The Joy of Planning (& a free calendar to begin)!
I LOVE, with a capital L planning. I have no less than 4 paper planners going this year and probably (definitely) more stickers than I will use in my lifetime. Crazy? maybe, but it makes me happy to plan and write things down. I use one for all things related to my job, another for my personal life that stays here at home plus a smaller version that travels with me, and finally one more for this blog. I know that probably seems excessive to many, but it works for me to keep these parts of my life organized separately.
Every year about this time, I start drooling over planners for the coming year. Last year I hit the clearance section at JoAnn and found the motherlode for blank planners. Meaning, you can use them for ANY year you want to. Of course, I also love all the pretty new covers that come out each year, the themes, and yes, the stickers, but I’ve learned that I really like being able to begin incorporating the calendar for the coming year before the current year is over. Also, while the new planners that come out in June or July are lovely, I can’t justify having 6 months of calendar that just goes to waste because. my current planner is already set up for those months. I’m a January to December kind of girl I guess! The blank planners give me the flexibility to just roll right into the next year anytime I want with no wasted pages.
It wasn’t until recently that I started looking at customizing my planners for my life. The pre-made ones are fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but many times I am left with sections that just don’t fit my life. So, not so long ago I started dabbling with designing planner pages that would fit my lifestyle and the things that I might actually try to keep track of. When the pandemic hit and I was sent home to work I realized quickly that my main work planner was really going to get a workout. When I was in the office every day, I relied on my digital calendar a lot more, but keeping myself organized and on track at home seemed to require a lot more note taking and meeting scheduling. The problem I encountered was that the daily pages really don’t help me all that much other than writing down my meetings, so there’s all this wasted space on the page that could be used more efficiently. Yes, I could fill it up with pretty stickers, but this is my work planner and I like to keep it as functional as possible. Remember I have 3 other planners to go sticker-crazy on !
Anyway, after a few months of trial and error, trying to modify a blank page to suit my needs for organizing my day, my week, various projects I have going and all the deadlines that go with them, I realized that all I really needed, was a full month calendar and a daily page to record meetings, priority projects, calls I needed to make etc. Once I had that all sorted out, I dusted off my design skills and my simplified printable planner calendar was born. I duplicated it in a few different colors but I’m going to share with you here a free version in a simple monochromatic grey and black. I think it’s pretty and if you print it on heavier weight paper you can color in the cover and monthly calendar pages. You can grab your copy right here. It’s also available if you head over to my store page. I’ll be adding the other colors shortly for purchase, but if you are itching to get started on 2022 now, here’s your chance. I hope you enjoy playing with it. I hope it works for you as well as it does for me, and if you have suggestions for improvement, be sure to add them to the comments and I’ll see what I can do.
Happy planning!