Making Your Planner Work for You (Not the Other Way Around)

Let's talk planners!

I have had almost every kind of planner out there.

No, really, I have.

I call my planner my Brain Book because everything that's in my brain goes into that book.

Before I started using planners, I used $0.99  notebooks to keep my life in order. When I realized I needed more, I explored as many options as I could before spending any money.

I decided to start with a basic $4 dot-grid notebook from Walmart and I was very proud of the fact that I didn't spend a lot of money on it. Then I went with an Erin Condren dot-grid notebook (wow expensive) and have since tried every notebook/journal in between, except for the the Leuchtturm1917. One thing I knew was that a bound notebook wasn't going to work for me.

So I continued with my dot-grid pseudo-bullet journaling and my Brain Book became a creative outlet.

But then I got tired of having to draw out everything every week and wasting tons of Post-It Notes waiting for the right pages on the right week to put my notes into my Brain Book and completely messing up my lines and having to start all over again and problem and problem and time-consuming problem.

My Brain Book was becoming a project. Instead of serving me, I was serving it.

I was at my breaking point. I had spent 4+ years using a dot-grid notebook for my Brain Book and now it was time for something different.

So as 2019 started wrapping up, I did some more research. I decided a notebook wasn't going to cut it anymore and I had to upgrade to an actual planner. This time I was more careful about determining my requirements before researching options.

Here are my planner requirements:

1. Size - It had to be less than 8.5x11 anything bigger feels clumsy and I end up with wasted space on pages.
2. Some sort of spiral-bound - I must have a book that can be folded back on itself.
3. Unlined - I want the freedom to write as big or small as I please :)
4. Neutral Colors - I like to add my own color flair whether using stickers, pens, highlighters, or washi tape
5. Page flexibility - This became the biggest sticking point for me. I like to add pages and move them around and once you tear a page out of a spiral-bound notebook, it's out and there's no going back to the way it was.
   

I get all these things with the Classic Happy Planner from Me and My Big Ideas.

I purchased it for $14 on a Black Friday sale event. I tell you the price so you know that using a mainstream planner doesn't have to be expensive. Something I wish I had known sooner!

Yes, I now spend money on stickers to make my planner pretty as well as functional, but  that is completely optional. The planner works just as well without them.

This 7 x 9.25 inch book (#1) is a disc-bound planner (#2 & #5). I chose one that has a little color, that isn't intrusive (#4) and the vertical layout has 3 boxes per day (#3).

This year has been the first year that I've liked my planner for more than 3 months. It's not perfect, and my planner works well, yet I still feel like it could be more functional.

So, there will be changes for my coming 2021 planner and I can't wait to show you everything!