Tag: orginization

My experience with Artful Agenda

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I’ve entirely quit bullet journaling.

I’ve been bullet journaling for years. And it’s served me well. It’s helped me write and publish books, care for my home, myself and my husband, and keep my plants alive.

As a quick disclaimer, I have a referral code for the planner I’m going to be talking about. So if you buy it and use my code, I will get some money. This company did not approach me or ask me to write this. I am giving my opinion on a tool that you might enjoy. Most of it’s good, some of it isn’t. But if this product seems like something you’d like, and you want to support me, you can use this code when you buy it. RN1371570

I started using the Artful Agenda in August. This was when I was deep in moving mode and all of my crafting supplies were packed. My fellow crafters will know my pain. No stickers. No scrapbook paper. No Tombow brush pens or Zebra midliners. I had my fountain pen and some ink. So when I saw an offer for a few free weeks of the virtual planner Artful Agenda, I thought it was worth a try. I wasn’t likely to lose my tablet and my laptop while moving, after all.

Though we did manage to misplace the Darling Husband’s massive toolbox.

At this point, I’ve been using the planner for two months. And I have to say, it’s really been enjoyable.

The Artful Agenda looks very much like a virtual day planner. There are month, week, and day views.

And, there are stickers.

It works with my brain

I have anxiety. It mimics ADHD symptoms sometimes, when I have a bunch of things I’m super worried about and feel like I need to do All The Things at once. So, I constantly forget things. Which leaves me with this blinding fear that I have forgotten some Very Important Thing.

Or worse, I’ll hyperfocus on a thing that I can’t do right now, but need to remember to do. Like if I need to remember to get cash out, or pick up prescriptions, or water the plants on a certain day.

Using Artful Agenda, I’ve developed a simple routine. When I think of something that needs to be done, I add it to a list on the day it needs to be done. Then, I can forget about it.

Schedule a doctor’s appointment? Type it down right away.

Remember Oliver needs his nails clipped? Put it on the to-do list for my next day off.

Suddenly realize that if I want garlic in the spring, I need to plant it now? Add garlic bulbs to the shopping list and a note to plant the damned things.

Then, it’s a simple matter of checking my list in the morning to see what I need to do. Bam. I do a weekly brain dump of things that need to be done once a week, and all of my to-do lists are ready to go.

I also have the option to put in repeating tasks. Like social media tasks, daily chores, and other boring things that I’ll forget to write down and thus forget to do. I type it in once, set it to repeat, and we’re all good.

It’s cute and leaves room for creativity

As I mentioned earlier, the Artful Agenda has a lot of stickers. It comes with a bunch, but you can also buy additions. Which is honestly cheaper than buying planner stickers irl because they can be used over and over.

At least, that’s the excuse I’m using.

I really love that I can change the cover art whenever I want. Because I am a fickle thing and I crave change. This was something I enjoyed when I was using the Erin Condren life planner, except that those covers are nine to fourteen dollars per cover before shipping, and I get covers for my Artful Agenda as part of a sticker pack that cost me seven bucks.

Honestly, the EC planners were an obsession for me for a minute. But I just looked at the website for the first time in years, and you could easily put over a hundred dollars into your planner. In this economy?

I love the variety of the Artful Agenda stickers, but I also enjoy that I can add my own. You can upload any stickers you want. I made some in Canva for my witchy events, and they are delightful.

I can also copy and paste images from the internet and add them to my lists. So I can toss a cute cheese platter image at the bottom of my shopping list, or a watercolor pumpkin under my Halloween Bucket list. So, while I’m not playing as much with my pens and scrapbook supplies, I still have lots of creative freedom on the virtual page.

It’s always with me

I am constantly out doing stuff. I don’t want to be. I want to be home with my boys and French press. But I have to go get errands done. I have to go to doctor appointments. I have to do the adulting things.

So, it’s nice that my planner can go with me. I don’t have to worry about copying my shopping list; it’s right there on my Artful Agenda app. My whole calendar is on there too, so I can immediately put in the ever-present three-month check-up appointment right when the nurse tells me about it.

The Artful Agenda has a desktop app, a mobile app, and an online option. So I can even check my planner on my work pc or a public computer if I ever need to.

And I don’t have to carry a whole bag of stuff! Listen, I love paper. Obviously, this blog is called Paper Beats World. But back in the day, I was likely to be carrying a book, a notebook, my bullet journal, and a handwritten rough draft in my bag at any given time. Now, I carry my tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard.

It saves me time

The day page is really the landing page for the day. It’s got a calendar view to the left. On the right, there’s spaces for a to-do list, habit tracker, appointments, and notes on the day. I can put in dinner plans and have a place to keep track of Darling Husband’s blood sugar readings. The dinner plans and sugar readings are transferred to my weekly view, too. So at a glance, I can see exactly where his sugar’s been for the week.

I also don’t spend as much time decorating my agenda as I did my bullet journal. Now, I love playing with paper crafts. I love stickers, sketching, and junk journaling. But that’s the thing. I love junk journaling. And the time I have to play with paper crafts is limited. So I’d rather have time to create in my junk journal than my planner.

It isn’t perfect

Of course, there are downsides to everything. For one, on Monday, when Amazon was down, so was Artful Agenda. Which meant I was facing Monday without my to-do list.

No, I don’t remember everything I needed to do. If I could do that, I wouldn’t need a planner in the first place.

It was eventually fixed, and they even put in a new free sticker pack as an apology. So that’s nice. And, I’ll admit, I’ve been using it since August, and this is the first time anything like this has happened.

