Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in…
…with their charming, celestial-themed covers, and their cheerful little stickers. The idea that maybe this year, maybe if I keep at it (and purchase another $60 worth of stationery) I might be able to find that elusive work/life balance, keep on top of all my three hundred forty-seven projects, and live a Happier Life™ or whatever it is they promise.
Things have changed since the last time I was in Planner Hell. First of all, I designed and helped publish Sam Bennett’s Real Life Planner, which is a sleeper hit and provides a really innovative way to plan. The one thing I feel it’s missing is a long-term outlook, but it’s really designed to keep the user’s day from slipping away on unaccounted-for nonsense, and to create space for actual, actionable self-reflection. As with every planner, there’s no One Prefect Solution.
I need to calendar electronically to make sure my appointment scheduler works, but I’ve never been happy with the integration of calendar apps and to-do list apps. So I have always had a companion notebook, but I lose track of some tasks because I don’t have a regular planning routine. Because it’s not fun.
So, stickers.
Happy-Planner-TUL-BuJo-RealLife-FrankenPlanner
Planner Hell.
And because I’m persnickety about design, and I’m so, so tired of brush script on every damn thing marketed at women, and the planner I picked out starts in January, and I like being able to choose my spreads on a week-by-week basis based on pure whimsy, I have worked up pages for my 7×9.25″ discbound planner with full bleeds, and am diving back into making expansion packs with worksheets inspired by (read: stolen from) every planner system known to man. Woman. Me. Whatever.
Welcome back to Planner Hell. Stay a while. Stay Forever.
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