Planners!

Ok so let’s take a look at Planners. If I say the words Erin Condren or Happy Planner most people in the planner community will start to get excited, and could probably chatter on for hours about their favourite planner, why they like it, how they decorate, stickers...and on and on. Apparently, getting organised is a big thing these days, and it's not as simple as finding a good journal and writing down to do lists (perish the thought). Until recently, I hadn't realised that Planning, in elaborate stylised planners, using stickers and something called washi tape and all sorts of paraphernalia otherwise, had attained sophisticated levels of devotion. And here I thought typing up a to-do list in Word at the beginning of the day made me so together.

So anyway, I started looking into Planners and wondering if I should use one to get my life more organised. Lord knows I'm not good at organising, and I often marvel at how I manage to get important things done on time in the midst of all my mental chaos. I don't like routines either which doesn't help my case. So I started looking at popular Erin Condren planners first.

First of all I hadn't realised they were so ...embellished...now. Girls get so creative with their stickers and decorations, and there seems to be a minor cult growing up around the EC planners, with people doing YouTube videos on how they use theirs. They all sounded so excited about the process of planning, that I checked out the EC Planners website (https://erincondren.com/)

No doubt EC planners are beautiful, customisable, and the accessories like the stickers and pens are really crave able. Only thing is that they are also pretty expensive - starting at around $50 for the plainest ones. I tried to justify it and went through several customisations on the site, but couldn't find the will to submit a payment for a planner that would cost me $65. I just didn't need to be spending that much cash on a planner.

So I went in search of alternatives, and stumbled across one called the Happy Planner, that many girls seem excited about also (http://www.meandmybigideas.com/create365-thehappyplanner/). Seems like it has the same elements that the EC planners have, but it's a lower price. 

I didn't do much exploring of this one because I happened upon an even better alternative for me.

Since I'm not sure if I'll even use the planner faithfully, I couldn't see myself spending cash on one just to have it gather dust like a glorified discarded notebook. So when I found that I could print my own planner, it was the right way for me to try this whole planning game. The site I found is called The Handmade Home . Here you are graciously provided with all the printable pdf pages that you will need to construct an EC like planner. You even have options in different colour schemes and patterns to choose from! I couldn’t believe it was all free. And the pages are beautiful- just as beautiful as the commercial planners!

So today I fired up the printer and printed out the following pages from the site:

A cover page

A my info page

Year at a glance page

Contacts page

*

Divider

July 2016 month at a glance page

Weekly pages for four weeks of July

Goals page

**

I repeated from * to ** for the remaining months August, September, October, November and December.

And that was it. I have the beginnings of a very cool planner. I intend to bind the pages and laminate the cover. I'll also get as many little embellishments and accessories for the planner as I can. But the process of creating it for myself is so satisfying so far, and I'm really looking forward to the finished product. I expect that it will come nowhere close to the cost of the commercial planners, and the best thing is I would have assembled it myself according to my own tastes, using the pre-designed pages I found at The Handmade Home. And for my first foray into planning, that is fine with me.