Am I a planner/journal junkie?

This post is dedicated to my bestie, Dianne Sylvan, with whom I share a love of planners, journals, writing, art, and coffee. You can check out her books and blog here 

Every Thursday, for years now, we meet at our favourite coffee shop, with occasional breaks because of holidays or finals at the university (the students all think a coffee shop is the place to study; they’re right of course), to write, chat, engage in snark (usually about the clueless college students around us), share journaling supplies, especially washi tape ¹, and generally enjoy each other’s company and a night away from home.

As I wrote in the last couple of posts, we’re under the duress of a pandemic: quarantines, lock-downs, shelter-in-place orders, and of course idiots. As a result, our favourite coffee shop has been closed and Sylvan and I couldn’t sit together even if it were open. So, we’ve been meeting via Zoom². The Zoom meetings often include her roomie/BFF, who is also a very close friend of mine, occasionally my husband, and the combined menagerie of cats and dogs.

Among other things last night, we were talking about people on YT presenting their “planner lineup for year XXXX.” And our question was, “WTF do you do with that many planners, woman? You’d not have time for anything else.” I decided to watch a couple to see. The queen seems to be novelist Sarra Cannon 

19.

Yes, 19.³

She, of course, has caveats for a few of them and admits that by the end of the year she might not be using all 19. (NB: she never mentioned a number. I had to watch the whole thing twice to get the count right.)

You can either watch the video yourself or save yourself 47 minutes and get the Cliff’s Notes here. Not all of these are planners and some planners are used more as journals, so here we go.

1.        Hobonichi Weeks in a pink Foxy Fix leather cover. Goes everywhere with her, is her wallet, daily expenses, weather, appointments, events, expenses, weekly income.

2.       Hobonichi Techo⁴ Original, A6, Part of her evening routine , track tarot readings

3.       Hobonichi Cousin, A5. Morning routine, signs, affirmations, synchronicities, journaling issues she’s dealing with, something she’s reading, meditation, insights, mental health

4.       Hobonichi 5-year Techo. 5-year diary

5.       A5, 6-ring with her own HB90 quarterly planner. Changes covers monthly (has 15+ of them), and the colour scheme etc., but the “guts” stay the same, just changes quarterly. Goals, monthly, weekly, daily pages, tasks, business to-dos, social media planner, writing sprints, ideas for Heart Breathings (her YT channel), vision board.

6.       Classic Happy Planner. Meal planning, food tracking

7.       Erin Condren LifePlanner (ECLP) Colourful Classic, vertical. Memory journal for her kids, family

8.       ECLP Neutral Classic. Everything to do with writing career, promotional ideas

9.       EC Deluxe Monthly Neutral, July-June. Planning Heart Breathings, blog, courses. This kind of planner has only monthly spreads and at least half of it is lined notebook paper.

10.   EC Deluxe Monthly Neutral. Family budget

11.   EC On-the-Go Folio. Wellness, habits, gratitude, self-care, and a blank dot-grid for journaling.

12.   ECLP Classic, Horizontal. Family gaming journal, track games, characters, fun things that happened, also the anime the watch.

13.   EC soft cover, hourly. Time tracker.

14.   Astro Moon Diary. Used only for the images and the information it contains.

15.   Chic Sparrow Traveler’s Notebook (TN) A5. Used in meditation area, journaling, dreams.

16.   Webster’s Pages composition-size cover, with May Designs composition notebook. Notes on the last two books of her series.

17.   TUL disc binder. Contact information and information on coaching sessions with her coaching clients.

18.   iPad with Good Notes app: amber McKee’s Fresh Start planner workbook.

19.   Old, Deluxe (full-size) Happy Planner. Converted into a plotting notebook

So. If there’s someone out there with more, I really do not want to know.  Granted, as I said, some of these are journals and not strictly for the year 2020, but still. Yikes.

But then, I got to thinking, how many planner-type things am I using? Well, let’s check it out, remembering I don’t always keep up with them.

1.       An Erin Condren LifePlanner (ECLP) coiled neutral, vertical, which I have not touched since I got back from my ill-fate trip to the UK. March is full of plans, departures, arrivals, hotels, notes on places to go. April has a couple of doctor’s appointments, which have all been canceled, and then POOF. I think I’m going to turn this into a planner for my book; maybe it’ll help me stay on track (hahahahahaha).

2.       Cultivate What Matters Powersheets. I hadn’t touched these either after I got back, up until last week. They’re very trendy and mostly for people who actually have a life and give a fuck, but I thought what the hell. And I was trying to use them, but the plague kinda derailed it.

