Planner Love

I love the idea of being organized. I use google calendar, I have one for personal and one that syncs with Ashleigh for business stuff. But it didn't really help me with day to day to do list stuff. I downloaded a bunch of apps, I liked teuxdeux best but nothing really felt like it "fit". It definitely didn't help that I'm suffering from extreme i-Phoneitis. Where you feel like you've become *that* person who has an iPhone growing out of their belly button. I honestly can't handle any.more.screen.time! ;)

I'd been watching Ruthie's instagram for awhile, she's always posting crazy cute planners. So I decided I'd try a paper planner!

I got a KikkiK Leather Limited Edition Personal Planner. When the box arrived I thought "this is pretty heavy..." This planner is NO JOKE. It's fierce. It is the size of hardcover book. It could eat a kindle for breakfast. It's bigger than YA hardcovers. And I looooooved it.

I think I might secretly be a magpie because suddenly I had all this space to tuck shiny things into. Little bits of paper, cute swipes of washi tape, hole punched project life cards, etc! I loved spending my Sunday afternoons decorating my planner, planning my week and making epic to-do lists. I loved having every detail scheduled out so when I went to bed at night, there wasn't a case of "busy brain" and worrying that I'd forget something. I really loved being able to open it up and take lots of notes while on the phone or in a meeting. 

But! The planner is too big for my everyday purse, it only fits in my Filson Bag which I adore but my dr has firmly told me to stop carrying because it weighs a ton. It fits awesome in my pool side tote though! So I took it with me on our epic road trip. I smashed it full of brochures, squished pennies, Polaroids, etc. At one point I couldn't even get it to snap shut, I had it filled with so much stuff!

But at the same time, all that space was kind of overwhelming for me. I'd find myself making two page spreads of lists of things that I wanted to do in a single afternoon and I'd find myself getting irritated when I couldn't check everything off! I also started to leave it at home because it was too heavy to carry. And that bummed me out because I *love* it!

So of course, the day after Christmas there was a sale on planners. I researched. I watched youtube videos. I searched the #planneraddict and #plannerlove hashtags. And then after the 1st of the year there was another sale on planners and I roped Chop into the research team. I know some of you are shaking your heads but I am that person who before I make a purchase or decision, I research the heck out of it. To an obnoxious level. But can you blame me? ;) It's $10 to ship from AU and takes 7-10 days. I didn't want to order a second planner and not love it. I had a hard enough time justifying the need of a second planner!

One thing Chop suggested that REALLY helped was drawing out the planner sizes on a piece of paper. KikkiK uses millimeters which can be hard for my brain to wrap around so he drew out the dimensions of the Medium Gold & the Small Gold. I was drawn to the Small Gold because it's so tiny, kawaii & chubby! But I did (and kind of still do!) worry that it's a little bit too small.

It has just arrived and I can't wait to move into it. In some aspects I know it's going to work better, there isn't enough space for me to over schedule myself but I do worry I won't be able to write well in it. I have terrible penmanship that can be kind of big. I'm definitely going to try and make it work for me this winter!

I'd like to buy a smaller diameter hole punch (if that's even a thing?!) it seems like the holes on this one are smaller that the one I have. One of the other reasons I got this one is that it's a great size for adding project life cards to as dividers or decorations! I'm doing Project Life again this year, I'm still getting Studio Calico's monthly Project Life boxes and I can't say enough about how much I LOVE them. I've never belonged to a subscription service this long before, usually I get bored (ipsy!)or uninspired and I quit.  I've been getting the boxes for a year now and each one makes me SO happy. I can honestly say I don't think I've been disappointed yet. I'll share my January PL album later on this month! I used the PL supplies in my bigger planner and really liked it! 

Here are some cute planner things I've recently found:

One thing I did with the bigger planner was create my own dividers! I found these awesome 3M Laminating Pouches and I would trace one of the dividers that came with the planner onto a sheet of cute scrapbooking paper. Then I put it into one of the laminating pouches, rubbed all the air bubbles out, trim and hole punch! The hole punching requires a little hand strength because the laminating sheets are sort of thick but it's not terribly hard. I like making my own dividers because it uses up scrapbooking stuff and you can stick washi tape to it and it'll peel off! I'm going to try and do this with the little one too!

Once I get moved into the new planner I'll share some photos! I'm hoping to get some coffee and work on it this afternoon. I have about 3 hours left on my current audiobook- Princess of Thorns and I want to finish it this weekend :)

Oh and this quilt is called Donut Quilt and the pattern can be found here! :)

 

(this post contains affiliate links to amazon & studio calico. all thoughts are my own. based on products I personally purchased and loved!)