This is how crazy organized people are

And so the journey otherwise known as Organizing My Life ends one chapter and begins another.

I am going to switch planners.

Since my first introduction to Stephen Covey and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in 1994 at a leadership class at Huntington College, my planning system and organizers have been Covey-based.

The system proved most effective my junior year of college, when I went temporarily insane and became an RA, edited the student newspaper, and took my heaviest load of English classes (5 in one semester). Literally every minute of every day had to be planned to fit everything in. I still have the daily calendar pages from that year, because I still can't believe how ridiculously busy I was - and since I wrote down every single thing, it's practically a journal for that year.

During my first year of teaching, I even bought a new, updated binder, one that I LOVE, and not just because it has a bright, cheerful blue cover.


Covey's planner system is great, but I think it might be more useful to professionals (which I can't really call myself anymore) or students who are busy with set appointments during the day. I only have one or two appointments per day now; I've looked at the Covey monthly planning pages instead of the daily pages many times, but they are too small and don't seem to fit what I need. (This doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't read 7 Habits the book; I think every working adult should read it.)

I discovered FlyLady.net a few years ago but have only really embraced its principles this past year, when we moved into our first house. FlyLady is a completely different system - and so requires a different kind of planner, what she calls the Control Journal. Getting organized begins with the Control Journal; FlyLady uses just a simple, everyday, standard size 3-ring binder. I have been trying to fit the FlyLady system into the Covey planner, since I already had a binder I liked. Ok, LOVED.

But in trying to mix the two, I have been putting off getting organized because I wanted my planner to be Perfect (anyone who is familiar with FlyLady knows what I'm talking about!). Hard to do when the planner in question is half the size of standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper, requiring any pages I created to be arranged just so and printed the right way and if I wanted to do double-sided to save paper, I had to arrange some more and keep it all straight in my mind to print it right. What a lot of work.

One of FlyLady's main principles is "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT." We sabotage ourselves and what we're trying to do when we try to get things done perfectly.

It's not hard to see why I haven't gotten fully on board with FlyLady yet. Perfectionism is preventing me from getting out of the starting gate!

Today I've finally accepted that integrating two different systems is simply not going to happen. Not to mention, using a standard 8 1/2 x 11 binder will be MUCH EASIER to work with than bothering with something half the size that I avoid using anyway because it's such a hassle where printing is concerned. Just like when John and I sat down together to choose our wedding date (it was August; the choices were December vs. June, and you can guess which one was John's choice!) and we literally listed the pros and cons of each because John knows me so well, I sat down and listed the pros and cons of each size/type of planner, and which would work best with FlyLady's system.

The Covey planner lost. I figure I can have John sell it, along with all the dozens of unused pages (financial, medical, automotive, blank, colored, etc.) and accessories, on eBay. Because I keep things in pristine condition, it's as good as new. Any takers?

Darra got her stitches out today. After running around in joyful freedom from being a conehead, she didn't help much with this agonizing process and instead followed her usual modus operandi: she went to sleep.