A MONTHLY VIEW OF TIME GIVES YOU A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE!

It's important to view your month at a glance. Here's why.

Ever walked through a new town blindfolded? I didn't think so. Yet, so many of us do this with our time. We wander into a brand new month blind to the events that are coming up all around us. And it's not pleasant bumping into and stumbling over those events that lay quietly in our calendars.

So today, I'm sharing four benefits to viewing your month at a glance. And after you read this post, I think you'll want to have a monthly calendar in view all the time! Let's get into it!

1. Viewing your month at a glance means you can prepare better

One of the first benefits of viewing your month at a glance is that you can better prepare for the month ahead.

Being able to catch an overview of your calendar, your events, those special dates and occasions that are coming up on the horizon will give you a greater sense of calm. That's because they won't catch you unawares.

Viewing your month at a glance also means that you can be prepared for any upcoming birthdays and celebrations.

I don’t know about you, but I love giving gifts and sending people notes! So for me, it’s important to see who I can love-up on in the coming month.

Seeing birthdays in advance also means that you’re less likely to be frantically rushing around to find a card and present on the day.

Viewing your month at a glance allows you to see potential landmines.

What's a landmine? Essentially, a landmine is where there is likely to be a problem with scheduling or upcoming activities.

For example; perhaps you have an important work deadline coming up in the third week of the month, but you notice that it's also the week that the kids are off school. And so, without a plan for childcare, your work might suffer. But catching these things before they blow up in your face can prevent a lot of casualties!

One of the best ways to view your month at a glance is on paper. And if you're a die hard digital fan, here's why I'm not a fan of a monthly overview in a digital calendar, even though I use a hybrid digital system.

Did you know that I use a digital system that easily helps me manage all of my gifts and contacts (as well as my entire life)? It’s called the One Life System and you can check it out here.

Paper vs Digital Calendar

In a calendar app for example, chances are you have multiple appointments and recurring activities happening all the time. And chances are that at some point, your digital calendar will require you to dive deeper into a date on your calendar if you want to know how many more events are on the same day. This means that when you're viewing your month at a glance, you're not getting a full picture of the important things that are happening.

A monthly calendar spread inside our stationery club.

Unless you have several colour-coded calendars that you can turn on and off and one of those calendars is called "Important events", you won't be able to see the flowers from the weeds. In other words, the 'stand out' events from the mundane.

On the other hand, with a paper calendar, you can't fit every mundane task and event on it. So you're forced to select which events are important enough to take up space on your physical monthly calendar. That means that when you view your monthly calendar at a glance, you're genuinely looking at those events that you've acknowledged as being more important than others. Essentially, you've filtered out the weeds and are left with your key activities for the month ahead.

And if you'd like to get your hands on a pretty monthly calendar, join our list and grab our monthly calendar right now!

2. It gives you motivation to take action and increases your optimism

One of the reasons that I love using a visible monthly calendar is that it really motivates me to take action. There’s nothing more motivating to me than going through the month and realising the days are going by.

The act of crossing off the days in the month sets a fire under me that just makes me want to roll up my sleeves and get to work!

If you’ve ever reached the end of the month and thought “where did that month go?”, then you’ll know what I’m talking about! If we’re not careful, we can easily drift through our days, our weeks and our months. Which is why, when you get into the habit of crossing off your days on your monthly calendar, you’ll soon begin to realise how precious time is and it’ll make you want to move your goals forward and take action!

3. You can block off time for important things first

When you can view your entire month at a glance, you can more easily see the pockets of time where you have space for your personal projects or activities. And this makes it much easier to block off periods of time for your own priorities.

This is really important because having free space in your calendar allows you to prioritise your self care and ensure that you have space to relax, recharge and be refreshed during the month.

I live in London which is a crazy busy city! It always feels like there are 101 things to do in a day and like everyone around is also in a mad rush.

Being able to see the pockets of time in my month where I can “down tools” and just reset are so invaluable! It’s a sanity saver and something I don’t want you to take lightly.

So it's always a good idea to claim time for your priorities before your time has been taken up by other people's requests and agendas.

I feel like, during lockdown, so many people began to realise how important our mental health is for our emotional wellbeing. And so, if you’re not already prioritising some self care in your month, I urge you to start doing so! Your future self will thank you.

Just view your month at a glance and block off some time for rest. And when someone wants to push their agenda on to one of your rest days, you can say, with complete honesty, that you’re not available on that day. You don’t need to give an explanation. Just ask them for an alternative time that works with your calendar.

When you block off time in advance to prioritise your important items, it's easier to say 'no' to the things that might not be the best use of your time.

4. You can keep a better pulse on your goals

Another great benefit of viewing your month at a glance is that you can keep an eye on important deadlines. This is really useful when you are setting goals, for instance. Having deadlines for your milestones and goals on your monthly view makes it crystal clear to see what needs to be done by when. Meaning that you can see whether you're on task or whether timings need to be moved around.

For some reason, viewing tasks in a list with deadlines doesn't have the same effect on our brains in helping us to understand how near or far we are in time from those deadlines. But when we view the same tasks on a calendar, it's so much easier to how far away we are from them.

Did you know that you can also use your monthly calendar to track your habits and goals?

I know we have a monthly tracker inside our stationery collections. And our monthly tracker is great for checking off completions. But if you needed more space to add other details, then this is where the monthly calendar comes in handy.

You can add details like how many calories you consumed that day, or how many miles you ran, how many sales calls you made and closed or what your daily revenue was. Whatever habit or goal your tracking, the larger boxes in our monthly calendars allow you to enter more information - or even stickers! - so that you stay motivated and inspired to keep making progress with your goals and habits.

In conclusion

I hope you've found these points helpful so that, from now on, you won't be blind to the events that are coming up all around you.

So if you’re ready to make progress on your goals this month, I recommend you download our monthly calendar! You can get a free copy right here ⤵️. You’re welcome! 😉

Other posts you may like:

• 5 Things You Need to Plan Your Best Productive Week

• How to Schedule Your Time Better

• The Stationery Advantage - Using Stationery to Build Successful Habits