Who knew??

So I made a list today of all that I have to do to get ready for school. It's already up to 20 items, and about half of those things need to be subdivided into steps, so it's probably easily 3 times that many things. This year is the year I decided to go truly out on my own, I have no pre-packaged lesson plans. I never used them directly (we used a combo of CHC and Sonlight), but it was nice to crib from them to make my own schedule. Being on my own is partly exciting, and partly terrifying. I feel like I did when I went from elementary school, with the nice, safe, one or two classrooms and teachers to deal with, to middle school, where we changed classes every hour and had lockers and stuff. It was exciting, and it felt "grown-up", but also absolutely terrifying and overwhelming. For some reason, that's how I feel this year.

And I'm just not ready, as I mentioned before! I have lots of great ideas, lots of notes scribbled here and there, tentative lesson plans for at least the first 6 weeks in most subjects. But, how to organize it all? I know I'll make more binders for the kids, but I'm currently without a planning system of my own. I've used a Franklin Covey Monarch planner for years, but lately I've decided it's just too big, bulky, and heavy. I have a PDA, which I love for basic calender functions (and ebook reading!), but it doesn't help me with lesson plans, household management stuff, etc. Also, as I've experimented with electronic stuff, I've come to realize that I'm a very visual, tactile sort of person, and I need stuff Written Down. Preferably someplace pretty and clean and organized.

So, in a great confluence of events, I came across Lissa's Planning Post. It led me on great rabbit-trails! I have not researched planners in quite some time, and boy oh boy is there lots of cool stuff out there. There's all the ones in Lissa's post, plus this looks like a place where I could really drop a lot of cash (if I had it, of course), as does this. This is a great article, and so is this. And wow! Who knew? An entire e-store devoted to all things planners?

The mind boggles with all this great stuff and ideas. It's probably a good thing our finances are in such a bind, otherwise I'd be spending it all on planners! Instead, I will use the wonderful ideas I'm coming across and utilize what I have.

I'm considering just making a whole bunch of binders. I can decorate them prettily, like Kim did with her household management notebook last year. I used to think that I wanted one binder with everything in it, which is what I tried to do with my big Franklin Monarch planner, but it just isn't usable. I'm thinking about creating several - an education binder, a household management binder, a personal binder (with my journal and prayer journal, stuff like that pertaining just to me), in addition to revising my kitchen binder a bit.

Hmmm...lots to think about and ponder. I really wish I could have all my Systems down before school starts, that was the original plan. However, life intervened, and I'm afraid I'll be thinking about this for months. And that's ok, cuz for a planning kind of person like me, it's kind of fun! :-)