business

Paperage Planner: A Review

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

You’ve probably noticed that Amazon asks you to review pretty much everything you order: I don’t usually. However, when they asked me to review this planner, I decided it was worth telling you about. I’ve used the exact same planner for a full year, you see, and have found it practically perfect (for me) in every way. Not kidding. So I’ll not just review the planner here, but tell you how I use it as well.

It’s by Paperage and comes as a hardcover book that measures 5 1/2″ x 8″ x 1/2″ plus a smidge more. It also comes in a variety of colors, which is perfect for me since I want a different color for every year. Yes, I’ll keep them as part of my business record.

As someone who already has a full-time job, but also blogs, writes books, and has a monthly newsletter, I need something more than the usual scheduling system. I require a planner I can keep as a record of my year. After trying several options, I found this one and I’m officially a customer as long as Paperage continues to make this planner.

Ready for the book tour?

The first two pages, not surprisingly, are 2025 and 2026 calendars; you can guess what they look like, so onward we go. These next two pages are a God-send for me. As you can see, I’ve adapted them. First, I attached a tab at the top that says “Hours Worked.” The tab serves two purposes: It tells what the pages are about and, more importantly, makes it easy to find them. The other modification is boxes I drew into the Sunday lines so that I can keep track of my on-task hours daily, weekly, and monthly. (I write monthly totals at the bottom of each month’s column.)

Why do I track my hours? Because I need accountability. It’s easy, when I come home tired after a workday, to decided not to write, edit, or whatever. It’s easy, on a busy weekend, to do the same. To be totally honest, I look back at my hours from 2024 and am ashamed. While some of the blanks are a result of extended illness and other factors, others are sheer laziness and procrastination on my part. So yes, these two pages are an important motivator.

Next come the monthly calendars. I probably should have chosen a different month to photograph, because you can see my hand drawn blocks from the previous page. The paper being slightly transparent isn’t really a big deal for me. Since I write everything in pencil, I don’t have to worry about bleed through. If you’re a pen person, however, be aware that you might find it somewhat annoying.

This section is where I record my publishing schedule. When I’m on track, I have blog posts scheduled weeks and even months out. One glance at these pages and I know exactly where I stand. As you can tell, I’m not even remotely ahead at the moment. I’m hoping to change that during this holiday week. Maybe.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. On the right, you see dotted paper. Through 2024, this side of the page served multiple purposes from listing “Must Do” items to recording random thoughts and ideas to holding overflow notes from the daily records to… I don’t even remember what all. It’s versatile, and I’m glad I have it.

On the left side, I record what I do each day. Be it researching, writing, editing, publishing, promoting, or something else, it gets written down here. This way I can remember when I did what and, frankly, it occasionally makes me feel better about myself when I’m feeling like a slouch and shouldn’t.

The planner ends with several more dotted pages that, again, can serve a variety of purposes. I used them in 2024 to help me plan out the devotional I’m writing, to track goals I’d set for the year, and more.

The book also has two ribbon bookmarks, which I use to mark the current month and week; a folder on the back cover that comes with tiny accent stickers and can hold all sorts of things; and an elastic band to keep the book shut.

Bottom Line: This is a quality planner that is small enough to toss into my backpack when I travel, versatile enough to serve in a variety of ways, sturdy enough to stand as a yearly record, and comes in enough colors to keep me happy. I give it five out of five stars, hearts, etc.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

You can purchase the 2025 Paperage planner on Amazon.

One Thing About Technology

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

A few days ago, I had a conversation with someone I highly respect. He’s a fantastic husband and father, an astute businessman, and is actively involved in ministry. As we talked, we somehow got on the topic of technology and how, thanks to him essentially having a computer in his hand, he can work all the time.

More to the point, he explained that he has to fight the tendency to work all the time. It’s too easy to be answering a text message and then flip over for just a minute to respond to a work email…that turns into dealing with more work emails. He said he reaches a point where he has to literally put the phone down and walk away.

There are many studies out there showing how dangerous too much screen time is for young children and how hard it can be for many preteens and teens to interact in the real world because they’ve spent years primarily communicating via their phones. However, as our conversation revealed, the problem isn’t just with them.

I’m writing a book. I’ve been talking about it for a while, but after months of struggling I’m finally back to actively writing instead of just thinking about it. How? I put the laptop away and pulled out pen and paper.

As he shared his story with me, my own experience was running through my head, because I’d found myself with the same problem. I’d sit down to write, pull up Word, and get a notification from one of my apps. Or I’d want to clarify something I was referring to, google for information, and fall down a rabbit hole. I finally realized that, if I wanted to actually get the book written, I needed to take a few steps backwards.

Years ago, I was a regular writer for a homeschool magazine, and at one point I drafted an article while on a flight to meet with my editor. When she expressed interest in seeing the draft, I said, “Let me get my notebook.” She thought I was referring to a laptop, but I literally meant an old-fashioned, spiral-bound notebook. THAT is what I’ve gone back to: Paper and pen.