But I don’t love that it can happen. My bullet journal never had a server issue, is all I’m saying.

Of course, that wouldn’t be an issue if there were an offline mode. Which there isn’t. And I don’t carry a phone. So if I’m out, I’d better hope the wifi is working or I can’t update my shopping list. I can see it, but I cannot update it.

Overall though, using the Artful Agenda has been an upgrade in my planning. I’m spending less time doing planning and more time doing the actual things. Which is, after all, the whole point of organization to start with.

If you want to check it out, don’t forget that I’ve got a referral code. RN1371570. It’s a good way to check out the planner and support Paper Beats World at the same time. And if you do try it, or have tried it, let me know what you thought of it in the comments.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what I do here, please consider liking and sharing this post and leaving a comment. You can also support me financially on Ko-fi.

Spooky season is coming, and it’s time for some creepy reads. Check out my horror novel Quiet Apocalypse, about a witch trapped in her apartment during a dark winter storm with a demon devoted to ending the world.

Or check out my horror short, The Man In The Woods. A man tries desperately to protect his granddaughter from the mysterious man in the woods. But his fear only grows when a new housing complex is built too close to the woods.

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The Writing Life- The Writer’s Planner

Do you have a planner? It’s the start of a new year, so you might have just gotten a new one. If you haven’t, you’ve at least seen them all over the damn place.

Planners are either something basic that everyone needs, or a really unhealthy scrap booking obsession, depending on your outlook on life. I’m sort of part of the second group, but I’m working on it. You need it to remember appointments, class and work schedules, due dates, the whole thing. The more chaotic your life, the more you need a planner. And if you’re trying to fit a writing career into your life, it’s chaotic.

Personally, I use two planners. My fiance and I keep a google calendar that we both add to, so we’re not planning things that overlap each other. I’ve also got my personal weekly planner that’s on paper, journal style that comes with me everywhere. I use this to keep track of work and school and appointments, but chances are you don’t give a damn about that. More importantly, I use my planner to keep track of my writing.

Here are some things I do with my planner that makes me a better writer.

Deadlines

First thing, of course. I like to try to enter contests when I’m not working on rough drafts. Contests have deadlines. I write the deadlines on my planner as soon as I decide I’m going to enter a contest. Because it’s me, I also put a little bomb sticker next to them, so they stick out when I’m flipping through pages. This not only helps me keep in mind deadlines, it lets me know if I’m about to over commit myself. If I flip to February and see I’ve got two deadlines that month, that’s a big red stop sign telling me to not enter any more contests with deadlines in that month unless I’m ready to sacrifice one of the others or have already submitted a piece for it.

Writing dates

I make a date with myself, at least once a week, to go out and write somewhere that isn’t home. I write better then, and can focus more when I’m not at home with the kids, cat and dishes. Not to mention this great new smart tv that’s got Netflix. My goodness, nothing is more distracting than knowing I can sit down and watch all of Firefly any time I want.

I also block out writing time the same way I’d block out time to take kids to the doctor or work. I have to do that thing then, there’s no getting around it. Seeing it on paper makes me feel committed to it.

Projected final dates for big projects

Once you’ve been writing awhile, you’ll get a rough estimate in your head of how long it takes you to do stuff. Take a really big project like writing a book. I know it will take me about fifteen pages to write a chapter, I can write about ten pages a day, so in a week I write about three, maybe four chapters. Because I outlined my book before I started, I know how many chapters are in my rough draft, 60. So, it should take me about fifteen weeks to write my rough draft. So far it’s been eight. Then I know it should take me about six months to edit it, three to write the third draft, three to write the fourth draft after my beta readers read it, another two for a final polish, and then about three weeks to get together an agent packet and start looking for an agent. So, giving some time in there for your beta readers to read it and some cushion, it takes me about two years to finish a book.

Your time will be different, so take some time to consider habits and productivity levels.

Once I have an idea of when my milestone moments will be, like finishing a draft, I write these moments on small sticky notes and put them on estimated dates. Now, this is something I highly advise. I call it a rolling deadline. These are the dates that I think I should be done. But things happen. For example, when I was writing the first draft of my last book, I realized halfway through that I’d deviated so much from my outline that the rest of the book didn’t make sense anymore. The changes were great, so I threw out the rest of my outline, and spend three days rewriting it. That set the end day back a bit.

Daily and weekly check ins

I try to have my days pretty planned. So, once a week I sit down with my planner, bullet journal and binder. (We’ll talk about binders later.) I put my day job schedule down for three weeks in advance, then factor in any obligations like deadlines, birthdays, holidays or things like that.

Then I look at the time I’ve got, and write in my bullet journal what needs done that week. I have to take that calendar into consideration. If I’ve got five appointments that week, I’ve got to know that I’m not going to have time to also write blog updates, work on Woven and still have time to edit my latest short story. Somethings not getting done, probably the short story, so I know it needs to go on next weeks to do list not this week.

I check in with my planner daily, too. Every morning, I glance over what’s still to come this week, and do a quick review of the next three weeks to come as well. That helps me keep in mind that if that contest deadline’s in three weeks, and I don’t have a rough draft done yet, I need some extra ass in the chair time.

I heard a great quote the other day. It’s not mine, but I’ve been saying it to myself ever since. “Your brain is for processing, not storing.” Don’t expect yourself to remember everything. You can’t, you won’t, and something will fall through the cracks. So keep a planner, and see how much more productive you are at the end of a year using one.

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