Planner woes and maybe a light at the end of the tunnel.

Well friends, I'm struggling with my planner.  I think I just got too excited and wanted ALL THE THINGS.  I think I just may have made mine too complicated.  I have a video flip through on youtube of my first set up.

Here you go

I got myself the A5 Filofax Monochrome and I think it's beautiful.  Since this was my first real planner, I wasn't sure what kinds of inserts I would end up using.  I made allllll kinds of inserts and put a little of everything in to see what worked and what didn't.  A side note about me....I don't do things halfway.  I'm a full on -in it to win it- kind of girl.

As I started to see things that weren't working I would pull them out.  Even left with just a few things, it's still not really working.  More than anything, the daily pages are what's killing me.  They're nice and all, I just don't use them the way I thought I would.  I still really like the brain dump and the lists section.  The meal planning is ok I guess, but I don't like that it's separate.  I end up having to write what we're having on the weekly and daily pages anyway, so what's the point of that?  While we're on that, why in the world do I need weekly AND daily pages?

Nope, nope, nope....this just won't do.

I made myself tons of different stickers in photoshop and cut them out with my silhouette.  I got removable labels in small sizes and stamped stuff onto them.  You name it, I probably had it going on.  And guess what......None of it is really working for me.  Breaks my heart.  I've put a lot of time and money into this, trying to get myself more organized.  I've been a list maker my whole life.  Having a planner just seems like a natural thing for a person like me.  Perhaps I shouldn't say more organized.  I'm a pretty organized chick, I just wanted everything in ONE place.  I wanted something tangible, not a phone calendar.  We are living in a digital world, and I'm a tactile girl (great, now Madonna's running through my head)

 

My supply set up

 

A bunch of stickers I made for myself.  They're mostly printed on sticker paper and then cut with the silhouette, but some are just small Avery labels that I've stamped on.

Some of my planner stamps

I even had a cart full and almost pulled the trigger over at Erin Condren.  I was so afraid of throwing that money into a hole and never using the planner.  I ended up making myself some mock sheets and used that for a few weeks to see if it would stick.  No dice.  SO glad I didn't order that.  I love the idea of the ECLP, I just don't do 10,000 little divided sections.  Too cluttered for me.

I see some of these plan with me videos where there's so much going on, I can't imagine how they actually SEE what they have scheduled.  They're pretty to look at, they really are.  I just don't think I could decipher what I've got going on with all of that stuff competing for my attention.

Lo and behold....I may have found planner peace.  In the simplest, most uncomplicated way.  Marcy Penner's planner.  She has a download on her site of an undated page in letter size.  I resized it so that I would have it more like hers is size wise.  I know this sounds dumb and a little premature, but it's been four days and IT JUST FITS.  It FITS me.  In order to try to get some use out of the filo, I'm going to try to do A5 pages with this layout, but I reeeeeaaaallly like the size of this as it is.

It's so clean and simple.  I can use a couple stamps and stickers without it looking like a unicorn barfed on my page.  I've got 4 weeks worth printed out.  I'll give it a good solid 4 weeks and see if there's anything that I'd tweak.  PLUS, I have a bind-it-all, and crazy amounts of pretty paper.  I can totally make myself a planner for 2016.

Any tips you can throw my way would be really appreciated!

xoxo,
Liz

New planner!!!

I've never had a real planner before.  This is my first, and I have to say, so far, I LOVE IT!

It's a Filofax, A5 Monochrome that I got through Amazon. 

I wasn't thrilled with the inserts that came with it.  Don't get me wrong, they worked fine, I just wanted something that looked a little more me.

I used one of my Get Messy journal pages as my dashboard landing page.  I love it.  I love it SO much!

I looked around for a while at different inserts that I could buy and print, but couldn't find anything that really felt right for me.  Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of beautiful inserts out there.  I just found that for me, they were too busy, or had too many sections that I knew I wouldn't end up using.

Photoshop to the rescue!

I made myself dividers, cut them out with my silhouette and laminated them.  Then I made all my little inserts and printed them out here at home.  I was really not into the idea of cutting all of those sheets to size a few at a time, so I took them over to Staples and had them cut there.  They have a fancy machine that can cut a big stack all at once, so everything is all the same size.  Perfect!

I ended up just watching a little TV that night after the kids were in bed, and punched all my sheets out.

I have to say, I love the way it turned out.  I filmed a quick little walk-through video of the planner.  Hope you like it!

xoxo,
Liz