Every now and again I find products that I really like and find useful to being a mom — muslin blankets, disposable bibs, single packet handi-wipes, kid-centric entertainment coupon books — and tell my other mommy friends about my “finds.” Here’s this week’s entry. I am not a spokesperson and am not being compensated for this review. This is just my way of “paying it forward” to other moms who might be interested…
Things I Love – momAgenda
Lots of moms I come across can’t wait to get their hands on the latest hi-tech gadget. Sure, I love my iPad and Blackberry (well, maybe I don’t love the Blackberry!), but when it comes to figuring out my day, for me nothing beats good old pen and paper!
Yep, I am one of those dinosaurs who actually still uses a day planner to help me, well, plan my day!
Maybe I don’t trust technology enough to tell me where I need to be, what meetings I have, what activities my kids have, etc. Hi-tech gadgets are fine, but if the battery dies and I don’t know it’s the dreaded “ravioli day” at my son’s daycare, well, look out!
My go-to was one of those standard planners you could get at any office superstore. It was fine for work, but after I got married and bought a house, it seemed inadequate. After having a baby, forget it! Luckily, soon after my son was born my husband gave me something called a momAgenda. It quickly became my personal daily bible.
My momAgenda was hot pink and about the size of a 5×7 picture frame. Each day had its own devoted page with enough space to keep track of up to four kids. But, it was still “mine”: between reminders of playdates and parent-teacher meetings were plenty of pages to compile lists of my favorite books, movies, and wines, plus party and vacation planning prep pages as well as expense record keeping.
Whew!
It even came with an additional little booklet that slipped into the back page of the planner – which keeps addresses, key family member info, birthdays, anniversaries, plus my favorite: a page to list all of the websites I love (and the passwords I am always forgetting)! The best part of all? It had my name embossed on the front cover!
I was in love. And of course, totally organized!
The next year I got the super-sized faux red/pink crocodile desktop version. I found it was a little too big for me-perfect for work, hard for me to schlep around everywhere. Plus, I needed to see my whole week at-a-glance. So this year I went back to the mini-planner size in a funky giraffe design pattern, and now I feel totally ready to take on today, tomorrow and every day through 2012. It fits easy inside my purse (which right now is so huge I could probably fit a real giraffe!) so I can take it to the library, to my son’s soccer practice, grocery shopping –EVERYWHERE. I never know when I’ll need to “schedule” or make a list it’s always handy. I also like taking it into meetings….the giraffe print is very funky and I get lots of compliments on it and lots of questions from other moms about the planner itself.
How do you stay organized? Are you tech geek and up to date on all the latest scheduling apps? Or are you like me and take to writing everything down?
The In A World Of Hi-Tech Gadgets, I Still Prefer Pen To Paper by The Harried Mom, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.