Organise or Die

Bit of an ominous Post Title there. I like to be melodramatic. In my Immersion course that I'm doing at St Martins at the moment, a lot of emphasis at the moment is being put on organisation - having lists, priorities, goals, ambitions, and a system in place to record them all so that they can be acheived. I generally use my diary and lists on random bits of paper. But I've been coming across a few things that would make the process entirely more fun, or at least a bit prettier.

First up, these genius Reminder Magnets found via Art At Heart:


Great if you keep bills/random stuff/your entire life stuck to your fridge. Time to bin those awful novelty seaside magnets and put all that important and forgotten stuff under the right magnets! I particularly like the 'fyi' and 'etc' ones the most, as they are the most ambiguous... and thus least useful I suppose, which kind of defeats the object. Whatever, I just like the thought of having a pile of stuff under the title 'etc...' They can be bought from See Jane Work, which is full of other lovely 'I will find a use for this' things like these Day of the Week pegs:


Next, also from Art At Heart (great blog btw, I recommend it), is this rather awesome All in One Wooden Desk Organiser...with iPhone charger! Nifty:

Actual wood with actual charger for actual iPhone. Nice mix of organic and technological. Made to order though... $199. Maybe not eh.

Next is one of my favourites. It's from Erin Vale Design, free printables for Blog Post topics!

Anything DIY is cool in my books. It's a downloadable PDF that you print out and then either just stack up or be a bit adventurous with it - I discovered it via Gingham Cherry and she made this ace little book using it:


Having a blog post schedule is a really good idea and something that I don't adhere to enough. Bloggers like mrYen have got it down to a T - what with his Weekend Goodness and WIP Wednesdays and all that. I don't really have that discipline yet - difficult with a full time job though. But I'm always writing down ideas for blog posts in random places so this is perfect for me, and a step in the right direction! Going to make this this weekend I think, will be nice. The only thing I find is that I have post ideas anywhere - not usually when I'm sitting in front of my computer. So should probably keep them in my bag or something. Although I usually end up noting things down on my phone. Hmmm. When I get an iphone this will all be solved. Atm my 2 year old phone is driving me crazy. Tiiiny screen =/

I saw these in Paperchase and still need to get them. Get The Hint mini sticky notes, I want to use them for bookmarking my magazines etc when I'm in the middle of reading them. And also just for sticking around the house. Or on people's faces.

More fun than actually critically important but still ace. And less than a fiver. Very needed.

On to a much more useful item; a real to-do list. With an octopus. You basically can't get any better. From Shanalogic, the octopus to-do list:

And it's printed on recycled paper! Bonus points all round. I like that it has 'Done' and 'Not yet' boxes... no pressure, like it.

A really good online tool for those who 'don't do paper' is Teux Deux - which is basically To Do in a french accent. How very high brow.


I heard of it a while back now through Swissmiss, who I believe had a part in its creation. This blog explains Teux Deux very well, (which is also where the above image is from), but is beauty is it's simplicity; it's not got loads of gadgety extra bits, it's just a simple list format, with a week to view - type in what you need to get done, and if you don't do it, it gets moved on to the next day. As soon as they do an iphone app, I'll get it. When I have an iphone. Which hopefully will be soooon =/

Last is from See Jane Work again - these cute and slightly sarcastic sticky notes for the office:

I need these a lot at the moment. Especially the 'Do This By' and then the 'Yesterday' box. And Note To Self, that's great. Seriously though, I can see these actually being quite useful around my mac area, being a fan of the overuse of post-its myself. With these I can stick my to-do lists to things like... lightswitches so I remember to do them.
"Blah Blah Blah'. We all need a pile labelled that.

So hopefully one or many of these items will inspire you to get yourself organised a bit. Or just laugh at the lack of organisation you currently have. Either is good. The plan for me next is to develop some kind of planning system for my life. Hopefully using the above things!