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I’m all for systems and things that help get things done. Tools that make work and life easier. Actions that ensure things don’t fall through the cracks. For being PRODUCTIVE.

I’ve tried the whole “GTD” thing – David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method. I tried following Merlin Mann’s GTD system and “Inbox Zero” idea. I tried Tim Ferris’s “4 Hour Work Week” system of outsourcing. I’ve read countless systems and ideas by Leo Babauta, Dan Markovitz, David Seah, and of course the aforementioned David Allen, Merlin Mann and Tim Ferris as well as many others.

But I didn’t have much luck with them. The systems just didn’t “mesh” with the way I do things. They were unnatural for me. And so trying to follow them only made things worse instead of better. I got lost in those systems and they failed.

See, I’ve realized I’m just an “old fashioned” paper and pen kind of gal. Just write it down and check it off type of thing. So I developed a “system” that works for me. It’s a 2-part system and I’m going to share it with you today.

Part 1 – A daily calendar and index card hybrid paper-based planner.

This consists of a daily calendar I call the “24 Hour Calendar” which is basically a large square with 24 “blocks” along the outside edge. These blocks each represent one hour of time and are labeled like a 24 hour clock. In the middle of this is just a big blank square divided into 2 columns. One column is for scheduled appointments and the other is for a daily list of things to do.

On the back, it’s divided into a grid of 12 blocks – 8 small blocks along the outside edge and 4 larger blocks in the middle. Each block is assigned a function -

The index card piece of this is for “Projects” which consists of client notes, doodles for artwork and things like that. It also includes my “Muse” ideas (from Tim Ferris’s “4 Hour Work Week). They are basically personal projects for business ideas or book ideas or whatever like that.This part of the system just sits on my desk and allows me to check things off as I go.

Part 2 – A couple of applications on my iPod Touch

Now, these aren’t fancy apps and you don’t have to have an iPod Touch to use this idea – there are plenty of desktop apps and what-not that you can use. Or of course, you could add these to Part 1 and have a complete paper-based system.

And also on my iPod is the built-in Clock app that I use for keeping track of things that I need a timer for – when I’m baking or cooking, I can set the timer to remind me when to take things out of the oven or when the bread is finished rising, etc. I also have several alarms set on this app – for the kids’ school bus, for taking my allergy and blood pressure medications, for the kids allergy meds, and things like that.

Lastly, I use iCal on my iPod as well for meetings and appointments. It syncs with my computer so I have the same info there as well. I keep track of birthday’s, doctor’s appointments, client meetings and other events here. And important ones have alarms scheduled so I don’t forget them.

I came across a website a couple days ago I want to share with you . . .

Put Things Off by Nick Cernis – The tagline is “the laid-back productivity blog”‘ and it definitely is worth a perusal. Especially if you’re like me and found other “GTD” systems to be more than painful that useful.
And if you’re interested in my “system,” here are the PDF files of my 24 hour calendar. One file for the front, one for the back and there are 2 per sheet (just cut them in half). They are a 4.25 x 5.5 inch size when cut (so you can print them on standard printer paper).

247DailyFront2Up – Front

247DailyBack2Up – Back

Please let me know if you use them and how you like (or don’t like!) them. Feel free to link back here from your blog as well as share them.

In the arena,

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.“ ~ Bruce Lee

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

I like quiet evenings when the kids have gone to bed and my husband is not yet home from class. Same for quiet mornings. It allows me time to think, to reflect, dream, plan and organize. Sometimes I do nothing but just sit and listen to the radio or the sounds of the night – cars going by on the street outside, a train whistle in the distance, a barking dog.

And lately, I seem to have too few of these moments. I’m going to have to steal a few. I need that downtime to recharge and find that when I haven’t been diligent in allowing myself those moments, things just get out of whack. While I don’t necessarily get grumpy or anything, I just feel frazzled and jumbled and I don’t like that feeling.

So tonight I am sitting here in the quiet with the radio and listening to the cars coming up and down the hill. Off in the distance are the lights of the town and the cars on the freeway. I can see their headlights moving like small ants across the blackness.

Somehow, it’s calming . . .

In the arena,

Let us dream of tomorrow where we can truly love from the soul, and know love as the ultimate truth at the heart of all creation. ~ Michael Jackson

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one. ~ John Lennon

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

Please feel free to use these on your desktop as your background/wallpaper. And do share but sure to let others know where you got them.

Hope you enjoy them!

In the arena,

Want to work with an award-winning writer? Now is your chance! Hurry and book for the 2nd half of 2009 before the calendar is full. I still have some space available. Check out the Hire Me tab above for info on how to contact me and your reserve your spot now.

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

Here it is, already summer and I’ve been sorely lacking in the writing department. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say – there are many stories to tell – it’s more like I’ve been so busy with other things that by the time I think of writing something to post here, the clock is telling me it’s time for bed!

And I’ve even had to put my computer on an automatic shut off time or I’ll sit here until the wee hours of the morning trying to accomplish all of it.

So, the writing seems to never get done lately.

But I’m changing that today.

