One of the best ways to keep your New Year’s resolutions is planning success. There are many planning guides, journal methods, and calendars out there; but today I want to share with you my best secret for planning success in the New Year and throughout the year.
Meet the NeuYear calendar.
My friend Jesse invented it several years ago for his own personal use and after he shared some photos of it on facebook (Instagram wasn’t a thing back then) his friends begged him to make more and sell them. And so he did and I am forever grateful.
At first glance…
it’s just a big wall calendar. But as you look closer your realize it’s a life changing tool for finally having a solid concept of the passage of time. This calendar is unlike any I have ever tried. As a super abstract brain INTP, I need to see time visually or isn’t real to me (and even then it’s still pretty abstract but I’m at least grounded in reality). The problem I’ve had with every other calendar is that I lose the sense of flow between months.
How many times have you forgotten a big appointment the first week of the next month because you didn’t see it on your calendar?
With the NeuYear calendar you see the whole year at once with the months continuously flowing in to one another. So you actually get a real feel of time instead of abstractly trying to remember that some months end and begin in the middle of a week.
I also love that because I am seeing the whole year at once I am able to better balance how I am spending my time. With a weekly or monthly calendar it is easy to loose track of how much time you are spending on work, home, and hobbies. Or how much of the year you have spent out of town.
By visually seeing your whole year at once you can better plan for balance in your year and thus in your life.
I use washi tape to mark off days and highlight certain events. By blocking off time visually I am able to get a better sense of busy-ness and where I need more space. Those two big trips at the end of September and beginning of October, with a monthly calendar it would be easy to loose sense of how close together those trips are. But with NeuYear, instead of being burned out by not enough time at home, I can think about those trips now and decide if I really need to go on the one in October; and if I do, plan ahead for the extra refreshing I’ll need between trips.
Plans do change
Washi tape and a pencil are the two tools I use most with my NeuYear calendar. I also used mini sticky notes with the their academic year calendar to keep track of assignments during grad school. It is helpful to plan out the year, but plans do change. I can always erase the pencil marks and washi tape pulls off cleanly without damaging my calendar. The color-coding with the washi tape is also a great way to organize my time and have more visual feedback about where my time is being spent. (NeuYear also makes a dry erase calendar if that’s more your style.)
The academic NeuYear calendar I used my last year of grad schoolDouble Sided
Another great thing about the NeuYear calendar is that it is double sided. One side is landscape and the other is portrait. So you can hang it over your desk or it also fits perfectly on the back of a door. And if you are super creative you could actually use both sides at once, though I would be pretty impressed to see someone pull that off 😉
However you plan success this New Year make sure you allow for holistic balance in your life. Health, home, hobbies, and career all need to be given appropriate time for a successful year that satisfies body-mind-spirit. Be sure to subscribe for an exclusive Shelemah coupon for the NeuYear calendar!