Here is a look at the planner I created for myself. The goal was to add structure to my life so that I would stop forgetting things so much…I have a lot on the go, all really good stuff, but sometimes the in the moment need rushes over me and I forget something longer term and that is just not they way I want it. As previously noted, I have a long standing love/hate relationship with planner. I thought this planner might be able to swoop in and save the day. But as you can see, that didn’t really happen.
I printed out 4 months worth of this planner in hopes that I could build it into my routine and create a habit of planning and documenting what was happening day to day but also long term. I purposely designed the planner to give me space to doodle and lots of space to write, but also tried to think of what I liked about planners and put them in there as a combo platter of other planners I had seen.
I carried that planner around with me every day, even though it was often too big and I still hadn’t decided on what kind of binding it needed. So it stayed loosely fastened with a turquoise bulldog clip that would swivel around, but made it easy for me to disassemble this hot mess and put it back together again.
Anyway, this planner now moves from my kitchen table to my backpack to my office desk and back again. It is has a nomadic existence and I still haven’t really figured out what to make of my relationship with planners. I had hoped that this exercise would result in me falling in love with this planner and never being able to live without it…no such luck. So instead I am back to a series of notebooks and sketch books that still don’t really remind me what I have to do and I am “penciling” in appointments to my online calendar and for the most part getting to meetings is no problem, but keep on track is another story.
So I guess it is back to the drawing board, another year approaches and I imagine this cycle will start again, sigh.