Happy 2015! A new year means time for change for a lot of people. For me, this year means taking care of me as well as my family. So the first few weeks were spent assessing what I wanted to better about myself or what I could do to make myself a little happier. The first thing that I want to do is become more organized. When I don't have things planned out and know what's going on I get anxious. Once the anxiety goes nuts the rest of the day/week can be wasted. So the first goal I am going to be working on is keeping the anxiety down as much as possible starting with my organization.
Towards the end of the year last year I was told about this crazy thing called a Filofax. It's a customizable planner/organizer that you make to fit your life. Once you have the pages in the planner you use stickers, washi tape, markers, etc to decorate it. The thought is the more you decorate and like your planner pages the more you will be likely to use it.
While researching Filofax I fell in love with the idea. However, the prices for them or any other planner wasn't in my budget. So I started investigating making my own. I finally decided on using a 5.5" x 8.5" 3-ring binder for my planner. However, as always I couldn't find a binder that I just loved. Thank goodness that I'm crafty. I took my binder and found a pattern for a binder cover. Off to the Joann's I went to find the perfect material for my planner.
I decided on a cotton elephant fabric with some flannel elephants on the backside. I have always loved elephants since I was little so this was perfect for me. I then added one of my bottlecap keychains as my charm just to add a little more flair to it.
I began using my planner all the time and really felt good with everything written down so I at least had a skeleton of a plan for what was going on. I was loving taking time on Saturday evenings to decorate my week. It was a little time that I carved out in our busy weeks for myself. Well, in December someone broke into my truck and stole my purse. Yes, I know before you say anything my purse shouldn't have been in my truck overnight. It was one of those days that the girls were taking every bit of my energy and I just forgot that my purse was still in the truck. Either way, my purse and everything was gone. My planner, some of my decorating goodies, wallet, everything was gone.
At that point I was totally discouraged and didn't want to take the time or the money to put together another planner. So I tried to go digital. Which, being a techie person, shouldn't have been that hard. Well, I'll tell you that was tough for me. I added everything to Google Calendar and downloaded the apps to my phone and tablet. I set it all up and was ready to go. Then I didn't look at it again. I was missing appointments, forgetting what was going on each day etc. So here I am in the middle of January and putting together another planner. I have decided that I am a paper and pen type of girl when it comes to a planner.
I once again got a 1 inch 5.5" x 8.5" 3-ring binder from Walmart. I love the size of this binder all except for the size of the rings. If I could find a 1/2" binder this size I think I would be even more in love with it. However, after finding the binder I stopped at Office Depot to look at what kind of pens they had. I bought a package of Pilot Frixion Erasable Pens in pink, purple, and blue. All of my planner is color coded for my family. We use pink, purple, green, blue and orange. Each family member has a color and even things in my home are color coded for each of us. I picked up a green pen (not Frixion sadly) and a black pen and happily went on my way.
Off to Joann's to get the fabric for the cover. I had decided that I didn't want to do the one solid fabric for the cover so I bought 5 different fat quarters and am quilting them together to make my planner cover this time. This process is still going on and hopefully will be completed tomorrow or Wednesday.
Along with making my own planner cover I also have been making my own inserts for my planner. I looked around online and couldn't find anything that I was 100% happy with so I put my techie skills to work to make my own. I have a section for a month on one page, which holds my big dates on it. I don't use that for day to day stuff, just as a glance of big things (i.e. birthdays, anniversary, etc).
I also use a week on 2 pages, this is for what I have going on, when the girls have things going on, hubby's work schedule, etc on this.
Then so I don't get overwhelmed I also use a daily page. This daily page blocks out the time that people are out of pocket and can't schedule anything at that time. My to-do's are written on the week page and then blocked into a time slot on my daily page.
This is how I have my planner set up right now and am using it again. I'm sure there will be more changes within it as I make it suit what we need but for now I am happy.
So tell me: Do you use a planner? If so, is it digital or paper/pen?
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