7 Ideas for Non-Traditional Planners

Many times a traditional planner or organizer does not meet your needs. It is too hard to add information, too cumbersome to carry with you, and too hard to pull up information. Thank you to my friends and colleagues on social media who have shared a multitude of non-traditional ways to keep on top of information, routines, and dates.

• After serious reflection (I’m a traditional planner girl), the best non-traditional management system I have are my dogs. Milo and Wilson tell me what time to wake up, when to feed them when to go outside, when to vacuum, and when to go to bed.

• We sit down and go over “what’s coming up” and then put it on a weekly dry-erase board for my son with ADHD. We write any activities, appts, quizzes/tests/project due dates, practices/games, etc on there every Sunday for the upcoming week. We have a bulletin board where we pin any notices, permission slips, etc that might need to be returned somewhere on a given date. He’s going into 8th grade and this has really helped him stay on track and be more independent during the week with his responsibilities. We also use the Cozi app as a family and that not only helps us with reminders but allows all of us to see what other family members have going on that may affect our own schedules or our combined family schedule. My daughter also has ADHD but she prefers a traditional paper planner for her personal use (as do I). She is also a huge Post-it note user! Lol, She even wrote about it in part of her college application essay.

• Alexa. I can say “add whatever to whatever list” from anywhere in the house while thinking about it. If I had to stop and manually add it I would forget what I was doing when the idea popped in my head to add whatever to the list.

• When my three kids were little, I made a big board that had “this week” and “next week” columns. It was wet erase and magnetic. Each child had a different color pen and it gave a two-week snapshot. (The normal agenda kept all dates to be written on board)

• My husband and I use small index cards to remind us of various things plus one in the kitchen for grocery needs.

• My husband and I use “Any List” app on our phone for our grocery shopping list. I can add something and it shows up on both of our phones, etc. We started this because sometimes we would each stop at the grocery to pick something up and end up with duplicates. I haven’t tried it yet, but evidently, you can “send your list” to Kroger, H‑E‑B, Walmart, etc. for online shopping. We even have a “Galveston” list for groceries, etc. we need there. It is a fabulous app!

• My world is 90% digital when it comes to planning, lists, and notes……except when it comes to groceries and meals. It’s all here, on the refrigerator. This is where my kids can see it too. They know what dinner will be (and who is cooking it! They’re 15 and 18 and make dinner sometimes!). They can add their grocery and personal care needs to our lists anytime (one for everyday groceries, one for the big box store where we stock up). They know what to do, they know the system. They even know what we get at the regular grocery store and what we prefer to buy at Costco. They help me compare prices at our 2 stores to find the best (ever-changing) prices on our favorite items, I’ve taught them this practice since they were very young. We keep most of our recipes digital and I text specific recipes to whatever kid is making that specific meal so they have that information at their fingertips. We work as a team to meal plan weekly.

While these are not your traditional planner or organizer, you can definitely see how effective these are! There are so many ways to track your tasks and keep up with dates.