As I mentioned in my previous posts, I am passionate about organization. When I was getting ready for my Disney Program, I created a detailed game plan. Not everything can be planned in life, and I understand that- one can prepare as much as one can. However, making itineraries and to do lists always helps me get even more excited for any big adventure. So, I thought I would share some of the organizational techniques I used prior to my arrival date, even during my program, in case there are others out there who love planning and/or need help in that department.

First, it’s not as exciting as my other techniques (in my opinion) but I set a lot of reminders on my phone and calendar. As I mentioned in my Arrival Day Preparation post, I went onto the Disney Programs Website and created my own checklist inspired by the Pre-Arrival checklist and timelines they provided. I would use my reminders app on my iPhone. I would set dates and times for the app to remind me to do a task at an appropriate time, so I didn’t do that task too late or too early. I would also make sure I checked my email every day to see if the program had anything urgent for me to do that wasn’t on the original pre-arrival page.

Second, I made a binder. The binder was a way for me to keep important paperwork and documents with me while I was living in Florida. The documents I included were my Arrival Itinerary, my Offer Letter, Any Program Fee Payment Receipts, Leasing Documents, Proof of Dorms Registration, Housing Request Form, Proof of Drug Tests and Results.

I was worried that they could’ve lost some of those documents within their system, so I wanted to make sure I had back-ups in case they tried to say I didn’t do one of the pre-arrival steps. I backed up all documents on my laptop as well in case anything happened to the binder. I put all my documents in plastic sleeves and had extra sleeves to store memorabilia from my program. Some of the items I collected were park maps, festival brochures, event itineraries, photobooth pictures, letters I received, and certificates I earned, like when I completed my training. I had a one-inch binder that ended up being maxed out by the end because of all the memorabilia. So, if you want to get a binder too, I suggest getting a one-inch binder if it’s only going to be pre-arrival documents but if you want to store other items then you may need a bigger size. You could also do an accordion folder if you are not a binder person, but you still want to keep personal files with you.

Lastly, I used Notion, religiously. Notion is an organizational website (usually for businesses), but it’s where you can create personal organizational pages to coordinate your day to day, big projects, trips, what have you. Notion is free but only up to a certain number of gigabytes. I splurged and purchased a full membership to have unlimited storage. The reason I paid for the full experience is because I love it when I can make things aesthetically pleasing and I wanted to make sure my itineraries, to-do list and logs weren’t boring. I like to add a lot of color and pictures to my pages I create. I use Notion for a lot of aspects of my life, but when it came to preparing for Florida it really was my favorite tool.

I created a special page for “My Florida Project.” For those who do not know Disney History, The Florida Project was the name that Walt Disney gave to Disney World when he was purchasing land and dealing with construction plans for Orlando. It is also the title of an excellent film from A24 about families living in poverty right outside of Disney World. I may need to do a whole separate post about that movie, to be honest, I think it’s a must watch for those moving to Orlando and/or Kissimmee, Florida.

Anyway, I got off track- I had my own Florida Project I was preparing for, and Notion was a perfect one stop shop for personal coordination. Notion was great for timelines, packing lists and to-do lists of course, but even when I was in the program, I could log and keep track of rides I’ve ridden, restaurants I’ve tried, hotels I stayed at, and I could even journal out my days. Before arriving, I made a bucket list of things I wanted to do in Orlando while I lived there, I honestly didn’t think I would even finish it because I didn’t have a car but I ended up crossing off almost all of my bucket list items, except for going to the Kennedy Space Center. That will be for another time, I guess. When I was doing research on the location of Flamingo Crossing, I would also log my research notes on there as well.

Since I had never been to Disney World before this, my family planned to head to Florida a week prior to my arrival date. With this trip we could see all the parks and have a family vacation before I would be gone for what they thought would be 8 months- turned out to be 12 months. Notion was perfect for making itineraries and journaling how things actually played out.

Towards the end of my program, I used Notion to create a “Coming Home” game plan, although I was not as thorough with my “coming home” plans because by then, my life had become chaotic. I was also able to plan out my extension with my friend who was staying in Florida with me. Notion allows multiple people to edit pages if the admin invites them via email and that’s what I did, I shared one of the pages with my friend so we could make plans together. Notion has so many cool features to it, it’s almost overwhelming but if you find a creative outlet in being organized like I do, well then you will never get tired of using it.

I know not everyone finds as much excitement as I do when it comes to making itineraries and logs and there might be people out there who love it more than me, but I figured this information will be found by whoever is meant to see it. Now, this post may have been a shameless promotion for Notion (which they didn’t pay me to do, they probably don’t know I exist), but I also do hope this post helps someone looking for organizational techniques see what I have done and have it inspire them to find their own way of doing things. Everyone has their own techniques for keeping things together and you need to find what is best for you.