My Life as a "Planner"

I probably should have picked a career as an Event Coordinator, or Wedding Planner. 

Why, you ask.  I am a planner by nature, and an organized one at that.  It comes from my mother's side; my mother is a planner, her sisters and mother are planners, etc. etc.  Why am I thinking about this right now?  Well it's time for me to buy a 2011 planner.   That's right, I'll stand up and admit it - I'm a paper planner girl.  I am not anti-technology, far from it in fact.  I use a computer all day long, I have a cell phone, an MP3 player.. And I really did try for a long time to try to get into using a palm pilot or keeping my calendar on my work computer - but it never worked for me.  I am a write it down & cross it out kinda girl and I don't think I'll ever change.

Photo from Real Simple

My 2010 planner got quite a workout with our wedding and I'm in the market for a new one.  Is it just me, or does anyone else have a planner that looks like this: stuffed to the brim with mail, paper, notes & paper and pages filled with "to do's" and "reminders"?  My schedule got so busy that I would fill up the day, run into the margins, and then add post-it notes over it to add more stuff to do.  Unfortunately there is no other way for me to stay organized. 

In the past I have gotten a planner like the one above, with a week laid out on two pages - unfortunately, I think I need to expand.  This year I took each day and drew a line down the middle.  The left was a personal list, the right was a work one.  I ran out of room on a LOT of days.  So I might have to find one that gives me a little more room to write.  I am also not a fan of the planners that have the pages laid out so that they have a whole day on the page with the times of the day written on the side.  I don't know what time I'm going to call the gas company, I just have to do it.. I don't want to "schedule it", I just want to write it down.  I am a list girl, like I said before, I like to write it down and cross it out.

I was raised on lists, my mother was the ultimate list maker and I learned that behavior from her.  Every morning in the summer, my sister and I awoke to find our "list" of chores for the day.  I remember my mother making her grocery store lists for the week.  Still to this day when she has a party, she has a list of what needs to get done.  Me, I make lists for everything - what I need to do & who I need to call,  all of the stores I need to stop at on the weekend, grocery lists, Christmas lists... it even spilled into my work life - I make lists of what I need to work on, I even make lists for everyone else!  I even found myself making a list of things I needed to do before our Halloween party... what is a girl to do?

Photo from Real Simple

So the search begins for the perfect planner - not too big, but not too small.  It has to fit in my purse, but it has to have more room.  I'm sure I'll stop by all the usual stores - Target, Office Max - but will I find the perfect one?  Only time will tell.  Fifty-Six days to find one, Fifty-Six days till the end of the year - and why do I know that?  It's written in my planner.