Scheduling 2021 Monthly Projects

I took about two days to sit down and write concrete dates on each month and planning projects for the month of January.

Those items were:

Birthdates and anniversaries – I keep a perpetual calendar (undated by month) where I write all the birthdates/anniversaries for family and friends. (I keep this list on my home binder and update it throughout the year if needed).

School dates – days off/conferences/special deadlines, etc.

I have done the two items above for a couple years.  The items below are new and these were prompted by the suggestion in Martha Stewart’s Organizing book.

Doctor Appointments – I was able to write confirmed appointments down, however, this exercise reminded me to add a “to-do” item to call and make annual appointments. i.e., In May, I need to call and make an appointment for July for my daughter’s annual checkup. 

I have struggle with this one in the past.  My kids always end up with annual check ups two months after their birthdates, which is not a big deal.  Until she needed a sport checkup for the school tennis team and the doctor would not do one because she had not had her annual checkup.  She ended up being bench for the first couple of games. Woops!   I am hoping this scheduling ahead will help.

Seasonal Housekeeping To-Dos – Martha gives a nice list of what those seasonal to-dos are.  However, I chose two from the list.  I want to start slow and not feel overwhelmed.  I am hoping starting slow will give me a better chance to continue doing the projects throughout the year.

          For January, I chose to stock up and organize the pantry and to deep clean the washing machine. I picked these two items since I have never done this before as part of my “keeping house” routine.  I planned for January 11th to take inventory of the pantry and January 20th to clean the washer.

House Declutter project – One of the recommendations in the book is to declutter the house.  This is meant to maintain the house easier.  Instead of doing the whole house in one month (remember I’m taking this slow) I am doing one part of the house per month. 

For January, I will be decluttering the entryway.  I have added this as part of the whole month and not in a specific date.  I am interested to find out if I will need to set a date for it or if I will accomplish it without one ahead of time.

New Habits – In the past years, I have done lists of all the new habits I want to start in the new year (some of them are repeated year after year, like exercising).  But I never thought of scheduling them in my planner ahead of time as appointments.  In 2021 one of the habits (a repeat), I want to form is to go outside and walk for a minimum of 20 minutes at least 3 times per week.  I took the time and schedule a 20-minute walk on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 

Here is what I realized by doing this exercise of scheduling the month ahead.  I hesitated.  I hesitated mostly in the new habits.  It felt as if there was no point in adding them on my calendar when I would be walking or cleaning the washer machine, because what if something popped up?  What if something better came along? What if…?

But the more I thought about it, the more I see the point of doing them ahead.  It is giving a priority of what I want to accomplish.  It might give an opportunity for those new habits to be formed when I do not leave them to chance of “when I have time”.  I know I want to take care of the house and I want to work on my health, so why not prioritize them first?  I think the moment of hesitation was a bit of moment of reflection on whether I truly wanted to do it.  Now I just have to stick to it, treat it as an appointment. I guess I will know by February how it worked out.

Xo,

Maria