Planning Ideas and Resources For The New Year

Around here we're not big on resolutions, but now that the holidays are coming to a close and life is settling into a regular pace, we took a few hours yesterday to look over our l-o-n-g ongoing project list and began making a plan to start chipping away at it.  Rather than thinking big picture and planning out the whole year, we just focused on what seemed do-able for January, then towards the end of the month we'll revisit and see what we were able to accomplish.

Along with that, I  have my own list of ideas and projects that I'm mulling over, books I'd like to read, ideas for posts I want to share here with you, as well as making an earnest effort to get back to writing my book, which is something I barely touched this year. There are also a number of crafting projects I'd like to try my hand at. . . . if I'm honest, there are so-many-things that pique my interest, I have a hard time narrowing it all down. That's why I like to keep lists and plan things out, and while I do utilize my phone, at heart, I still prefer an old fashioned paper planner.

I've been putting together my own planner for awhile now, and it's something I look forward to about this time every year. That along my with my portable office cart is how I keep things organized and running smoothly. My planner has varied over the years, but at this point I've finally settled upon a system that is working well. I'll be sharing more about that in the coming days, but for today I thought I'd direct you to some of the free resources that I've used in the past, and some that I still do. Perhaps if you've shifted to your sights toward the new year and have your own list of to-do's, you might find some of these helpful.

2025 Yearly Calendar

This website offers a number of options for a one year page at a glance calendar. I keep one of these at the front of my planner as well as another on clipped to the front of my weekly files.

2025 Monthly Calendars

And at the same website, you'll find monthly calendars that you can print, as well. 

Weekly Calendars

This website offers a number of styles for weekly, day-to-day planners, and here is another one that looks nice. 

To-Do List

I've found a to-do list to be one of the best tools to help me keep things moving and achieving my goals. Something about writing it down and getting it out of my head and on to the paper. I'm much more likely to get it done if it's somewhere I can see it every day.

Suggested Home File Categories For Organizing Your Filing System

One of the things on my to-do list is go through and clean out and organize my files. These category suggestions might prove helpful.

From here you'll find a number of other ideas you could include to help you break down tasks and stay organized. 

- 12 Lists To Help You Organize Your Life

- Home Project Notebook - I really like some of the ideas I found here!

- Make A Yearly Meal Plan - I don't know about planning meals for an entire year, but she has some good ideas! My friend, Heather, breaks her meal plans down by season and that's something I plan to try to implement this year.

- Password Log in today's age, keeping up with ALL the passwords can be challenging. Having them logged in one place can be a huge timesaver.

- Subscription / Membership Tracker - this is something I'm going to be adding to my planner soon. It's just too easy to lose track of things you're paying for but never use!

- Monthly Re-set - 10 things to do at the beginning of each month. I LOVE this idea!

This should give you plenty of ideas and resources work with, and if you don't find what you need, just Google "Free Planning and Organization Forms" or visit Pinterest and you'll find more resources than you'll ever need. As for me, I like to take an idea and then create my own forms using fonts and colors that I like, so that's what I'll be doing with a few of the resources I linked above.  I also have other forms I've made, and I'll be sharing those here in the days and weeks to come. I'm going to begin the year with a series of posts about my homemaking routines, so if you like that sort of thing, be sure to come back and visit. I'll be sprinkling posts on other topics as well to keep things interesting and I hope you'll join me!

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