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My Amazing Month

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This is a blog post straight from the heart. I need help! I need My Amazing Month! Do you ever feel like you are your own worst enemy? I did really well last year to lose a bit of weight and improve my work life balance and self-care. I made great progress with all my projects but it has all started going badly wrong!! I feel like I need a kick start to a new routine and to find some motivation from somewhere. Do you know the feeling?

It is time to stop thinking about it. It is time to stop putting this off until next week, next month, next year and start making the changes. Join me and we will knock ourselves into shape together!!

I don’t know when you are reading this. I am writing it just at the start of a month. I have missed the first two days and I am tempted to put this all off until the start of next month but NOOOO!!!!! that is just more of the same bad attitude and there is no need…. This is ONE month – it doesn’t have to be a calendar month. Download the tracker, print it, fill it out and START NOW!!!

Let me introduce you to the tracker that will help us sort ourselves out!! There are five sections to the tracker – five sections that you need to give thought to as you prepare for your Amazing Month!

1. Focus

This section of the tracker is where you put the areas of your life you want to focus on. I have allowed space for five items here. Any more than five and you are not focussed! Arguably you could only include one item here, it all depends what you want to fix! Whatever you put as your focus I would ask you to consider including self-care. Life is so pressured and we are all so hard on ourselves. It is easy to forget that we have a responsibility to look after our mental well being.

2. Goals

Use this section to capture the goals you are setting yourself for the month. These should be things that you can achieve in the space of a month as progress towards your wider/life goals. If you are looking to complete a larger project then break it down into a realistic chunk that you can deliver if you really apply yourself for 31 days! I will share my completed tracker here so you can see the challenge I am setting myself. I also plan to post my part completed tracker each week so you can see whether or not this process is working for me!

3. Daily Tracker

This is the business section. Look at your goals and focus and work out what actions or habits you need to set in order to deliver against your 31 day goals. There is enough space to record 10 items here but if you feel you need more just print more sheets! I suggest you also write the items you are going to track on an index card or other small format that you can keep with you all the time. You could print two copies of the tracker and cut this section out to keep with you. Keep checking the balance of the things you are tracking. Make sure you leave room for self-care and try not to make the schedule so punishing that you can’t keep to it. The idea here is to plan for success.

4. I am doing this because…..

This is your space to remind yourself of why you are doing this. Try to put thoughts and feelings into this box that will keep you going through the month when things get hard. Things will get hard if you have set your goals appropriately but the messages you give yourself here will carry you through. One thing that drives me as I start My Amazing Month is that the do nothing option doesn’t leave me in the same position in a months time. Everything would be on month worse!! 🙂

5. Treats!

Ok – it cannot be hard work all the way. There have to be some treats to look forward to and to fall back on when things get too hard! Consider here which treats would fit in well with your goals. There is no point in having a box of chocolates as a treat if losing weight is one of your goals! This is just one month remember?! You have to try to live without the box of chocolates for 31 days! List here the things that you would like to have as treats during the month.

One of the by-products of my plans for the month is a significant cash saving. I am planning to do more walking and less eating and drinking! This means I can plan a nice treat at the end of the month, a spa visit or some new clothes. Why not see whether you can make savings as part of your Amazing Month and then you can use any spare money to treat yourself to something at the end of the challenge.

That covers all the preparation work. Here is the free download and below that is a picture of my completed tracker as I start My Amazing Month.

My Amazing Month – A4 (172 downloads) My Amazing Month – Letter (54 downloads)
My Amazing Month - tracker

Are you going to join me? I don’t know how many people this will reach but I would love to hear from you in the comments section if you are joining me in this challenge. I will share my progress and I look forward to hearing about your success too!

If you like this tracker then please check out my other pages where you will find printables to help you organise life and plan family activities.

Have an AMAZING MONTH!!!

Annie 🙂

Get Organised!!!

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Three more basics for your family bullet journal. I use these more than any other pages in my bullet journal so I thought I would create them as loose leaf templates for you. The downloads are available in A4 and letter formats.  

Get Organised!!!!

