have one page that is a travel wish list/bucket list. At the beginning of 2018, this was full of all the places I wanted to travel to this year. As we started to plan and book our trips, I would create a new page for each trip.
4. Folders within E-mail
   • If you aren’t using folders to organize your e-mails, I honestly don’t know how you function. I cannot leave things in my inbox, so everything I receive either gets deleted or is moved to a folder. This is especially helpful when organizing our travel plans and reservations. I have hundreds of e-mails with different hotel reservations, airline reservations, etc. Instead of leaving all of these e-mails in my inbox, I move them all to a separate travel folder. If I need to access them, I know exactly where they are!
   • I use this method for both work and personal e-mails. My inbox is essentially my to-do list, so I can’t just let old e-mails sit there. If you feel like you’re losing control when it comes to your inbox, I would suggest implementing a system like this. Folders are a great way to keep everything clean and organized. Also, if you get a lot of junk mail or shopping e-mails, you can write rules to send those directly to a separate folder. I don’t think any of us have time to look through 100+ shopping e-mails per day!
5. Outlook Calendar
   • I use Microsoft Outlook for my work e-mail and calendar, and this is where I spend the majority of my time. I am constantly checking my e-mails and looking at my calendar throughout the day. Since I look at this calendar hundreds of times per day, I decided it would be a good idea to put EVERYTHING on the Outlook calendar. I put doctor’s appointments, date nights, vacations, Junior League meetings and just about every else on that calendar. Yes….Alex and I literally send each other meeting invites for our date nights and other events we have together. The nice thing is that you can make anything a private appointment on your calendar. This way, your co-workers can’t snoop on your personal life.
   • The Outlook calendar has been a game changer for me in terms of staying organized, so I am going to keep up with this approach. I also love that all of these events automatically populate the calendar on my smartphone. Overall, using this method has been easy to manage because I am only dealing with one calendar. There’s one source of truth and nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Do you use any of these tools to stay organized? If so, which ones? Are there other tools that you love when it comes to planning and organizing? I would love to hear what some of your favorites are!