Work-planning Balance?

I make lists each week of tasks (both wedding and not) that I need to have completed by Saturday night. It keeps me on track & I also don’t forget anything! It’s been hard with work, wedding planning, and moving but I swear lists are a life saver.

View Quoted Comment Ugh. I try to but it seems like I just can't get it all done. Sometimes I think maybe I'm just trying to do everything at once and I need to break things down in chunks.

Maybe I'll make priority lists then go from there.

I have accounts on both WeddingWire and The Knot to plan. The Knot has a good month by month breakdown on what you should accomplish. For example, my June to-dos are estimate guest count, narrow venue search, and schedule venue tours. The July plan has me focused on finding an officiant. We're a little over a year out, so everybody's list will look differently. I find that breakdown of month to month really helps keep you focused on not overwhelmed on the dozens of wedding things that need to be done.

I'm doing laundry in between phone calls to day of coordinator, church for rehearsal schedule, and scheduling dress alteration appointment. I do most of the planning on the weekend with my mom and sister. I'm also on here during the day at work.

I make timelines. We are basically done now (wedding is 1 month away) but in the past I did "Okay, I'm going to book the DJ in the next 3 weeks" and all I did those 3 weeks was look at DJ reviews & recommendations & have phone calls with them, etc. I made clear lists and outlined when I'd work & when I wouldn't!

I have all my vendors booked but still have small things to do for the wedding. I made lists of the types of vendors I needed and started focusing on a specific vendor at a time. Strategic planning is a huge part of my full-time job so I've used that skill to help with wedding planning! I will say that I have gotten behind on cleaning my condo & laundry because all I want to do in my free time is work on wedding stuff.

We had made "monthly task" goals and identified the point-person. I also multitasked as much as possible. A spare minute at work? Send out an email. Laundry day? You're home anyways so get all the research and other chores done then.

I totally feel you - when I was wedding planning I sometimes felt like there weren't enough hours in the day. You just need to do things one at a table and check off things on your list one at a time. It'll seem like there's a lot of things to do still but it'll gradually be done

Full-time job, 2 kiddos, spouse, planning a wedding, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and fun in between... Man oh man. I just keep saying I cannot wait until the day I say I do. I feel like the wedding has taken over my life and my house LOL. I am not even sure some days how I do it, but I manage.

Lists... Lots of lists.

We have one master list of everything that needs to be done. We continually add to it and update it. We just started doing a “wedding standup” for 30 minutes each night during the week- but we cut it off after 30 minutes. On the weekends we spend 3-4 hours on Sunday (sometimes things on Saturday too) but we are 108 days out so it seems to be gaining velocity. We’re both in business and work 40+ hour jobs and go the gym 5-6 days a week. It’s a lot! Honestly, I don’t know what we would have done without a planner and a full service venue! Good luck and try to schedule some time in for YOU!