hey y’all!! since everyone is doing online school now I thought I’d give you guys some tips since I did online school for for 3 years and learned a TON of helpful info. so bookmark this post because you will use it ❤
Tag: organization
September Review & August Goals
As is my custom at the beginning of each new month (that sounds so weird), I’m going to do a review of how September went and go over my goals for October!
Ooh, this one is lots of fun! I have quite a few photos that I took in September, so buckle down and enjoy the ride 🙂
August Review + September Goals
A non-expert’s overview of Bible Journaling
Goals from September:
- Post 4 times on C & C ✔- I did this one! Check the “Posts this Month” section in this post to see what they were!
- Post 4 times on QTE ✖ Nope! I’m actually taking a (hopefully temporary) break from QTE because I’ve been majorly busy. Hopefully next month I’ll have news along these lines to share with y’all- I have something really exciting coming up!
- Send out a Monday email on the C & C mailing list twice✖ Nope! However, if you’re on the mailing list, you did get an email explaining some of the new changes 🙂
- Participate in a challenge/giveaway on another blog ✖ No… If you’re hosting a giveaway or challenge on your blog, please let me know. I love participating in things like that !
- Start using my school schedule ✔ Yup!! I did this one, but I changed up my school schedule just a bit.
Next week’s post is all about the Planner- YAY, but for now, I’m going to give y’all a little peek into my planner for October!
^ My adorable reading log. I’m writing this on the 3rd, so I’ve already added some fun books!
I know this is blurry and oh so behind-the-scenes, but this is reality when I was setting up my planner. Plus, if you read my How I write my blog posts post, you’ll recognize what’s up on my computer screen!! I really like this photo, which is weird because it’s really bad! But I love the reality of it 🙂
- Start using the mailing list again- send out emails on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th (Mondays)
- Use Habit tracker in planner
- Use reading log in planner
- Participate in a challenge/giveaway on another blog
Thanks for reading! What are your goals for October? Did you finish everything you planned to do in September?
7 Things to do every Sunday to prepare for the week ahead
Who else feels like Mondays are crazy town? If you’re saying “Me!!” (I know you are) then this post is for you! Here are some of my favorite things to do on Sundays to prepare for the rest of the week. They relive a lot of stress.
One thing that I have struggled with is that it’s Sunday, the day of rest (for me as a Christian). However, even doing all of these things only takes around an hour or less and they’re honestly not that hard, so I don’t feel convicted about doing them. If you do feel convicted about doing these things on Sunday, then don’t do them! You can even do them on Saturday if you want.
- Prep to-do list/planner
This is super important for me. I like to do this by compiling a list of all of the tasks and their ‘due dates’ for that week, then splitting them up daily.
Time: 15 minutes (It honestly takes around 30 at first, but once you get into a pattern, it can come down to 15).
2. Do your laundry
This is also pretty important for me. I find that I can make my laundry last until Sunday, which means I only do 1 load a week, which is great! (I do my own laundry.)
Time: 20 minutes (For me, it takes about 15 now, but it didn’t used to, so I’m putting 20.)
3. Clean out your bag
My bag(s) collect a lot of trash and junk throughout the week, so this is an easy but necessary task.
Time: 3 minutes (I’m serious! This is SO easy but really saves time and stress in finding what you want.)
4. Clean + vacuum your room
I’m pretty good about keeping my room clean, but I have found that it helps to do a quick tidy of the drawers and vacuum it on Sunday. It really doesn’t take very long but makes it restful for the coming week.
Time: 10 minutes
5. Do some meal prepping
In my house, my mom cooks for our family, but I have to take care of breakfast and snacks. If you have the same situation or you cook for yourself, this is really helpful. I like to simply toss a few snacks + breakfasts into bags so that they are easy to grab. Honestly, I won’t eat breakfast unless it’s already prepped.
Time: 7 minutes (This is so easy!)
6. Prep outfits
I normally don’t prep outfits for the whole week or pick a certain day for my outfits. Often, I make 3-4 casual outfits and 1 nice one for easy grabs. This isn’t something I do every week, but it feels so organized and prepared when I do.
Time: 5 minutes
7. Clean out your email
This doesn’t mean cleaning it for the first time, of course, but maintaining a clean inbox. It honestly takes no time at all!
Time: 1 minute
Actually, all of this adds up to 60 minutes (1 hour). So cool!
Hopefully these are helpful. I think they certainly are!
The complete guide to clearing your inbox
Guess what I did on Sunday afternoon? I cleaned out my inbox!! And guess what it looks like now? There is NO new mail at all, and it really is very refreshing. Also, if you look at the image above, in the bottom left corner, it only has used 5% of the available space. That is cutting in half what it was before.
