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6 New and Different Ways to Use Your Monthly Calendar

Tools| Paper Me Pretty| Productivity| Planning

April 29, 2024•4 min read

DISCOVER DIFFERENT WAYS TO USE YOUR MONTHLY CALENDAR

When I first created our monthly calendar, I thought that it would be used as....well... a calendar! But I was so wrong! It's used in so many ways. So I thought I'd share a few of them with you in case you'd like to use your calendar a little differently too!

1. As a family organiser

This is probably the most common use for our monthly calendars. As a regular calendar where you can keep a tab on all the activities that affect your family's schedule. Things like kids performances, school project deadlines, birthday parties and the like.

Because the boxes in our monthly calendar give a generous amount of space for writing, you can put more than one event in them.

2. As a habit tracker

You can also use our monthly calendar as a habit tracker. This is useful if you just want to track one major habit. But you can also track multiple habits with a monthly calendar by using stickers or different coloured pens for the different habits.

A monthly calendar spread inside our stationery club.

This is how the famous American comedian Jerry Seinfeld used his monthly calendar. He would put a great big 'X' over each day that he wrote a joke. His goal was to write at least one joke a day. And as those X's started filling up the calendar, the process soon became about not missing a day!

You can do this with any major goal that you want to track. Perhaps you want to track how many minutes you exercise for each day. Or how many calories you consumed. Perhaps you'd like to track how many words you wrote towards your next novel. The possibilities for using the calendar as a tracker are endless!

"What you track, you transform."
PAPER ME PRETTY

3. Use your monthly calendar to plan and organise a project or goal

This is one of my favourite uses for the monthly calendar. It's really handy as a way to track a project.

Say, for example, that you're decluttering your home. You could use the boxes inside the monthly calendar to record what you decluttered that day. Or perhaps you're doing a landscaping project in your garden, you can make a note of what was done each day you worked in the garden.

4. As a memory or activity log

Another great way to use the monthly calendar is as a memory or activity log. Perhaps you want to recall what you did each day on your holiday. Or perhaps you want to keep a track of when baby said their first words and other milestones. Putting events into your calendar gives you a lovely place to look back and see what happened when.

5. Use your monthly calendar to plan your social media

If you run a business (or maybe you just have a very active Tik Tok channel!), you can use the calendar to plan out the content you'll be posting over the month. Using a calendar for planning your social media content rather than a boring spreadsheet is SO much better for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's always great to see what day of the week posts are going out. Things like #MotivationMonday and #ThrowbackThursday are easier to plan when you're viewing them in a calendar.

Secondly, you can, at a glance view national holidays and special events happening in your own life that you might want to post about on your social channels.

I definitely use my monthly calendar like this!

6. Use it as a connection planner

Another great way to use our monthly calendar is as a "connection planner".

What's that you ask? Well, it's just what I call my plan for connecting and keeping in touch with friends and family. You can make a note of people's birthdays as well as who you'd like to call and catch up with. Or perhaps when you'll post out some pretty cards for a friend's birthday - or just because your friend would appreciate receiving a pretty card!

Is it time to use your calendar a little differently, friend? Let me know which of these six ways you might start using your monthly calendar going forward. I'd love to know!