Fall Planning

A new season will soon be here! I love the changing seasons ... and I love organizing. And somehow, the start-up of another year of school signals a time for organizing/planning for me. My children are all grown, so there are no preparations here in our home for the start-up of another school year. But still, I am in that mode, maybe from having had children in our home for 34 years total (as our six have a range of 17 years between the oldest and the youngest). Also as we work with a ministry to high school students (with Cru), our year continues to cycle with the school year.

So, this busy, but wonderful time of year is here again! And as I am a lover of organizing and planning, I've come across a few ideas that I will be trying out this new season. In addition to my Organizher notebook planner and my planning on my iPhone with Evernote, I'll be collecting ideas and planning helps in what I will call my File Folder Planner. Click here to read where I got this idea.

File Folder Planner

The idea is to set up a folder for each week of the year and use it to collect ideas, recipes, planning charts, etc., that you would like to use each week. If you don't get to using the idea on the designated week, you can easily transfer it to another week. There will be so many ways that I hope to use this system.

For example, this file folder planner will help me with actually choosing which week to try out the new recipes that I clip from the Taste of Home magazine or find on Pinterest, etc., - designating a certain time to try and use each one, instead of having them get lost and forgotten in the busyness of life. I also plan to use it to collect fun seasonal ideas to use for our grandkids when they come over - fun ideas that I am always watching for.

Another way that I'll be using it is to hold the printed sheets of a house/holiday prep plan that I may use this fall season. Click here to read about the House and Holidays Plan that I came across recently online. I like how this plan not only covers planning for the holidays, but also incorporates cleaning into the prep for the holidays. I love organizing, but the actual cleaning of a home is a chore and challenge for me. This plan integrates them both and should help keep me on track with all the preparations, and all the cleaning of our home that are needed for the fall season, and also for the holidays - breaking them down week-by-week. The plan begins the first week of September, so it's the perfect time to start following along with the House and Holidays Plan.

For my File Folder Planner, I created printed labels (using cardstock, cutting them out, and attaching them to the folders) for each week, and also printed out more little labels for holidays and our family birthdays to attach to the front of each week's folder. (With our family of 22, there are a lot of special days to keep track of and plan for!) 

What are some ways that you would use a file folder planning system?

Linking up with:
I'm Lovin' It
Saturday Show & Tell
Works For Me Wednesday