I love being organized.
I adore planners and calendars.
Even in our age of digitized organizational apps, nothing gives me more of a thrill than writing something down and checking it off a physical list. Although I’ve toyed with digital organization apps, I found the easiest way to stay organized at home is to have a calendar on the fridge. This is a practice my mom started when I was much younger, and I didn’t grow to appreciate its value until recently.
Why a calendar on the fridge?
The fridge is in the kitchen, which is often the hub of a home. Everybody uses the refrigerator so they’re bound to notice the calendar. We already had a grocery list on the fridge, as well as a stack of paper reminders tacked to it.
When looking at my 2017 goals, I realized that I could streamline some of the things I want to do by creating my own organizational system. I want to be better at meal planning, so I added a slot for “dinner” on the calendar. I want to make fitness a daily goal, so I added a “workout” check box. Mark and I want to do more fun things in the Twin Cities, so I added a place to list ideas.
While designing the calendar, I decided to add the grocery list to the calendar instead of keeping our paper system. The paper system is wasteful (for us) since we use it to list items we run out of but eventually just toss the list and add the items to Evernote before grocery shopping (Evernote + meal planning post will come eventually!).
Typeface Info (For design nerds out there)
I wanted to use a typeface that reminds me of popular design from the era I remember having the fridge calendar. For this, I hearkened upon type designs of Emigre principals, Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans. They most famously designed type in the late 80s / early 90s. I used Variex, a VanderLans-designed typeface.
>> Click here or on the calendar below to download a printable PDF. <<
Tips for Printing and Using the Calendar
- File size is 19″x15″.
- I printed at Office Max on their wide format and had them trim and laminate. The total cost of printing was $18!
- I planned to glue this to magnets we no longer wanted, but instead we purchased some Scotch magnetic tape.
- We use this calendar with Vis a Vis (wet erase) markers so that we don’t accidentally erase something when we are getting things out of the freezer.
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How do you stay organized?
Copyright notice for free downloadable content: This free content is for personal use only for the purpose outlined in the accompanying post. The artwork in the free downloadable files is copyright chimesdesign, LLC and is not allowed to be extracted, repurposed, or altered for any other use.
Disclaimer:Although I mention Office Max and link to various sites, I do not make money from these entities.
