Let’s talk creative planners!
How to make your planner work for you plus 5 tips for choosing the right-for-you planner.
One of the things I love about a new year is breaking in a new planner.
I’m still a little surprised by this sentiment. I’ve never been one for meticulously planning my days. I don’t have many appointments to keep track of. I don’t need to use a planner for my 9 to 5 job. And for the longest time, I just didn’t get the whole planner craze.
That changed a few years ago, when I first took the bullet journaling system for a spin. I quickly realized that the entire system was too tedious for me, though I did adapt a lot of bits and pieces for myself.
One that I really liked was the daily log, which is what my planning system — and planner — is based on. Just so you know, I use my planner for my creative, personal life, not for my 9 to 5.
I use a weekly planner, and jot down my weekly to-do list on one side of the spread. I use the weekly calendar as a daily log, recording everything that I did that day.
Having this record on hand has done wonders for my creativity and my mental health.
On the days when I’m feeling down, I have a tendency to forget everything that I’ve worked on and everything that I’ve accomplished. Being able to look back at my daily logs helps me see that I haven’t just been whiling away my time.
I use the monthly layouts to track the most important thing that I want to focus on during the year. For me, that is art time.
I’m not looking to create an unbroken streak, but being able to see how often I’ve been in the studio at a glance helps me stay connected to my practice. Some times I’m in the mood to challenge myself to a short streak. Other times, looking at a string of no art days gives me the nudge I need to put down my phone and pick up my paintbrush.
And then there is the washi. I’m not going to lie, I love decorating my planners with washi tapes and stickers. They’re little splashes of color and joy that invite me to flip through the pages and read through some of my entires. Last year, I also added photographs and other ephemera into my weekly planner.
All the washi tape you see in my journals is from The Washi Tape Shop. I absolutely love their designs, they’re gorgeous gilded washi tapes, and the quality of printing and adhesion.
Click on the link below and use the code Modern10 at checkout for a 10% discount and free international shipping!
Indulge your love for Washi! »
This year, though, I added a daily planner to my line-up {it’s hilarious to me that I now have a planner line-up!}. This one is mainly for memory keeping, so all my photographs and ephemera will be housed in here.
It took me several years of experimenting, trying, and tweaking before I found the perfect for me planner system. I don’t like the tedium of drawing in calendars and layouts. Neither do I like planners with tons of bells and whistles that I will never use. I needed something minimal and functional, and finally found an Indian brand that makes lovely planners with excellent paper. If you want to see the layout of the planner I use, I posted a flipthrough on YouTube shorts.
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5 tips to help you find the perfect for you planner
If you’re new to the planning world or are looking to switch up your planning system, here are a few tips for you:
Your planer should serve you. Watching planning videos and set-ups can make planning look like a complicated, tedious task, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Keeping up with your planner shouldn’t feel like another task you have to cross off your to-do list. Function comes first. You can jazz it up, or not, later.
Before you commit to a shiny new planner, consider your needs. Do you need fancy goal tracking systems? Do you need space for daily appointments? Will you actually write a quote or affirmation in your planner very week? Do you realistically have the time for a structured weekly review? If the answer is no, look around for a simpler planner.
Try things out in a cheap composition notebook or in your journal first. I set up the bullet journal system in the middle of my journal and gave it a whirl to see if I actually wanted to splurge on a dot grid notebook. Turns out, I didn’t! Shiny object syndrome is such a siren song, especially when you’re bombarded with ads or when it looks like everyone around you swears by a particular brand. Be discerning. Take your time. Once you know what you like, you can splurge to your heart’s content!
If you see a fancy planner that you fall in love with, ask yourself if you’ll actually use it. I’ve seen some gorgeous, full color planners with beautiful, structured layouts. Friends, I cannot tell you how tempted I was to click that shiny ‘Buy Me’ button! But I know myself well. I wouldn’t have been able to write in that pretty journal, and I would have rebelled against the structure in two days flat. I resisted the temptation, and I have zero regrets!
Choosing the right size of planner is also important. My weeks planner is a slim, standard Travellers Notebook size. My daily planner is an A6. I knew I wanted a small planer for the daily because I didn’t want the stress of creating complicated layouts or recording long passages that I know I’ll never go back and read. I wanted my daily memory keeping to be quick — a few minutes throwing together a quick collage, using some washi tape and stickers, and recording a single memory or highlight from my day. Since I already use A6 journals, I knew it would be the perfect size for me. If you’re not sure about the size, try folding a piece of paper to different sizes and trying them out. That’s what I did when I was trying to choose between A6 and B6 size journals.
Let’s chat!
I love chatting with you in the comments or via e-mail. Here are a few questions to help us get the conversation rolling.
Do you have a planner system that works for you?
One planner or multiple planners? And tell us what you use them for!
Your favourite planner brand? And your favourite planner supplies?
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Great post! I just published a post on bullet journaling earlier this week, so it was a delight to come across your post in the Writers at Work thread today! I've been bullet journaling for 7 years, but like you, my system has evolved over time and doesn't follow the bullet journal system exactly. I definitely agree with you that function comes first! I tell people that once they've got that nailed down, then they can worry about it whether or not to make it pretty. And you can't go wrong with washi!
I'm coming back to using a planner again this year. I remember a planner was so much a part of me in my younger years. Trying to reclaim myself this year and the planner is part of that. I decorate planners too! Especially since my daughter bought a whole goody box of scrapbooking stuff...that inspired me.
Thank you for opening your planner to us! I enjoyed reading this.