Trying to find organizational peace

I find it hard to believe that we are closing in on the end of the semester and I still have not been able to find an organizational system that works for me. I guess I should be happy that I'm still struggling and haven't thrown my hands up and said 'whateva'...... At least I'm still working on finding one.

In my last post, I had these grand ideas of having all my lessons/materials in my electronic planbook, making notes every single day on how the day went, adjusting curriculum on the fly, cleaning every day/week so things stay organized.  Yeah, that didn't happen.

I have come to a couple of realizations though. My main problem is that I make all these notes or set up all these systems and then I don't look at them. I have a planner at school that I write things in...and then leave at school. I have a planner at home that I hardly use....because I leave it at home. I have things that I need to buy for labs, etc. which I forget because I don't really have anything that travels back and forth with me. Yes, I can use electronic stuff, but like my Google Keep lists are under my school account and I don't look at my school account when I'm home unless I absolutely have to. My personal Google Keep is loaded with curriculum resources that I never look at. But honestly, I'm more of a paper and pen kind of person. I like to have something physical to look at, make notes, cross off, etc. So I've kind of come to the conclusion that I need a planner thingee that will be for school and home. One that is small enough that I can carry back and forth but that has the information I need for both places. So if I need to buy some lab supplies one night, I have the list with me. Or if I have an appointment I have it with me so I know to leave school on time. At the same time, it has to have enough room so I can make the notes and things I need for planning, etc. Most commercially available planners are either too large to carry around comfortably or don't have enough room for what I need to put in them. Then it dawned on me - a bullet journal. When we moved from Hawaii to Arizona, a bullet journal kept me organized and helped me make the move comfortably. Since it is just a notebook, I had room to take lots of notes if I needed. I had room to make huge to-do lists if needed. I had room to put information on days they needed to be done or handled. It was amazing how well that worked. I know that a lot of teachers use bullet journals for their planning so I started googling and boom found a ton of information. Then, in typical me fashion, I hopped on Amazon and purchased a new notebook and supplies for my new bullet journal. I have one at home that I toyed with towards the end of last year, but it never reached its full potential. I'm going to use it for the remaining 2 weeks of school and see if I can come up with a way that works for me. I got some great ideas from the videos I watched and I will probably watch some more to get more ideas. What I love about the bullet journal is how flexible it is. I like to have room to write my planning notes and also make notes about what happened in class. I can do that with the bujo. I can make the spaces as big or small as I want. I played with some layouts last night:

On the top is a spread that has one day on two pages. The left side has the classes and the right side is to-do lists and things I need to write down. That is a lot of paper and I'm not sure I will need that every day. The bottom is one day on one page. Still, have a space for every class that day and a space for any notes I need to write, but it only takes up one page. I'm thinking of doing a weekly spread on two pages so I have a full weeks view and then daily pages behind that. This way I have a full view of the week and space I need for day-to-day stuff. Also, I can note my personal stuff on the weekly spread and have it with me all the time. This is not very large or heavy and very easy to carry everywhere with me. I can even put it in my purse if I want to. I'm very excited about this. I know, I've been excited about other systems in the past, but I think this one just might work. I have more of what I want - space - and it will be all in one place. I'm going to try it for the next two weeks and see how it goes. I have a new notebook coming tomorrow that I will use for next semester. I like the idea of having one book per semester also. So I'll see how it goes and keep you posted.