Five great habits to start THIS month

Do you hit the end of the month and think “but wait, I didn’t do anything?” It’s easy to get caught in life and feel like it’s just passing.

Today I am going to be sharing with you five things that I do every month to make it my most productive month ever.

Make a budget.

Did you really think I would start with anything else? But making a budget gives you control over your month and your money.

Because it's telling your money where to go before the month begins. Each month is unique. So each budget needs to be unique to that month. So sit down and figure out what all you have going on add that to your expenses. And make a unique budget.

New to budgeting? How to make your first budget

Plan your month.

Pull out your planner and get ready. So at the start of the month I grab my planner and my phone and I get with my husband and I say "hey dude, what do you have going on this month?"

And we write down any appointments, any dates, anything we have going on. We go ahead and get it in my calendar so there are no surprises.

We can line up childcare, rearrange work schedules, whatever we have to do to keep everyone's life running as smoothly as possible. And then we take this time to plan a date night. We plan time together. Even if it's a date night at home. Or we plan family outings.

Being intentional with your time is so important.

Need to organize your planner? 17 lists you can keep in your planner

Change your air conditioner filter.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you need to change your AC filter. It's probably really gross.

Do it every month. Or get a filter you can clean and reuse. Simply vacuum it and you're good. They're very inexpensive.

There are also services that will send you filters each month. Endless options. But do it because if you don't the air you're breathing is gross.

Dump your phone and back up all your photos.

I do a phone dump every month. I airdrop everything from my phone to my desktop and then back it up on my external hard drive.

I know they're in the cloud, but I'm always scared something will happen. I have had literal nightmares about losing all of my photos.

I also like to make a photo album using ChatBooks. I love ChatBooks. (No. This isn't sponsored. They don't know who I am but. But they could send me some money.)

There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can have your photos automatically uploaded from your Instagram account. And they will send you a book automatically after every 60 photos. Those books are around $10.

Or you can upload the photos directly from your phone to the app. That's what I do.

If you want to get $10 off your first Chat Book click here. You get $10 I get $10 and everyone will live happily ever after.

Purge your clothes/toys/decore

And finally take some time to purge your clothes, or home or toys or anything that's making you feel overwhelmed.

I don't mean a full scale, top to bottom whole house purge. What Imean is if you're putting your clothes away one day, take a really quick inventory of your closet and see what you actually wore. When you're putting your kid's clothes away see what looks worn or torn or what they've outgrown and donate and sell those items they've outgrown that still look good. Get rid of everything else.

That way you're not hanging on to things will nilly. For no reason. Keep a basket in your kids' room and when they outgrow things toss them in the basket. When the basket is full donate.

Thanks for hanging out with me. I hope you'll subscribe to my email newsletter. And have the best month ever.