But first, let me tell you the other half of the problem -

I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.8 a few weeks ago and things just aren’t working properly on the admin side. The admin dashboard panel is all out of whack and half the tools aren’t working at all, like the drop down menus and what-not. It’s not really affecting anything out here on the actual blog itself, thank goodness. But it’s really annoying to navigate around behind the scenes.

Since I still cannot figure out what is wrong, I’m just going to leave it as is for now and hope that I can upgrade to the next release when it comes out and maybe that will solve this issue. Or something.

So anyway . . .

It’s officially summer. The kids have now been out of school for 9 days and we’re settling into a summer rhythm. The weather, however, is not fully cooperating this week. It has been overcast, cloudy and a little rainy at times. We’re hoping summer is in full bloom by next week.

Speaking of next week . . . I am completely amazed that next Saturday is the 4th of July! Where did the time go? It’s mind-boggling! I can hardly believe it. And if I hadn’t just looked at the calendar, I probably wouldn’t.

I’ve got a ton of pictures and artwork to upload and hopefully I can do that next week when things slow down a bit. There’s pictures from the end of school activities, some hot weather activities and some from my husband’s sister’s visit a few weeks ago.

(That was great fun, by the way! We enjoyed meeting her girlfriend and her gorgeous standard Poodle. I’ll write about that soon.)

The pictures my husband took at the Classic Car Show last weekend didn’t turn out well, though. He’s going to be bummed about that. It was only 2nd time he’s used my camera and he just doesn’t know enough about the settings to get good shots. He’s used to a good ol’ point and shoot type camera.

The good news is that there’s another car show in a few weeks so hopefully we’ll get some good ones then. Maybe I will be in charge of the camera for that one. . .

Now it’s time to think about fixing dinner, though.

One last thing before I go . . .

I just posted a new “Gallery” page in the navigation above. There are a few of my recent designs posted and I will be uploading more soon. Feel free to check it out. And if you need a designer for logos, website/blog headers, 125×125 ad spots, or whatever, let me know. I’d be happy to work with you.

Speak soon!

In the arena,

Want to work with an award-winning writer? Now is your chance! Hurry and book for the 2nd half of 2009 before the calendar is full. I still have some space available. Check out the Hire Me tab above for info on how to contact me and your reserve your spot now.

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

My grandparents always had a garden when I was growing up and I remember spending summers with them working in the garden, watering all the plants, and eating lots of yummy things. I remember running up and down through the rows of corn playing tag and hide n’ seek with my cousins. It was always the best part of summer.

So for several years now, I’ve wanted to replicate that in my own yard to not only give my kids some fun memories and teach them about sustainable living, but also simply for the benefits it brings – like natural, organic food, fresh vegetables, fruits and berries for canning for the winter months, and of course, to cut down on our grocery bills (which really seem to be rising quite dramatically lately).

I always wondered how in the world I could actually successfully grow that much produce in a relatively small and manageable area. From time to time, I go searching around the web looking for info and always seem to come up short of what I’m looking for. But one day this week, I was reading one of the family oriented blogs I read regularly where I happened upon some information called the Mittleider Method. And now I’m so excited because I think this method will actually work the way I want to.

If you’re not familiar with it, here a brief description from the Food For Everyone Foundation website -

What is the Mittleider Method?

The Mittleider Method combines the best features of soil-based gardening and hydroponic gardening, but without hydroponic expense! It’s a complete, easy-to-follow plan that eliminates guesswork and ensures success anywhere: an apartment patio, a city yard, a country lot, or a farm.

The method is based on maximum utilization of space, time, and resources. Crops are large because plants are close together, nourished by supplemental feedings of natural mineral nutrients (as in hydroponics), but with no special equipment.

Also, unlike hydroponics, the Mittleider Method gives plants access to the natural soil for nutrients as yet unknown or that, while not essential to plant growth, are useful in human nutrition. You can use the Mittleider Method by raising crops in either soil-beds or grow-boxes.

And to me it sounds like container gardening on steroids! Which is actually what I want – containers that maximize growth and are easy on my back.

Now my plan for the next week is gather materials and have my husband begin building the boxes and greenhouse. Hopefully the weather holds out long enough to get it all ready and set up before it’s too late. Although, I think if we do it right, it won’t matter much. I’m thinking our summer is going to be a decent one this year and having a greenhouse will allow us to extend the growing season long enough to compensate.

I’ll keep you posted how things go and if you’ve used this method or any other container gardening style with good success, let me know.

I hope you’re enjoying this beautiful beginning to the summer season. Have a safe and fun weekend!

In the arena,

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

First, let me apologize in advance for the length of this post and it’s ramblingness. So many things have happened in the past several weeks since I last posted, there’s just no way to catch up without going on and on and on.

But I promise I will not be like the energizer bunny and never END.

So, having said that . . .

I’m happy to say the first order of business is to let you know that my former brother in law is doing much, much better! In fact, he is even going to be able to go home this Friday! We’re so glad about that. For the first several days after his stroke, it looked like he may not even make it through the weekend. Fortunately, he has LOTS and LOTS of people who just love him and his family who have never ceased praying for his recovery.