Do list

The trusty do list! I used to have several of these running in different notebooks and a couple of electronic ones for good measure! I recognise that my do list habits are not good. Habits such as adding tasks to the list that are already complete (so I can give myself a tick)…. not really helpful. Another trap I often fall into is putting enormous tasks on the list that I have no hope of completing… again not conducive to making progress. Here are some tips for constructing a useful motivating do list….

  1. Make each task clear so it is obvious when it has been completed.
  2. Break down larger tasks into actionable elements
  3. Only put tasks on the list that you can complete yourself
  4. Put the tasks on the list that will make a real difference
  5. Put the hardest tasks first and do them first or alternate one hard one easy. 

Final tip from me is to date the tasks. Write down the first date you put the task on the list. This is one thing I started doing when I realised my do lists going back months had some of the same items on. These were items I always wrote down but never actioned. I was constantly carrying the weight of failure to complete these actions. Either these were things that weren’t important to me (or anyone) or I was really letting myself down by not doing them! One item that sat on my list for more than a year was to start a blog! 🙂 

Do List - prints to A4 paper (216 downloads)

Do list - prints to Letter paper (167 downloads)

The printable formats you can download here have a space to include the date. If you find a task sitting on the list for a long time then consider…is it REALLY something you want to do? If so GET ON WITH IT! If not, strike it from the list and give yourself a break!  

When did I last….

This is a great tracker for routine tasks. Everything from changing beds and towels to caring for pets and cleaning rooms that aren’t in frequent use (if you are lucky enough to have them!). Even jobs that are supposed to be done weekly get a slot on my list and putting them here means my do list doesn’t fill up with repetitive routine.   

You can also use this tracker as a reminder to stay in touch. Time passes soooo quickly. Adding reminders such as when did I last call Jack or visit Rachel reminds you not to lose touch. Fill out the list and check it over each week.  

When did I last... prints to A4 (214 downloads)

When did I last... prints to letter paper (239 downloads)

Activities List

This is one of the layouts we use as a family to record things that any of us would like to do. We have often used it at the start of school holidays to work out how we will spend any free time we have together. Having this list helps to get the best ideas together. The first step is to brainstorm all the activities each member of the family would like to do. We keep a list open all the time and add to it whenever the inspiration comes!

The layout includes columns to estimate the cost and to indicate whether an activity is indoors/outdoors… important when you consider the normal British weather. Using the completed list to drive the discussion about how to spend time as a family teaches us lots of interesting things:

  1. The budget is not limitless
  2. Everyone likes doing different things
  3. Negotiation and persuasive skills are needed if you want your activity to make it to the top of the list
  4. Time is precious!

The layout also includes a section where you can add notes and review the activity. We use a simple method of *’s out of 5 and each member of the family has a colour they normally use. I think this teaches us that it isn’t always the expensive activities that are the most enjoyable. The ratings people give can be a real eye-opener!

Activity Planner - prints to A4 (507 downloads)

Activity planner - prints to letter paper (223 downloads)

Next week I have a habit and sleep tracker for you… or I will have if I complete all the actions on my do list! Have a good week!!

Annie 🙂

Simple weekly planner

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Hello 🙂    This is a quick post to show you my latest planning tool.      Apparently we are all more likely to stick to plans we write down so this is my way of making my plans for the week sticky!

Planning the week on a Sunday evening works well for me.    It only takes 10 minutes because the bones of the planner are already printed.     I am trying to get fitter so the activities I am tracking are gym/swim/run.    These are printed on the first download below but the second has blank activities so you can fill in with whatever you need your week to look like.

The Do List has tick boxes so you can mark the actions complete.   I use a little arrow pointing to the right when I haven’t completed something but plan to carry it forward to the following week…..   I do quite a lot of that!

I have a more detailed planner for each day which I use at the weekends but for the week this one works for me!   This link takes you to my daily planner post which also has a free download.

This planner is very much based on what I use in my own daily life.   I would love to get some feedback from you.   Feedback would help me adapt my designs to what you would like to track each week.   What would you find helpful in a planner or action tracker?

That’s all from me.    I did say it would be short.    Here are the two downloads.

simple weekly planner (186 downloads) , simple weekly planner - blank (191 downloads)

happy planning!

Annie 🙂