Keeping It All Together

Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress. -- Charles Kettering

Balancing family and work is a top priority for me, and I treat it as such.  Meaning, I actually put specific family time and events in my calendar so that precious time is dedicated and properly blocked off from any work that may try to sneak its way into my schedule. -- Biz Stone

Lately I've been a bit overwhelmed with work activities - the end of the semester is always a busy time and I've let it sneak up on me this year.  I think it's especially worse given my persistent injury funk...but I'm working on it.  In fact, I ran my first race since the DNF...a 10K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.  I was about 5 minutes slower than my time at the same race last year, and that bothered me a little bit, but I've settled into a peaceful acceptance that I'm on the comeback trail.  I should be thrilled that 1) I ran 2) pain-free 3) over the whole distance (9 run:1 walk) and 4) am only 5 minutes slower, even though I'm XX pounds heavier.  (My post-injury weight gain is another post altogether.)

Anyway, back to being crushed by real life...I have plans to get myself dug out by the end of the year, so I can start 2015 on a fresh page.  And that's critical.  With IronSherpa and I both training for an IM race next year, keeping it all together -- family, work, training -- is going to be a serious exercise in logistics.  Like UPS couldn't even keep up.

Photo - Fortune.com; Trademarks - UPS

This isn't an advertisement for UPS - like I said, they couldn't keep up with the Iron Family's life...but I do want to give a shout out to a company that I hope is going to be a huge help as I plan and execute a successful 2015 - family-wise/work-wise/and race-wise.

This company makes a product known as the Passion Planner - check it out here.

 They're currently wrapping up a Kickstarter campaign...and they've been very successful - which doesn't surprise me, because this is exactly the type of "keep it all together" that I've been looking for.  Goal setting, motivation, personal & professional to-do lists, etc....all in one place.  I think I'm in love.  IronSherpa and I keep a shared web calendar for appointments, but I need something in addition to that.  And this is what I plan to use for 2015.

(PS - I don't usually give shout outs to companies, unless I'm totally in love with their products.  I'm not a professional blogger & I have no affiliation with Passion Planner.  Even though I've only used a few sample pages from their website, I'm just telling you my plans...kind of like I usually do.)