It’s been a while since I really talked about Evernote….but I’m back to talk about it today and I actually have something I think you might like a lot.  You can check out two of my templates.  I’ll be sharing more templates in the future.  Because I’m generous and I love templates.

Evernote doesn’t really work with templates yet (and I hope they will one day and that they’ll pay me to come on board and help them design them and come up with different templates for different jobs/lives/organizational styles).  But I’ve created a template shared folder here. When I want to use the template I select all copy and paste it in to a new notebook.  The one I’m talking about today is the Week of…. Template.

I was checking out a variety of day planners in Barnes & Noble and sketched down a few pieces that I liked from a bunch of them and created this.  Basically I have a running to do list on the right column – I love the list and it helps to keep things all in one place.  Then I have a day by day chart – when I start the week I put in the hard appointments with times in each day of the week.  I put in our plans for dinner and where we don’t have plans I make a space for me to do a little meal plan.

Each day at the start of the day I check out my to do list and figure out what MUST be done today and I throw it under that day of the week heading – as things get done I change the color to a light gray if I need to follow up on it in some way or I just delete it all together if there is no follow up.  At the end of each week I take my running to do list and copy it in to the next week.

You can also check out my To Buy Evernote Note in the Templates too – I have four headings: Grocery, Pet, Hardware, Misc.  When I find I need something or just want it I put it on the list and then no matter where I am I can access the list.

Pausing is important. I used to think that pauses were silly little wastes.  I either wanted to be GOING or I wanted to be ‘taking a break’ and breaks were defined as whole days to myself.  My life no longer works to provide full day breaks and I’m physically not able to just GO GO GO.  So I’ve been pausing.  There are warning signs for me that tell me that I need to pause and I was talking about them to a friend of mine recently and she suggested I share them because they were helping her too.

Sign One: More then 5 things open
When I’m working on my computer if there are more then five separate things going on at the same time (Quicken, Photoshop, Word, Safari) it’s a pretty good sign that I need to pause and re-focus on one thing.  So I take a 5 minute pause or a 1 minute pause and some days its just one deep breathe.  But.  I pause.

Sign Two: If the words “Lexi, Mommy just needs to do this one thing” comes out of my mouth
I say this.  It’s not one thing that I need to do.  It’s that I’m doing three things (and likely more) and the one thing I want to be doing – interacting with Lexi- is getting pushed to the bottom of the list.  After a pause – which I usually put on some music to pause to – I’m able to see that “this one thing” can wait.  It can always wait…because I don’t transport organs to hospitals…if you do – I highly encourage you to NOT wait.

Sign Three:  I’m doing nothing
When I do nothing it really means that I’m avoiding a lot.  It’s a gift.  So if I look at the clock and I realize that I just lost 30 minutes into an abyss then I realize I need to step away and pause.  So I can come back and be effective.

Sign Four: If I feel like I want to cry
Tears are easy for me.  If I feel like I want to cry its likely because I need to pause.  I need a moment to think about life, about the good stuff.  I need to pause and cry sometimes.  Because when you’re crying there really isn’t anything better to do then to pause.

I’m a master procrastinator.  You provide me something that I don’t want to do and I have to make a choice.  Choice One: do it right away, don’t add it to the to do list to simmer, don’t get the satisfaction of crossing it off the list, get it done and out.  Choice Two (otherwise known as the path always taken): add it to the to do list, move it from to do list to the next to do list as it sits neglected while all other tasks are off the list, wait, do more things that aren’t the thing that needs to be done, get milk, move it to a new to do list and then finally I do the following to stop the ugly cycle:

1. See if the item needs to be done still.  If not.  Cross it off.  You won!!!  Go directly to step 8, collect $200 and hey pick up a Chance card for being so darn smart.
2. Sorry about your luck.  You still need to do it.  Decide how long the task will take.  Write that time that you’re willing to commit next to the to do list line item.
3. Look at your calendar and find that amount of time. Make it an appointment.
4. Establish a reward for directly after the procrastination appointment (zucchini bread anyone – see recipe tomorrow)
5. At the time of appointment close the door, put on the BrainWave app or another focus form of background music/noise, set the egg timer to the task time.
6. Do it.  Head down.  E-mail off.  Twitter off.  iChat, AIM, MSN, Communicator, ICQ, Trilian OFF.  Seriously.  TURN THEM OFF.
7. Complete task.  Celebrate the ringing of the egg timer.  Shake your ass.  Put on a fun song to shake it to while getting your reward.  Give yourself a high five (why don’t people do this anymore, it’s so fun!)
8. Cross the item off your to do list in each instance and enjoy your zucchini bread.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about Zucchini Bread and how it totally counts as a vegetable and how to give complete strangers high fives as that is going to be MY goal for today.