That one change is making all the difference. I don’t even write most of my blog posts on the computer anymore because paper and pen are so much more powerful. And for me to even type those words is ridiculous, because I’ve been endorsing the power of pen-and-paper journaling for years. I was just a little slow applying the same principles to my regular writing. There are so many benefits!

The biggest benefit for me is that putting ink on paper slows me down. I’ve mentioned before that my thoughts tend to run at warp speed sometimes, and writing them down instead of typing them out forces me to take the time to truly consider what I’m trying to say and how best to say it. Yes, I often need to confirm references, verify quotes, or whatever, but I try to wait until I’m finished to handle anything that might get me caught in the technology trap. In the meantime, I make margin notes or highlights or have a scratch pad beside me for notes about things I need to tweak later.

Obviously, I’ll eventually head back to the computer and get it all typed up, but the tradeoff of having to do what others might consider double the work is more than fair – because now the work is actually getting done instead of being set aside in favor of technology’s snare.

That’s one thing about technology that reminds me of my years of helping homeschoolers. I would tell them, “Curriculum is a tool for you to use. Don’t let it use you.” Likewise, today, I remind myself, “Technology is a tool for you to use.”

And I’m telling us both, “Don’t let it use you.”

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

In the Between Time

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

I was asked, recently, what I do during the week between Christmas and New Years. My answer? I clean house.

I do mean this partially in the literal sense. The tree comes down, boxes get recycled, etc., but that’s just the beginning. For me, this is a time of transition. I don’t want to wait for January 1 to start making changes; I plan for those changes now.

Spiritually, it means spending a lot more time talking to God about how things have gone this year and how He wants me to change things for next year. It means assessing my habits, heart, and hindrances to my walk as well as my successes and all of the progress I’ve made. And it means thanking Him a LOT for all He’s brought me through and the promising vistas I see ahead of me. It means setting my spiritual goals and making plans for how I can accomplish them.

In the physical, it means getting my office in order so I’m better prepared to grow increasingly serious about my writing and the business of Tammy Cardwell Publishing. I’ve been organizing and spray painting (The easiest solution when expensive solutions aren’t an option.) and organizing some more. I’m also studying. Merciful heavens, but there is a LOT to learn right now!

And, with the help of my ever-creative, genius son (Pixel Drip Studio), I’m working on a whole new website that will include this blog and a lot more. He’s pushing me, and I love it. This morning he was tossing out words like “timeline” and “milestones.” I’m 60 years old now and #owning60. I’m proof that you’re never too old to launch into something new.

So… What does your between time look like?

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Sister Adventures

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

walk laugh a 2017 06 crop

Photo Credit: Memories in Motion Photography (Candace Townsend)

Isn’t it special how the truly exciting things in life often involve our siblings? My sister Clarissa and I, even though we had our times of disliking each other growing up, have always played together. The last two years have been no different. First, after much prayer, we opened a clothing boutique. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, it would seem such a move would be obvious, but we’d never even considered going into business together before. We actually closed the business a couple of weeks ago, but that’s for later.

Then there was the day she dragged me to the gun range. She has a concealed carry license and had been telling me for months that I needed a break and shooting is therapy, so one day I caved and joined her to take my turns shooting both of her handguns (I preferred the .38, if anyone cares). I think I frustrated her when I refused to come out and say I’d had fun, but I did have to confess that it was very satisfying to try something completely new and do so well. In fact, it was a gift.

To understand my satisfaction, you have to know that I was always afraid of failure when I was young. I never learned to skate, for instance, because I feared making a fool of myself. Doing so well my first time at the range was extremely satisfying. Will I ever return to the range? I don’t know. It’s hard to excuse spending so much money on ammo when you’re only doing it for kicks.

Third, we went out of business with a bang. Sounds ridiculous, right? Going out of business is usually a terrible thing, but this was different. We prayed and considered carefully before concluding that it was the right move for us, and then we did something so exciting it still gives me goose bumps. We took all of our clothing and gave it away at a shelter for battered women. ALL of it. Many of these moms had taken their kids and run with only the clothes on their backs and what little they could carry. Seeing their joy at freely choosing several brand new outfits each was AMAZING, and it satisfied a long-held dream of mine.

I’ve always wanted to do something big – like give away a car or something. It wasn’t on my Bucket List, because I’ve always thought a Bucket List was for things that were at least somewhat within reach. If it had been on a list, I’d have called it my Dream Big list.

Because God led Clarissa and me into this particular adventure in the first place, my relatively small investment in our business was turned into something huge. When we calculated what we’d given to the shelter, we’d done the equivalent of giving away a car – a new car. You might think I’d regret investing money and time into a business that would close down after a year and a half, but I don’t; I consider it a huge blessing. Even if this final thing were the only reason we’d launched Cady’s Closet, I would say it was a grand adventure, and I haven’t stop smiling since we set up our pop-up boutique for the last time.

Now I’m looking forward to our next adventure. Sisterhood is an awesome thing.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C