Ally Aldridge Page Layout, Personal, Planner, Stickers

Suffolk UKPA Meet

The Christmas Meet Up

On Saturday, 30 November 2019, I attended the Suffolk UK Planner Meet up.

What sort of planner girl am I?

I felt like a fraud going because I am the worst planner girl.  I aspire to be organised and I love stationery, so the planner girl world really appeals to me but I am so disorganised that I can’t plan. Ironic – I know!

But, I went to the first  Planner Meet (April 2019) for Suffolk UKPA.  We had afternoon tea and I hoped to get some tips from experienced planner girls to help me get started.  The women I met were so lovely that when the invitation for the next meet came up I thought… Why not?

What happened at the meet?

I confessed that I am failing as a planner girl but the ladies didn’t shun me.  They welcomed me and we chatted about life, drank tea and enjoyed the nibbles provided.

The hosts, Ellen and Laura had prepared a craft activity for fun.  Laura (Instagram:  @the_do_it_all_mum_uk) had bought wooden discs, some twine and Christmas napkins from Poundland.  This was an incredibly simple activity with impressive results.  I love my new Christmas Decoration and can say “I made it!”

Ellen (Instagram:  @ellenbeemakes) brought her Etsy store to us.  It was great to have a browse through her stock and be able to ask her questions.  Ellen has a great YouTube channel to support creatives with using her products or other crafts.  She is a crafty mastermind.

Ellen and Laura also put together a goodie bag for attendees.  The video below shows what was inside and will help you discover her YouTube channel.

If that wasn’t awesome enough, the event also included a swap table. People brought with them stickers and other stationery that they didn’t need to give away for others to use.  I helped myself to a pad of paper for Noah, some stickers and washi tape.

Here are a few pictures of what I came home with.

Some of the women brought their planners and generously shared how they use them.  I fell in with a planner by Becca (Instagram @simplyhobonichi).  Her planner looked like something out of a magazine.  It had a beautiful personal feeling like a scrapbook.  This is the sort of planner I aspire to create.  She kindly told me about her favourite pens and let me take pictures to send to my husband to form part of my Christmas wishlist.

I’m so happy that I attended.  It was a lovely break from my kids (and if you’ve read my NaNo diary you will know why that was needed).  Being with these women made me feel rejuvenated.  I would definitively be interested in going again.

If you want to find out more about meets, join their Facebook group, Suffolk UKPA.

If you like this, you will enjoy

Gifts for writers

I got to tour Ingram Spark’s print facility

My new Carpe Diem planner

Handwrite to boost creativity

Click my link tree to discover more ways to connect with me.

@Redfae

Ally Aldridge Writing

My new posting schedule

I’ve really impressed myself with how regular I have been posting to my blog and exceeded my own expectations. However, with my circumstances changing I know that will be difficult to maintain. I have looked at my current schedule and played around with some ideas to find something that is manageable.

Featured blog articles

I really enjoy the way Word Press makes it easy to share others bloggers posts. It enables me to support other bloggers build their audience and to enable my readers to discover more great blogs.

Recently, I posted encouraging anyone that wanted me to feature them to let me know as I’m worried I’ll have limits time to find the articles myself. Some great bloggers have stepped up to help me continue this feature. If you’d like to be features, please comment on my ”Help Me” post.

This feature will continue to be fortnightly on a Monday.

Writing/Blogging/Books

My blog started off as being about writing fiction and it is still my passion to continue to cover this. Although, over the years this feature has become more varied and now covers blogging, books and literature festivals.

Through my son I have fallen in love with Childrens books all over again and I would like to cover this more in future and may even dare to do a YouTube channel *eek*. Let’s focus first on keeping the blog current and taking care of my young family.

This feature will be fortnightly on Tuesdays.

Beauty (organic/cruelty-free)

Originally, this feature started to support fellow fair skinned girls discover the palest foundation.

Then, I discovered leading brands were testing on animals so I started paying more attention to my products.

Then my son ate my make-up! I was horrified by the chemicals in it (luckily he was fine). A friend had gifted him organic baby products and he was the only one at baby group without dry skin or cradle cap and I started to question ingredients in products and switching to organic.

I will continue to share my finds fortnightly on Thursdays, although currently whilst on maternity pay I have cancelled my subscription boxes and it’s likely to include a few more baby products.

Personal

In recent months, I’ve started sharing more personal posts. These are likely to be on parenting as that is what I will be doing mostly over the coming months. It will also include goal setting and achievements.

These will be fortnightly on Saturdays.

Events (occasional)

Throughout the year, there are events that I enjoy taking part in like NaNoWriMo/NaPoWriMo. Or when I set myself personal challenges like 14 poems for Valentines day or to raise awareness of Mental Health month.

I hope to be able to continue to take part in these events and will post sporadically inline with the events requirements. These posts will be in addition to the above when taking place.

Ally Aldridge Writing

Simple content plan

In March, I identified that I needed a plan to help me manage my blog content. I needed the plan to be simple, quick and accessible so I could use it wherever I was and I had time.

Google spreadsheet

I decided to create a calendar in Google spreadsheets.

I coloured the cells to indicate the content type:

  • Orange: featured post
  • Blue: writing post
  • Green: beauty post
  • Yellow: personal post
  • Pink: NaPoWriMo (a special feature/event)

I wrote my content idea on the colour coded cell. I made the text:

  • Bold: unwritten
  • Italic: started/in draft
  • Plain: done (scheduled)

This made it superveasy to see what posts I needed to write and when so I could prioritise.

Being easy to access on my mobile or any PC/Laptop meant it didn’t restricting my blogging.

Amending plans

Sometimes, I found I wasn’t inspired to write what I planned. So, I copied the cell to my ideas list for future reference and moved another idea into the vacant space that I did feel like writing.

I often have more ideas than time to write and this helps me stay focussed on the tasks I have chosen rather than trying to write them all. Being more focussed helps me get the article written in the limited time I have (usually an hour or two on a Sunday).

I can gather the pics I need for my blog and Instagram in plenty of time. I take these throughout the week and save to a folder on my phone.

Verdict

I’m really pleased with my simple plan as it work for me. Being more organised makes me feel more in control.

My future schedule

I do need to relook at my schedule and reduce the frequency ready for when my newborn arrives. In addition, I vowed to return to novel writing once my CIPD course is complete (end of June).

As a result, I think I’ll struggle to post every other day but I still want to achieve a fairly regular flow. Currently, my content plan is filled up until end of August and 50% full from there until December… Maybe, I can do it all…

I would love to know what you think and the methods you use to plan your content. I’m constantly learning.

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