Why
Why should you clean out your email?
1. You don’t actually need a lot of the emails that you have in your inbox.
2. It’s really refreshing to have a clear inbox.
3. You can download old images and actually use them instead of just keeping them in your archives.
The process
This isn’t specifically how you do it, but it is how I did it.
- Clear out old folders.
I used to store all of the blog posts from blogs I was subscribed to in folders. That wasn’t really the best idea. I never went back to look at them, and if I did, then it wasn’t by going to the folder- it was by going to the blog! I started by deleting these. If I did find something that was important to me (something that another person didn’t have a backup of, that I had gone back to look at multiple times in the last 6 weeks, or something that I knew I would need in the future, I moved it into a new set of folders titled Important and divided into a subset of 5 folders: Blog, Family, Passwords, Photos, School.
2. Clear Spam, Trash, and Promotions.
Unless it is actually something that shouldn’t be in these categories, most of the items in these folders can be completely deleted.
3. Start throwing away unimportant items from your main inbox.
In this step, don’t begin to deal with sentimental items, items you’re not sure about, or items you know you want to keep. This step is for deleting stuff you know you don’t want, so it should be pretty easy. I actually cut the number of emails in my inbox in half by doing this (from 1000 to 500).
4. Items you’re not sure about.
This is when you can start thinking. If you haven’t looked at it in the last 6 weeks and don’t plan to in the next 6 weeks, then you probably don’t need it. However, this method isn’t right all the time, so you do decide to keep it, then categorize it into folders you’ve created. (If you haven’t done that yet, then do that now.)
5. Sentimental.
You can go through and read those old emails now. I had a bunch of totally embarrassing emails from when I was 7 that I thought would be really hard to delete. I ended up deleting them all; when would I need emails telling random people that Grandma was going to buy marshmallows? However, this may be harder for you, so if it’s really that hard, you can make a folder (I do stress, though, don’t put them in your important folders. Instead, make a folder titled ‘Sentimental’ so that you don’t mix them up with other, important, emails.
6. Review.
Is your inbox empty yet? If it’s not, complete the other steps again (Step 4 is probably most helpful), and when you are done, then it should be empty.
When my main inbox was empty, I went through my folders and narrowed them down even more. I downloaded all the pictures from the ‘photos’ category and deleted the original emails. I made sure I didn’t need old school emails and checked to make sure I had the backup of each thing. I checked old passwords to make sure they worked and made sure to delete those emails fully.
By now, your inbox is probably empty, and you are probably feeling really refreshed. For me, this only took probably an hour and 15 minutes total (45 minutes for steps 1-5 on Sunday and 30 minutes for step 6 on Monday), so it actually doesn’t take as long as you expect.
I know this was short, but I hope you enjoyed and that this was helpful!
Bye till next Friday,
Did you clean out your inbox? Talk to me in the comments 👇👇
Whoops//Changes coming up
Hey guys!
First of all, So sorry that I haven’t posted in OVER A MONTH! Seriously, that’s awful! There are a couple changes coming up on the blog, just wanted to let y’all know.
- Mutka (https://designpiquestudios.com/) is redesigning my blog! She’s amazing and so easy to work with. I can’t wait to get the new design up. Not sure when we’ll be done, hopefully in the next couple weeks or so.
- IDENTITY CRISIS!! Ahh! Okay, I exaggerated a little bit, but I’m not super sure what you guys want to see C & C (my little nickname for this blog) become. That is one of the reasons that I haven’t posted in a while; I’ve had ideas, but I haven’t been sure of what Y’all want to see.
Possible Post Examples:
And now my mind goes blank…
Books I’m reading: Do you guys want to see what I’m reading? Not sure if that would appeal to you, but it wouldn’t be too hard to post; I’ve been reading a LOT lately.
Book Review(s): A couple of books I’ve been reading might be fun to review on here. If you want to see this, let me know!
Writing: I’m in the planning stage of my new novel that doesn’t have a title so if you want to see that journey on here, I could do that.
Modesty/Clothing/Fashion: What do you guys want to see in this category? I could post a couple ideas that I’ve used for myself and maybe you would enjoy that. Not sure, though. 🙂
Art: Warning: I am NOT an artist. This may not be the best category… LOL. I’m not SO great at art… enough said.
Organization/Minimalism/Downsizing: This has been on my mind a lot, so if you want to see this let me know.
School: Okay, okay, sounds super boring, but maybe you want to see this. IDK
What are some of your ideas for what C&C should become? I’d love to know, so comment below.
christina raquel 