While on the mini-break with Josh, I broke out my Ashley Shelly monthly planner (I have this one which is now sold out, but she still has other versions — 5″ x 8″ and 6″ x 9″!).
Not only did I spent time helping him plan, but I also basically mapped out 2022 in monthly calendar form.
I identified:
✔︎ Vacation days I plan on taking (including penciled-in numbers to count the days to make sure I have enough – I get 29/year currently which includes time off on holidays)
✔︎ Likely family trip dates with potential/tentative destinations
✔︎ Good places for future mini-breaks
✔︎ Jewish holidays I often forget to request off for (Passover + Rosh Hashanah). Though I am not personally very religious, being there for family gatherings — which are now happening again — is important to me!
Lists I created:
Since this little soft-back book has lined pages placed between each monthly layout, I decided to house my yearly lists there instead of in the Hobonichi memo book. This little book will still fit inside the A5 Hobonichi cover! Lists I made:
✔︎ 22 for 2022
✔︎ Family travel ideas
✔︎ Local outings (place to keep ideas + check off when we go!)
✔︎ Restaurants
✔︎ TV to watch
✔︎ Movies
✔︎ Couple mini-break trips / date ideas
✔︎ Cooking (ie, things to make)
✔︎ Fall fun list (my fave season to make a list for!)
✔︎ Music
✔︎ 2022 Gift List
✔︎ Ideas for 2023 (!)
Planning with Josh
Josh did not fill out a 2022 calendar, but I did help him update his lists! We took out his old lists, a bunch of sheets of paper with items on them, and one by one did a ‘capture’ where we reconfigured them onto new lists, including:
Rest of 2021 (Q4/Q5)
For 2022
Someday/Maybe
In each of these, Josh had quadrants of WORK / HOME+FAMILY / SELF / HOBBIES+PROJECTS
He also has a number of bullet journal-style “collections” in his system – Books to Read, Guitar, etc.
THEN we spent time making fun lists together such as our top 10+ movies of all time. (This is a surprisingly hard exercise, by the way!).
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Anyway, it was a fun and satisfying thing to do while away from the kids (because . . . when else can we do something like that!?).
2022
I have high hopes for this upcoming year. Not that 2021 was terrible, but I suspect 2022 will be even better.
12 Comments
I know it’s random, but I’d love to see your list of things to cook. I’m always struggling with that
Honestly I struggle too, especially b/c it can be hard to know what the kids will eat and what they will whine about. I currently use PrepDish fairly regularly which helps (they give you weekly menu plans that are easy to prep). Annabel has volunteered to help me meal plan which I think might help with both inspiration and kid-pickiness issue (though my kids are NOT picky by typical American standard, they still are more selective than Josh + me).
Thanks for sharing your list of lists! Gives me some ideas of what to put in my W222. I’ll start using it next month and am really excited about it! I’m kind of envious that Josh is up for this kind of thing because it would be a hard pass for my husband! Our ongoing joke is me telling him to ‘write this in your imaginary planner.’ He is NOT a planner at all! He has adapted to more planning in his life and understands that if we don’t make plans, we won’t see people in this stage of life. Under the Myers Briggs framework, we are opposites in every regard except we are both thinkers. I am a hard core J and he is a hard core P, though. That’s probably the biggest difference between us. But it works out and I think my parents have a similar dynamic! Although no one in my family of origin seems to plan like I do so I wonder where that tendency came from for me!
I’m hopeful for 2022 as well. I really hope the vaccine is available for our kids by the first quarter. Fingers crossed. We are going to Arizona in February to visit my sister. I kind of doubt vaccines will be available for our kids by then but at least the almost-4yo can/will wear a mask on the plane and we’ll do outdoor things down there. It will be our first family trip in 2 years and I am very much looking forward to a change of scenery in February (when we are all over the cold/snow in Minnesota). We haven’t picked dates/booked anything but I’d like to do that soon so just need to gently push my non-planning husband to commit to a long weekend.
Haha our “Js” a shared trait. I believe I’m ESFJ and he’s either INFJ or ISTJ.
I guess that’s why he doesn’t mine planning (but probably WON’T plan any social events on his own accord. lol.)
I spy a birthday in 2022! 😆
hahaha. will I discover the secrets to the universe at 42? guess i’ll (hopefully) find out!
Exciting!!! I just got my plum paper planner for 2022 and am so happy to dive in! I add seasonal shopping items to my months – like i will be throwing away my sandals today (i am an under-buyer and they are now falling apart so they MUST go or i will try to wear them again next year. Ugh) so next May when the weather is nice i’ll need to remember to buy new ones. I guess in Florida you don’t have so much seasonal stuff.
Me too! I put calendar reminders to myself to buy seasonal things otherwise I will forget until it is too late. Like, last December, I put a reminder for early November this year to buy a sled so we won’t be sad when it snows and we can’t go sledding because sleds are all sold out (as happened last December). And reminders to send birthday cards the week before the actual birthday.
I have been holding off getting my 2022 Planner Pad (I usually get it in August, and in 2020 bought it in April when a 2020 event was postponed for a year, but was eventually cancelled) because I wanted to hear your take on it. I realized today that I have a ton of 2022 dates listed in the back of my 2021 planner… and figured I’d just go order the 2022 one and not wait for your review. Then, I read this post and it made me want to ask: can you announce when your podcast will cover Planner Pads? So eager to hear your opinion on it.
I actually just bought a student Full Focus to try out, based on your reviews. I like it, and it is helping me take a closer look at my day by day (much more space for daily to do lists than Planner Pad) and tie things in to bigger goals, but I still love my Planner Pad for bigger-range planning than the 12 weeks the Full Focus offers. (For this reason alone, I can’t make FFP my only planner).
I love that you want my input but you should buy it if you love it 🙂 🙂 🙂
I haven’t put it on the calendar but maybe I will do it in mid-Nov. I was hoping to cover Sprouted with Curation (an Australia planner!) but the latter seems like it still hasn’t left AUS so I could discuss PP instead!
Oh this is so fun! Thanks for sharing your approach, always nice to hear what you cover in your planning session.
This inspires me to start my 2022 planning (and unlike you, 2021 truly was a terrible year for me – yes, 4 months of lockdown with no childcare, I’m looking at you!). I have high hopes for 2022 though- in Sydney, Australia our vaccination rates are rapidly approaching over 90% of the eligible population, and the government have promised no more lockdowns ever again, hooray. So that means planning is back!
That sounds great! Yesss 2022 sounds like it will definitely be an improvement!!