Starting A New Planner...in April

I love starting a new planner.  For me a new planner is like starting a New Year.  The possibilities of something new, a blank canvas.  I tend to stick to the same planner the whole year, but once in a while I feel the need to try a new planner.  2021 became that year.  I was determined to not spend money on more planners (this is when I try to not look at the new planners coming out in April and May), my budget can’t handle it.

I usually have two planners, one for weekly planning and one for daily planning.  My weekly/yearly planner is calendar year (Jan-Dec), my daily planner is academic year (July-June).  I keep the calendar year planners as sort of a historical tracking of our daily lives.  My daily planner I throw away after I’m done with it. 

In 2021 I tried to not do a weekly planner and see if I could do with just the daily planner.  I was trying to prove my family that I could do with just one planner, but who was I kidding, I love planners!  And no, you don’t need more than one planner.  One planner is plenty to organized your life, lol 

Mid-January, I realized I work better with the two layouts, two planners.  I tried doing my own weekly, I tried adding it to my home binder (see previous post) and it just was not working.  I was forgetting to schedule my days and I ended up in March just reacting to the day and instead of planning ahead of the day. 

This made remember these things: 

1.      Using a planner works for me as it makes me more intentional on what I want to do in the day.

2.       At night, I tend to have less the feeling of “what did I do today?”.

3.      I need to write things down (I’m a visual person).

4.      The science of writing things down makes you remember it more, is true for me.

5.      I love decorating pages and stickers.

6.      To actually use the planner, I have to like the planner I am using.

7.      It is ok to pivot and change what is not working even mid-month.

I ended up buying an Erin Condren Life Planner.  Erin Condren planners were the first planners I fell in love with and I haven’t used one for a while (I was trying other planners).  I wanted to go back to the planner I know how to use and makes me want to use it daily.  I liked their paper quality, the covers and layout.

Now comes the fun part of setting it up (yes, I set up my planners, this is part of my creative time) and I hope you come along with me and see how I set it up and leave a comment below on how you use your planners, I am always looking for inspiration 😊.