Hello! Lou and I just got back from our second round of vaccinations this week, and we had to treat ourselves to a dumpling lunch (and one or two leftover Empire State Building chocolate lollipops) before I got to settle down to write this post. I apologize it's late.

Today's Thursday, which means it's (typically) a Do Stuff Better day. And lately, I've been trying to manage a host of projects a bit better. I shared my new menu planning techniques last week, and this week, I'd like to look at the process of managing projects. For me, this is pretty much always blog management, but the same system works for party planning, holiday gift buying, or any work projects that involve multiple steps, prep work, and a need for flexibility.

It's helpful to look at what I was doing, I think, to help explain the process that got me to the current system. Here's a look at September's blog schedule. The most obvious flaw with this system is the medium - paper doesn't make for easy changes (though a pencil might have been useful), so I used post its to change my mind about posts. The second huge flaw is the lack of space. Though this offers a great bird's-eye view of the month, which I did find helpful, there was no room for granularity at all. Very little room for writing out the steps I needed to take to complete a post, or anything I needed to buy or make or prep for a project. Just like with meal planning, all that stuff is really helpful to have available at a glance, but I was using a bunch of different places to write it all down. Another flaw: as much as I wanted to plan out a month in advance, the project planning suffered from the same flaw as month-long meal planning, for us: things change too rapidly to really have a month-long plan be that useful. As evidenced by the sheer number of changes I ended making in September.

So this "system," if I may be so bold, solves all those problems. First, using a white board makes changing things a snap. But I wanted some permanence - a template I wouldn't have to rework every couple weeks - so I took a reader suggestion and used thin washi tape to create a grid. Second, this board shows two weeks at a time, which I think is my personal sweet spot for blog planning. Third, it offers a space to note all the prep work that needs to happen - all right on one surface. 

So here's a close up. This set up is really simple, but this layout works well for me. I've got my topic (which corresponds to my rough blog posting schedule: Decor Monday, What's for Dinner Tuesday, Make Stuff Better Wednesday, Do Stuff Better Thursday, and Friday Loves), and then two spaces for what I need and what I need to do. Sometimes I don't need anything to complete a project - I've already got it all on-hand - and sometimes I need a bunch of stuff. Similarly, sometimes I don't need to do any prep for a project, and really just need to get into the project itself, but sometimes there's a bunch of prep. The bigger project, the more steps I need to cross off my list before I can get to the meat of it. The Hall Gallery planned for Monday, for example, is a pretty big project, involving some painting and choosing which family photos I want to enlarge and have printed professionally.

So the white board is one component of my system. The second is a single journal I use for recording prett much everything that hast to, or that I want to, happen. Though I'm no longer planning for a full month of blog posts in advance, there are more than two weeks of projects happening - or at least buzzing around in my head - at any given moment. I've taken to listing everything in one journal, for blog and for life. Everything - from thank you card lists to recipe modifications to sketches for ideas - goes into one journal.

I can reference it for ideas I've had, measurements I've taken and products I plan to buy, and remove the perforated pages once certain projects, like writing said thank you cards, are complete. But I can keep things I want to, like a list of bedroom ideas as a handy reference for all the progress I've made so far. And I don't ever wonder where something is - it's all there. Though I often blog about what I'm doing in the house, I sometimes need inspiration for a post, so I turn to the journal to remind me of all my big ideas. It is very low-tech, and it doesn't have nearly the number of tabs or cross reference points, or pockets for inspiration photos or whatever dream blog organizer I originally envisioned, and tried to create. But it is very, very effective. It's small, so I can take it with me anywhere - and do - and I am really digging the simplicity. I do still have some "inspiration binders" floating around the office that I plan to tackle, and possibly integrate into this system. But that's an idea for another day.

So, that's how I'm organizing projects these days, and I like I say, I think it'd be a great system for a bunch of different types of projects. It was great for Lou's birthday party, which had some moving parts, and I'm pretty sure it would be great for event planning of all sorts. Maybe with an additional column for who was in charge of completing given tasks, if you're working with a team. I also see this system as pretty well-suited if you're making your own cleaners or holiday gifts, running your own Etsy, shop or lesson planning for your classroom.

What do you think? Does it look simple to you, or has the addition of washi tape (which, for the record, I am way, way over, and have no intentions of purchasing any more) sent this into fancy territory for you?