Way back like 7 years ago, I used to be known in my circle of friends as either the cupcake queen or the planner queen, I was obsessed with both for a short time. Kid you not, I had at one time 3 Happy Planners, two of them were for my kids that I decorated for their school work and one for myself for all the important tasks and events in our lives.
Thankfully, I am down to one planner. I have tried and failed miserably to find a planner that suits all the things I need for the many facets of my life: homeschooling, photography, household tasks, etc. I’ve tried bullet journals, Happy Planners, Plum Planners, and a plain notebook to plan and organize my crazy life. None of them succeeded until now.
I bring you: The Home Edit Planner.
This guy and 3 other things I use, is how I try to stay organized throughout the year with my photography business and my home life.
Backstory: Two years ago, I had a mass increase in sessions throughout my fall season that I could not remember for the life of me a.) how I got through that and b.) how I made sure I sent out my client’s galleries. I stole a whiteboard and marker from one of my children to use to keep track of my sessions and where I was at with them (session taken place, editing and sent gallery to client). It was making me crazy and stressed that my organizational skills were this terrible.
Here’s how I stay organized
I use these five things:
This whole organization plan is partly thanks to a fabulous photographer that I follow and the rest of it is made up of what works for me.
Post-it Notes
I use four different colored Post-It’s for a different task. I use these to block off dates in both my Home Edit Calendar and my Day Designer wall calendar. Blue is for family sessions, pink is personal activities, orange is seniors and yellow is tasks I need to complete for my business. ** I totally realize that orange is not in the picture below**
Honeybook
I use Honeybook for mostly sorting my inquiries for projects, and also for sending contracts and invoices. If you are a photographer and would love to use Honeybook, I have a coupon code for you! Click the link below!
Day Designer Calendar
With my Post-it notes in hand and my Honeybook open I go to my wall calendar and start blocking off dates for personal activities like birthdays and trips first, for the next three months. So if I’m starting a new year, I’ll start blocking off these dates in December so I know my availability for the first quarter (January – March). Then in March I’ll do it for the following quarter.
Then I fill in the dates for sessions, and business tasks I want to complete in those three months. This guy is hanging in my office space that I share with the hubs, next to my desk so if I’m working at my desk responding to emails from clients I have that right in front of me!
Home Edit Planner
Then I’ll do the same thing in my planner book, that I leave usually in our kitchen area of our house, because, like I said above, it holds all the information for my daily tasks I need to do.
Plain lined notebook
Last thing I use to help keep myself organized is mostly used when I have a session I’m planning or editing, is a plain lined notebook. This keeps track of where I am in that process with each session I do. It is especially helpful in the fall when I have a bunch of sessions in a row that I need to make sure that I’ve held the session, imported the images and actually sent the gallery. And yes, fellow photographers, before you say anything about Honeybook, I do utilize Honeybook, but I’m a paper and pen kind of gal.
So that is it! That is how this lady stays organized with all the areas of my life. It truly has helped me out this past fall when my busy season hit. This planner and calendar has helped me visualize how full my weeks are as well as, when to plan out the future months. It probably seems a bit complicated but it works for me and that’s what matters right?
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