Did you get a whiteboard or whiteboard calendar but found that you weren’t utilizing it as much as you thought you would OR maybe you were using it but stopped because you were getting ink on your walls or the frame of your board or the ink wasn’t coming off your board as cleanly as you would have liked so it started to not look so great? Or, you’re thinking about getting a whiteboard and had NO IDEA that they could get this messy! In the video above, I show you how to set up a whiteboard so that you can maximize the best ways to plan your time, your life, visions, and goals AND, on top of that, I show you how to set up your whiteboards so that they stay nice and clean while you easily move your tasks around instead of making a mess every time you want to make a change.
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If you saw my two previous videos on how to organize a small office and a shared office, I shared a glimpse of a wipe-off calendar and a planning whiteboard. The first trick to set up your whiteboard AND to keeping it clean is to use sticky notes. Sticky notes or post-its easily stick and unstick to whiteboards so you can actually use them over and over again for any repeating tasks you have (click here for how to print on sticky notes). Here I set up this whiteboard so that the sticky notes are being used for weekly tasks, a monthly business calendar and visions and goals. You can use a label maker or customize labels for any static events that you always do on certain days. For our church, there a couple other congregations who use our building. So, our office calendar there notes with label maker tape the church name and time of their meetings. For example, a Spanish-speaking service meets every Tuesday at 7 PM so we know to plan events around that time.
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In the video, I show you how to set up a whiteboard monthly calendar so that you can easily move the months and days around as the months change. What you will need is a monthly whiteboard calendar—I’ve had this for years … at one point, my brothers in law used this to keep score when playing corn-hole and I used my homemade all-purpose cleaner which has rubbing alcohol in it and a magic eraser to get it as clean as possible. You can purchase a pre-made calendar or make one yourself with some whiteboard tape. There are frame-less pieces of whiteboard at the hardware store so you can completely customize your frame when you set up your whiteboard as well. You will also need card-stock, a label maker or pre-made letter and number labels or you can print on your card stock or write on it if you prefer. I used label maker tape because it is durable. Or, you can add some packing tape to protect the card-stock if you would like. Lastly, you will need mini Velcro dots which you can find at Michael’s. I used a 50% coupon (check michaels.com on Wednesday afternoons for 50% off deals), and they turned out to be $1.88. WOOHOO! Do you get as excited for good deals as I do?!?!
To create your month and number labels, I suggest making them a font size that will fit the height of the Velcro dot. I created the labels on my label maker. If you would like to see a video on how I change the settings to maximize the length of the label tape and leave little waste, let me know in the comments below. I cut the card-stock into squares that were the width of the label tape for the numbers. For the months, you can go ahead and stick the whole label tape in one strip on the card-stock and cut the months apart.
The Velcro dots have a clear grippy side and a soft white side. You will want to stick the clear grippy side to the white board and the soft white side to the cardstock. On the whiteboard, I applied 2 for the month and 35 for the days. You only need to add one dot to the back of the month labels if they are not too big. You will want to let the dots cure on your whiteboard and cardstock for 15 minutes before using the calendar in order to give the dots the opportunity to adhere properly to the surfaces. Then, with just a little bit of work and very little money, you will be able to move these months and days around super easily and with no mess!
Now, let’s get to the best way to set up each whiteboard to maximize planning. I use this monthly calendar specifically for video planning and writing. I write everyday as I am working on my budgeting book but some days, I designate specifically to focus even more time on writing. Editing videos takes so much time so seeing this calendar at a glance makes it easier to look forward to what needs to be filmed sooner rather than later to allow enough time for editing. So, if you use your monthly calendar for your kids’ soccer games and other events, you can see at a glance if you will be able to make it to so-and-so’s birthday party or if you will come late after a game. You can also see if you will be able to book a doctor’s appointment on a certain day while you’re on the phone. But it is so nice to have this set up so that when you’re doing a billion things, like cooking and helping the kids with their homework and trying to clean up and you realize you really need to take care of something important, you can glance at the calendar and see exactly where you can fit it in. A little bit of time to set this up can save you a lot of time in staying on top of planning. For any tasks you do consistently on certain days, you can label a strip down that day of the week and then open the area up to either note specifics about that task or add in other tasks or goals that day.
I am a very digital person, so I always pull out my calendar on my phone whenever I learn of something my daughter wants me to bring her too, or, as soon as I receive an invite, I put it on my calendar with a reminder. My next video will show you how to organize your phone in order to maximize how to get things done and limit distractions.
For your visions, goals, daily and weekly tasks, I use a larger whiteboard. One half of the board notes, things to do or TTD and the other half notes items that are accomplished or done. Your visions will be things that you hope and pray for that you can’t necessarily work toward by physically doing something. I took some very personal visions down for the video but may share them in a future video. Let me know if you would like me to make a video on vision and goal setting because there are ways to set them up so that you can be successful at actually accomplishing them. Your goals will be things that you can work toward, even if little by little on huge goals. There is such a sense of satisfaction when moving that post-it from the TTD section to DONE. If you want to make your board more visual, you can actually stick post-its on a piece of paper and print images on them. For your weekly tasks, you can have a section for items you do weekly but throughout the month. And then you can have a section for things you consistently do daily and another section for things you do throughout the week. A lot of your tasks can stay on the designated days of the week if you have established routines that work well for your schedule. But, what is so helpful about using is a whiteboard is that you can easily move your tasks around as needed as your schedule changes whether it be temporarily or permanently.
What do you struggle with organizing? Let me know down below. I’m happy to help!
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Happy Organizing!
Author of “How to Organize Any Space in 7 Simplified Steps“