3.       My trusty faux TN, regular size. Sylvan gave me a cover made of vegan “leather” and several inserts. She’d tried the system and really didn’t care for it. It’s become my every day carry (EDC); it even went to England with me. I have several inserts, a folder for receipts, etc., a plastic folder with a pouch for stickers, and pockets for credit cards, although they usually hold old credit cards with lengths of washi tape on them, a DIY monthly insert, a dot-grid “bujo,” a DIY tarot journal that Sylvan made, an insert with a gold cover and chocolate brown pages by Chronicle Books used as a kind of junk/art journal. I have some ephemera and pages made from water colour paper tucked in it. Clipped inside the back cover is an A6 size journal for planning my as-yet non-existent YouTube videos. I did have a map of England there before I got back. *eye roll*

Recently I added a pocket to the inside front cover by sewing on a piece of upholstery fabric. I have three templates and a grid pencil board/ruler in the pocket.

4.       An A6 lined journal with a detail from Van Gogh’s “Vase with Sunflowers” on it. That’s one of my very favourite paintings, has been since I was a teenager. Sylvan gave me the journal for my birthday. I use it as a personal journal to write a bit at the end of each day, if I remember, that is. I put HP sprocket photos, quick water colours, and bits and bobs in it. I have a number of small, lined journals like this to use once it’s filled.

 

5.       3.75 x 6.25 hardback 2020-2022 monthly calendar with lined note pages. About half of it is note pages, to be exact. I bought this strictly to carry in my purse so I wouldn’t schedule doctor visits or vet visits, etc. on the same day, and to keep track of other things. In the notes I wrote out the W-L records of all the Major League Baseball (MLB) teams in preparation for the 2020 season, little imagining there would be no season. Figures, I finally get back to fallowing my favourite sport and it’s canceled. *facepalm*

6.       A 5-Year Question a Day diary. Sylvan and I got these at Half-Price Books.

7.       A little soft-cover pocket-size, 2-year calendar I use for my RP characters.

8.       Habit Nest A5 “The Meditation Sidekick Journal” which is woefully behind.

9.       Soft-cover, A5 “Coloring Book of Shadows” by Amy Cesari. This was actually a 2019 one, but I barely used it, so I re-dated it for 2020, and still have barely used it. Not too late to pick it up again. Some of the images I’ve coloured I think will go in my BoS.

10.   A gardening journal (again, not up to date).

11.   A fitness journal that I haven’t used in forever, again, I need to start.

12.   A household binder, patterned after the Flylady’sControl Journal.

13.   A hardbound A5 notebook with graph ruling I’ve had for several years. It’s been a bujo, a place for brainstorming, plans, lists, notes on my book, etc.
14. A Celtic desk planner from like 2018? After I realised I was never going to use it as a planner, I write a quote for each day. Every month is a different theme, like art or ageing. 

15.   Not to mention various and sundry other little notebooks I’ve started and never finished over the years, my BoS, tarot and oracle card notebooks.

16.   I need to start a project planner to stay on top of all the things I need to finish.

17.   And finally, I’ve ordered a Hobonichi A6 Techo Original from JetPens and a beautiful cover from Etsy. It might well become the projects planner, who knows?

 

 

In other words, I, too, am a total planner/journal junkie.

ETA: I have a Day-Timer A5, spiral bound notebook I keep track of the family photo/letters project.

18....Watch out Sarra, here I come!!

¹Be careful, this shop is deadly; you’ll want ALL. THE. THINGS.  And if you get the washi bug, this is my favourite shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoatGirlMH?ref=ss_profile

²In case you’ve been under a rock https://zoom.us/  There are several alternatives, as well.

³Really about 23, as the Erin Condren “On the Go Folio” has something like 4 different journals in it.

⁴Techo means “planner”  (TEH-choh)

Planner Envy and other bits of boringness.

PLANNER ENVY.

You know, back in the day, guys used planners. My dad used Day-Timers for YEARS. He called it his brain. Women tended to use desk diaries, but the more women came into the business workforce, you saw Day-Timer offering femmed-up versions and planner purses, etc. I had Day-Timers and planners long before it became the huge THING it is now. Soccer moms, Sunday School teachers, people who think they’re really busy but aren’t, teenagers, have all gotten on the planner bandwagon. There’s been a proliferation of planners like Erin Condren, Plum Paper, Happy, you name it. If you came across this post because of the hashtags, then you probably know all the brands better than I, and all the stickers, pens, tapes, subscriptions, pantookas, and gorbnobbles available.

