I am not a particularly crafty person, nor am I in any way organized. So the fact that I did a craft about organization, encompassing both traits, is quite impressive (to me).
18!
And of those, I only use 2 or 3 on a regular basis.
But what I realized is that I am a very visual person. I don't want to look at a small screen on my phone that shows days of the month. I don't want to look at a list for just one day or one week. I like seeing the big picture. Not only what do I have to do today, but what is going on tomorrow, this weekend, next month, this summer, etc.
How to do it
We had a piece of plexiglass, 38" x 27", in our basement. It was left by the old owners. I have no idea what it was from. I never threw it out because I kept thinking I could re-purpose it somehow. I am so glad I kept it.
So I cleaned it up with some windex and goo gone. I measured it and then did the math to figure out how big each month should be.
Using word, create a table with 7 columns and 7 rows. The first row merge the cells. This was where the name of the month went. The next row is for days of the week, and the following 5 rows are for the days. Since I want to use this year after year, I did not add numbers to the days.
To make it visually appealing, each months' header is a different color. This took the longest time out of any of the steps. Each color had to look good, compliment the colors around it and as an added bonus, had a seasonal look to it.
Once each month was set, print them out and cut them to size. Lay them out on the plexiglass to arrange them. I then taped 4 months together. Using Scotch Mounting Squares
, attach the months to the back of the plexiglass.Since my plexiglass did not have a frame (and I didn't want to buy one) I just used some black duck tape (but I wish I had this tape) and covered the edges.
To number the days, I actually used a sharpie instead of dry erase. I don't want the numbers coming off each time I add something to the calendar and accidentally brush against it. If you google, there are plenty of ways to get a sharpie off a dry erase board.
Once it was finished I started adding things right and left. Every time I thought of something I would run to the calendar to add it. Another added bonus was the space next to the names of the months. I realized I could put tasks there that did not have a specific date, but that I wanted to get done sometime that month.
I love looking at it. I am hoping that the enthusiasm for it and the usefulness of it will continue once the novelty has worn off.
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