My 2020 Planner

In 2019 I made a big change to how I use my planner. I shifted it online and started using Trello after I saw how it works at my old job. While Trello is excellent for managing projects, daily planning and to-do lists, I found it wasn't very good for future events, appointments, etc, so I decided to keep going with a paper diary for these things. I downsized from an A5 to A6 size diary because I don't need the extra space for to-dos and tracking anymore. I'm only using it for yearly holidays/festivals, birthdays, appointments, moon phases and similar things.

I purchased my planner from Typo this year, and the set-up isn't perfect, but it'll do. I wasn't as fussy about the set-up as in previous years as the planner will have more limited use. To be honest, I just bought the first one I saw with a cover that I even vaguely liked! It has the usual week-to-a-spread that I prefer. I don't really like the grey bands across the pages, and there were some other features I didn't like as well, but I ripped out some pages and glued other ones together until it suited me a bit better.

I decided not to decorate it as heavily with stickers and washi tapes, just adding a few accents. I stole re-purposed some of my favourite stickers from last year's diary (ones that I could lift up without ruining!), and used them to decorate it. I'll probably add more as the year goes on and if I feel like it.

I added a few inspirational quotes and thoughts I've had into the front, as I usually like to do:

Also the Indigenous seasonal calendar (though I accidentally pasted it in sideways, oops):

The mail order tracker I created a few years ago fits in just fine, thankfully. I only needed to chop off the bottom to make it fit the A6 size.

I did order a vinyl sticker to decorate the front but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet. I managed to peel the sticker off last year's diary and stick it to the back though. I like this sticker a lot; it's from Fox and Cactus.

Here's a page from last year's planner as a reminder. I still track most of these things, but on my Trello now.

My 2019 Planner

I really enjoyed having a proper planner last year, and I decided to continue the same. But which planner to get? I'm a bit fussy when it comes to the format -- no spiral bound, no ring bound -- which means none of the fancy planner 'systems' out there, like the Happy Planner, Erin Condren, etc. I decided that I may as well look at Smiggle again as my first option. Thankfully I was able to see images of the planners inside and out on their website, which saved me a trip to the shops, as the internal page layout has changed and I didn't like it. Which is a shame because the outer covers were glorious! This one being the most glorious of all:

The scenario was the same with Typo's planner and various other ones I looked at online. In fact, Erin Condren even has a hardback bookbound planner now, but it was a little expensive for me. (Australians pay 30% more for everything from overseas!) I was feeling desperate to secure my planner before the chance was gone (this was back in November, mind you!) so I decided to just go to my local shopping centre and look at the planners in person, hoping to find something that sparked joy.

Then the strangest thing happened. I bought a planner from the first shop I walked into, which happened to be Target. I wasn't even sure they'd be selling planners at all, but they had two Target-brand planners to choose from. I chose the sparkly pink one, of course:

I added the decal on the front; it's from Fox and Cactus, and the charm is from a stationery pack from Mockeri. And yes, I'm aware that the cover is almost the same as last year's:

I know that last year I questioned my choice of a planner that I can't whip out in job interviews, but my magpie-like attraction to shiny things kicked in and here we are! There was an insert with a sample page layout in the plastic wrapping, and it seemed fine, so I grabbed it. (More on that later!)

Fast forward a couple of months, and it was time to set up my planner for 2019! I'd been waiting for this day for a long time. When I opened the wrapping and had a good look at the inside, I was slightly perturbed. The page layout, while generally what I wanted, was a little perplexing. For some reason, Thursday has half the space of the rest of the days, while Saturday and Sunday -- which are often combined in the layout -- each have just as much space as the weekdays. Also, there's a monthly calendar for the current and next month on each page, which I really don't need. It's just taking up valuable space!

I'm a bit on the unicorn spectrum, so it took me quite a while to get my head around it. In fact, it took me nearly a whole day to set up my planner, I have to admit, what with the procrastinating and a couple of near meltdowns. But I did it:

The main layout change is the insert. I have an insert that I made up in Excel which lists my habit trackers, things I do every week etc. I glue this printout into each weekly page of my planner, to save me from having to write it all out fresh every week. Last week I stuck that in the top left corner, because nothing happens on Mondays anyway. For this year's planner, I thought I may as well stick it over the monthly calendars instead. It was hard to accept in my change-makes-me-freeze-up-and-freak-out brain, but logically it made the most sense. (Aside: I'm also currently re-designing the insert with some nice coloured icons and less stuff I don't do anymore, so future pages will look a little different.)

Suggested blog posts for the week are now in the top right corner instead of just under the insert where they were last year. (There's no room for anything under the insert now!) School tasks are moved to the left-hand side of Wednesdays (to remind me about Wizard Wednesdays!). To-dos are still on the right-hand side of each page -- boring stuff on the left side and more interesting/fun stuff on the right side. I've tried to represent more tasks visually with stickers and circles to colour in, because that's fun.

As for the rest of the planner, I went through and decorated some of the future pages with washi tapes and stickers, especially the significant dates (more decoration to follow, of course!):

I added some of the extra pages as I did last year, using some printables that I bought previously. These are pages where I can write down ideas, etc when I'm out-and-about:

Finally something a little new -- I added some information about different calendars that I'm interested in following:

If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me until the end of this mega-detailed planner post! I've become a bit of a planner nerd in the last few years, and perhaps fellow planner nerds may find it interesting. More about my sticker obsession is coming up soon!