Having two homes sounds rather idyllic, and it is, but it also means having two calendars, two sets of appointments, two lots of things to remember and quite a lot of forward planning.
My life is divided between Palma, Mallorca, where I spend much of my time, and the UK, where I return regularly to spend time at home, with grown up family and in the garden. I love having this rather unusual double life, but I've learned that the key to making it work is planning ahead.
I can't normally simply decide at the last minute that I'm going back to the UK. Flights need booking, appointments need arranging and there are usually a surprising number of things I want to fit into the time I'm there. So I've developed a fairly simple system for keeping everything organised.
Book the flights first
Once I know roughly when I want to be in the UK, I book the flights, this is the starting point because everything else works around those dates. I tend to look ahead at weekends, school holidays and other commitments and get the flights booked as early as I can. Once they're in the calendar, I have something definite to work with, and importantly, I don't have to keep remembering the dates, they're written down.
Then I work backwards
Once the flights are booked, I start thinking about what needs to happen before I leave Palma and what I want to achieve while I'm in the UK. This is where having a big-picture planner becomes particularly useful, rather than trying to hold everything in my head, I can see the coming weeks and months in front of me.
For me, this is where I'd use the Little Big 3 Term Academic Planner.
Although it was originally designed around the academic year, the format works really well for anyone who likes to see their commitments and plans laid out over a longer period. I can use it to mark in:
- UK and Palma dates
- Flights and travel weekends
- School term dates
- Holidays
- Appointments
- Birthdays and events
- Work commitments
- Garden jobs
- Important deadlines
- Things I need to organise before travelling
It gives me the bigger picture before I start worrying about all the individual jobs.
Book the appointments while I'm still here
This is one of the things that makes travelling between two homes easier, if I know I'm going to be in the UK for a particular weekend or a week during the holidays, I'll try to book appointments around those dates before I go, hair appointment, dentist, optician, anything else that needs doing. It sounds obvious, but it is so much easier to organise these things when I can look at the dates in advance rather than arriving in the UK and discovering that the appointment I wanted isn't available. It's one less thing to think about when I get there.
Make a list of everything I need to do
This is where my Tick It Off organiser comes into its own. The bigger planner tells me when things are happening. Tick It Off helps me work out what actually needs doing. So a trip to the UK might turn into a list something like:
☐ Book flights
☐ Book dentist
☐ Arrange hair appointment
☐ Check train times
☐ Sort garden jobs
☐ Take things to the UK
☐ Collect things to bring back to Palma
☐ Deal with post
☐ Order anything needed for the house
There's something very satisfying about turning a slightly overwhelming list into a series of little ticks. And, more importantly, I don't have to keep the list in my head.
Don't forget the garden
The UK garden is another reason that a little forward planning helps, there's always something happening in a garden, and what needs doing changes with the seasons. If I'm going to be away for several weeks, I need to think about what needs doing before I leave and what can wait until I return. Some jobs are time-sensitive. Others really aren't. Having them written down means I can make sensible decisions rather than arriving home and immediately feeling that everything needs doing at once.
Two organisers, two jobs
This is why I would use these two organisers together. The 3 Term Academic Planner is for the bigger picture, it helps me see where I'm going to be, what is coming up and how everything fits together. Tick It Off is for the detail., it's where I break those bigger plans down into individual jobs and actually get them done. Plan it. Write it down. Tick it off. It's a simple system, but when you're constantly moving between two homes, simple is exactly what you need.
You can't remember everything
I think this is probably the biggest lesson I've learned from living between Palma and the UK. Being organised isn't about having an incredibly complicated system or remembering every single detail. It's about getting things out of your head. Once the flights are booked and the dates are written down, I don't need to keep thinking about them. Once the appointments are in the planner, I don't need to remember to book them. Once the jobs are on a Tick It Off list, I can simply work through them. That leaves much more mental space for the things I actually want to be doing.
The joy of having two homes
There is definitely more organisation involved in living between two countries, but I wouldn't change it, I love the contrast between my life in Palma and my time in the UK. One gives me the energy and sunshine of city life in Mallorca, the other gives me my garden, familiar places and a completely different rhythm. The trick is making the logistics feel manageable so that I can enjoy both. For me, that means booking ahead, looking at the bigger picture and breaking everything down into manageable jobs. And, of course, having a couple of good organisers within easy reach because sometimes being organised isn't about doing more.
It's about knowing what needs to happen, getting it onto paper and then getting on with enjoying your life.