It’s been a very long road for him but he’s surprising his doctors and nurses and therapists with his bravery and his inner strength to get through this, to become whole again. All of that inner drive has certainly paid off. Even though he still has a ways to go, it’s looking better every day. For that, we’re all thankful. Just in time for summer, too!

And speaking of summer . . .

We’ve been so busy lately with school winding down. Lots of activities at the kids’ schools – committee meetings, award ceremonies, family nights, book fairs, concerts and the like – that I’ve barely had time to breathe. In between all of that, I’ve been working on design projects and writing projects, both volunteer and paid.

In fact, one of the committees I was on this year for The Short Dude’s preschool, was the cookbook committee. It was very fun and I met a few other moms and kids. It gave the Short Dude some other friends to play with once in a while during non-school hours as our meetings were usually on Friday’s when the pre-schoolers didn’t have class. He enjoyed the meetings as much as I did.

When everyone on the committee learned that I do graphics, they asked if I would create the cover and inner pages for the cookbook along with the flyers and what-not. I was blessed to be able to say yes even though it was A LOT of work. I enjoyed it.

The group and I came up with a cute cover, if I may say so myself. Honestly, though, I was skeptical about what it would really look like in print. I was afraid the background color would be way too bright and set an obnoxious tone. Since it’s all about kids, the cover features pictures of the kids from the pre-school eating fruits and veggies and it’s all in bright, primary colors. We called it “Children’s Chow of Choice” and I think it fits rather well.

So last week when I found out the cookbooks were in, my heart was pounding! I was both scared and excited to see them. Our group leader (who is a staff member at the school) assured me they turned out fabulous. And when I saw them, I must admit – they did look rather great!

Even though I’ve been doing graphics for almost 20 years, it’s still exciting to see something I’ve created in its final form. Often these days when I design something for a client, I never actually see the finished, physical product, (except for things like business cards). I’ll take a picture of the cookbook later and post it.

After such a great time working on the cookbook committee, when the director asked me if I’d be willing to work on the end of year celebration (graduation) committee, I agreed. So now I am working on the certificates for the pre-school ‘graduation’ celebration next week. The theme is “stars” so I’ve put a cascading rainbow of stars on the side of the certificate. I don’t want it to be overwhelming – it’s just a very simple design. I designed 3 different styles for the committee to choose from and now I’m just waiting to hear which one is a go.

Also coming up soon are the elementary school concerts. Gman’s class is performing a band concert with their recorders and other instruments they’ve learned to play in music this year. And Little Girls class is doing kind of a spoken word and music play of some sort. Not really sure but she’s says it’s going to be fun.

School is getting out almost a week late, though, because of the snow make up days. They were originally supposed to have half days this week but that changed too. I’m kinda glad, though – they’ll be home all day soon enough!

The highlight of the first week of summer vacation will be spending some time with my husband’s sister and her girlfriend. They are doing a 30-day long road trip around the Western US visiting as many of the National Parks (and friends/family) as they can. They are Zion National Park now, I think, and will be here June 12th for a few days before they head over to the Washington Peninsula to the Olympic National Park.

I’m very excited because this will be the first time I’ve met my sister in law! She lives in New York – almost as far away from Seattle as you can get and still be in the continental US – so getting together is not easy, especially when you throw in jobs and kids and school and those good things.

And the other thing I’m really looking forward to is the sun and BBQ’s and going to the beach! We’ve had such a cold, dreary winter, I’m definitely ready for a change of pace. This week has been quite nice – in the upper 60’s and low 70’s – just about perfect!

What are your summer plans? Has summer vacation started yet in your area? What are you most looking forward to this summer?

I hope whatever you do, you enjoy the time with family and friends.

I’ll be back soon with some pictures and maybe a reading list along with a few new recipes I’m itching to try out. Oh – and look for a new post over at The Weight Loss Papers soon too.

In the arena,

Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you will still land among the stars. ~ Les Brown

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

My former brother in law, Aaron, had a stroke last week. They found a

couple of clots – one in his arm, one in his neck. They operated on

the one in his arm but decided to leave the one in his neck alone and

try to dissolve it without surgery as it was too risky to do the

operation. He was doing well and they sent him home over the weekend.

We saw him at Easter and he looked pretty good. A little slow and

favoring his left side a bit but otherwise seemed ok.

However, earlier this week he had another stroke and went back to the

hospital. They decided to give him another 2 days to try to get the

clot to dissolve and if that didn’t help, would put a stent in his

brain artery.

I just got word about half an hour ago that he’s had yet another

stroke and the MRI shows severe bleeding in the brain. They are not

going to be able to do anything for him.

He’s young – about 48, I believe – with a wife and a beautiful 8 year

old daughter. They could all really use your thoughts and prayers and

healing energies right now.

Want to work with an award-winning writer? Now is your chance! Hurry and book for the 2009 before the calendar is full. I still have some space available. Check out the Hire Me tab above for info on how to contact me and your reserve your spot now.

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline "Making your business, my business" means that she'll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business - just as if it were her own.