Hello my name's Michele and I'm a Planner Junkie

For years I've been a self diagnosed Planner Junkie. Even with the streamline and automation of digital calendars and great apps like Evernote, Trello and Wunderlist there is still something soothing and satisfying about having a paper planner to keep track of my thoughts and daily activities. 

Part of being a Planner Junkie is the hunt for your next planner, weighing the pros and cons of size, layout and ring-bound vs book binding, along with the justification of quality materials and price. Next comes the choice of theme and decision of covers and and finally the anticipation of it's arrival, the opening of the package and the first strike of pen to paper. 

The evolution of my journals have been from themed to creative and now to focused. A decade of Franklin Covey Planners still home themselves in my bottom file drawer and on my office shelves. They were functional yet each year I was able to capture a bit of my personality through a chosen theme. 

After a while I felt maybe these themes were too ordinary and not really capturing my true self, so next I moved to a creative Planner, there are many out there including ErinCondren, The Happy Planner, Simple Stories and an unlimited amount of resources on Etsy.   I purchased a ring binder, undated, inserts, stickers, washi tape, cutouts, more stickers of again a chosen theme, but with this planner I was adding the products to the page so it was also unique and artistic.  I followed other planners on social media and tried to keep up with the lavish designs they created month after month. For me this took too much time and I eventually came to the conclusion many of these marketed makers had lots of time to decorate their planners because this was their their business.  While it was enjoyable it was just taking up too much time. 

My next move, and current planner obsession, is a more streamlined goal tracking planner where I can organize and process multiple activities at once while simultaneously documenting the big picture along side the day to day grind.  My first experience with this type of planner with was the Full Focus Planner.  It came highly recommended by another Planner Fanatic and really was more then a planner it was an entire system, created by Bestselling author Michael Hyatt & his daughter Megan. Again there were social media platforms to follow and plenty of pages to help you track everything you need to be organized in life and business. Overall I would say this is a pristine planning system and the only downfall with this type of planner for me personally is they lack visual creativity and the daily dose of color that I need in my life.  To compromise I started digging into those leftover stickers and adding them to the layouts but the sticker system seemed to be a bit juvenile for this sophisticated planner.  

One day I was flipping through YouTube and came across AmandaRachLee's Channel. Amanda is a talented artist and calligrapher. For me the art of doodling was something I needed to pursue. From childhood drawing has been a passion for me. It is therapeutic, meditative and skill building. It unleashes the creative side of my brain, reduces my stress and the few minutes I spend with pen to paper actually helps streamline my day by getting my mind thinking in a problem solving and solution minded way. Dont' take my word for it just Google "Why doodling is good for you"! 

This year I’m trying a new version of the focused planner. The Wordsworth Planner is surprisingly inexpensive and impressively full of all the bells and whistles of its more pricey companions and I can’t wait to get a start on planning for 2021 and beyond.  Over the years I know just what boxes to check when searching for a planner, my must haves include: 

A5 or 1/2 page size, a full page planner takes up too much room on my desk and pocket size well lets say when trying to write in those tiny little spaces...size matters. 

One Page Per Day, two pages makes for a bulky planner and I'm not sure who can squeeze everything into a week at a glance, so daily pages as well as a monthly view is my preference.

Schedule & Priority Space, daily I like to be able to see my appointments and my todo list side by side with plenty of room for notes and doodles. 

Book Bound, with a strong spine that opens flat, durable cover and quality thick no bleed paper. My planner gets thrown in and out of my bag daily so I need something strong enough to adhere to the abuse of traveling. Also I mentioned I'm a doodler so a no bleed paper is a must. 

Goal Tracking Tools,  with annual, monthly and weekly reviews and plenty of extra pages for ideas and notes. The downfall to these great pages is to keep a compact planner you must go from an annual planner to a semi-annual or quarterly.  I prefer the semi-annual to the quarterly just so I don't end up lugging around both planners multiple times a year. 

Undated, for a few reasons I've found myself with this as a preference lately.  Undated are versatile and let me start where I want to start and plan how I want to plan. If I need more then 1 page a day for notes I can add it and I can combine weekend pages to give me added space to write. 

Pens, along with the sacred planner every junkie has their favorite pens to use with their planners. Mine are the Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball Extra Fine in black along with a hand selected theme of colors I use to highlight and doodle. My favorite pens for this are the Art Skills Dual Brush Pen Art Marker, the Mildliner double headed highlighter and the PaperMate Flair Medium Point Felt Tip. 

I'm looking forward to sitting down and working through this Planner not only with pre year planning but the tools it has to keep me on task all year long. If you have a favorite Planner or Journal I would love to hear from you!

Keep Living in Grace,

Michele