Nine tenths of which are solely designed to separate you from your money.

With the BOOM in planning popularity, planners are in every shape, form, colour, design, and have gotten really pricey. Plus, Acco Brands now owns most of the well-known names in planners except Erin Condren (not including ones like Leuchtturm1917, etc):  Mead, At-a-Glance, Day-Runner, Calendar Express, Five Star; they’ve even bought up Day-Timer, for fuck’s sake!

Some grand goal-planning for 2019 includes writing more. In my little box mind, I was thinking on the novel, but writing here and in my character blog are also writing, yes? I’ve added “W-writing” to my habit tracker (cue raucous, derisive laughing here). Before you asphyxiate laughing, the habit tracker is not keeping track of daily habits (except taking blood glucose readings), but just a general, keeping track of how often I do things.

Speaking of the tracker, I have:

M—Morning glucose;

P—Post prandial glucose;

BP—Blood Pressure (I don’t have an issue with this, but sometimes when I go to a doctor, it’s slightly elevated, more than likely from just getting out in traffic, etc.);

J—did I work in my Studio Art Journal? https://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca/the-studio-yearbook/ or any other Journal?;

A—Art;

W—Writing;

L—Learn:  my Irish lessons or any kind of research;
E—Exercise or work out, including my PT exercises;

H—House:  work on painting, repair, decluttering, etc.

LV—bLog and/or Video

F—Family projects like the ass-ton of photos from my mother’s place, or her letters, or all the stuff from my grandfather’s effects, boxes of books and chotskies to be sorted, sent to people or donated.

Again, these are not only a reminder to do certain things, but to keep track of just how often.

At this time I think well, I’m not working anymore, why do I even need more than a simple little “old man pocket calendar”?  I swear, you can’t even find the ones I’m talking about anymore, they were about 2”x3” and literally fit into a man’s shirt pocket.

Back to my planner planning. I’ve tried the big Erin Condren and Plum Paper planners (virtually the same, by the way) and I don’t think I actually finished a year in either, even though I used them for several years (I put all my planners from work in the big shred bin when I retired, but I think I finished out several of those all the way). But those are just too big to carry around and too much space goes wasted in them for me. If I just wanted to keep track of appointments, a simple month-at-a-glance would suffice, but there are other things that go in a planner…isn’t that why they’re called p-l-a-n-n-e-r-s?

I’ve tried starting DIY planners before and I think I got rolled up because there were too many future dates for work. 

But….I don’t have to bloody include job-related shit in my planner any longer HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

I’ve been watching a couple “bullet journalers” on YT and random others if they pop up and look interesting.

AmandaRachLee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk9aeo2A6a1fg3VeRueTn9w

Cindy Guentert-Baldo https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZSl2jCSort1fHUI8oeNOuQ

Everyone has such slick, pretty layouts and lettering. Anything but plain printing or a version of this

ends up looking like a 2^nd grader did them. They have this pretty script lettering, that…yeah.. *eye roll*

https://bit.ly/2rYk7TP like I could do that. Not.

Updated:

I was going to use the Lemome bullet planner (the one I have has been discontinued), but decided to finish out my ‘notebook from hell.’ I got it a couple years ago from Office Depot for about $6, I think. It has graph-ruled paper in it and is roughly A5 size. It has everything in it:  Notes on my novel, notes on my blog character, designs and plans for things like my studio and the reno of my pantry, mind maps, DIY calendar pages, to-do lists, travel plans and lists…you name it. I’ve covered the cover, front, back, and inside with various stickers. I’d do a flip of it on YT, but it would be the most boring flip-through video ever.

There are quite a few (about ¼-inch thick) pages left, so I’d just rather use it for now. When full, it will not be thrown away as it will still be a valuable reference.

 

Front Cover

Back Cover

Notes for the pantry reno

Year forward

395th version of the studio/living room plan

 So a whole lot of what I previously wrote might go by the wayside, just sayin’.

As for updates, I had the ‘dreaded scope’ this past Monday, nothing alarming, but the doc did take three biopsies; keep your fingers crossed.

And I’m finally getting the bunion on the right side done. They’ve been giving me grief for a loooong time. Got the left done probably 15 years ago, maybe a bit more. They did the big one on the inside, the little one on the outside and I had a four-inch steel rod in my second toe to straighten it. This time, just the big one on the inside.

Any Questions?