What's your new planner?

Colourful planners aways make my day

September and October are always big in the planner world. All the big planner companies launch their new books for the new year and the excitement and rush is real!

 Some of my favourite companies have launched their new 2021 products including the ones below:

Cultivate What Matters (www.cultivatewhatmatters.com)

Plum Paper (www.plumpaper.com)

The Happy Planner (www.thehappyplanner.com)

Simplified By Emily Ley (www.emilyley.com)

Blogilates 90 day journal - (https://www.the90dayjourney.com/90-day-journal)

As of writing this post the 2021 Blogilates planner has not yet been announced.

Now these are all American native companies which a HUGE customer base. Just go check out any of their websites and you will see a host of different options to choose from if you want a new planner. I love this time of year because I just love that back to school feeling you get with new books. It’s all about the adrenaline feeling of looking forward to a new season beginning. In school I loved getting a new homework diary for the new school year and getting a planner each year reminds me of that nostalgic time where a new planner meant starting from fresh no matter what the past year held.

Fast forward 10 years and I still love my planners. I’ve used SO many different ones from Emily Ley’s Simplified planner to the Blogilates Fit planner and 90 day journal and all kinds of ones in between.

How do you know what planner is right for you???

 My top tips for picking the right planner for you:

1. Start simple! 

Forget what other people are doing on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and any other social media site. Think about what you want to gain from your system. What do you want to keep track of and what are the things that you tend to forget. For me my to-do’s get lost if I don’t keep a priority list each day that can be crossed off. A to-do list is a great example of a planning tool. For me: my system needs to simplify my day and reduce the stress from thinking about everything that needs to get done along with the things I want to do but don’t create time for.

2. What do you need in your planning system? and What does your current planning system look like? 

A lot of people tend to panic at this one. They sort of rack their brains and think wait I don’t have a system!! I need to go and find one immediately!! You might not actually NEED a planning system. This is especially true if you don’t have too many things to remember day to day. A monthly calendar may be more than enough to jot down the big picture important dates. This is still a system in that it’s monthly planning. You add things to the calendar as and when they come up then check back in with it regularly and carry over perpetual items to the next calendar.

With me- my planning system needs to allow for me to incorporate my day job, my home life, and my blog/creative business. The job is non-negotiatble and so is housework (despite what I feel like at times!)

3.     Think about the detail you need:

Not everyone needs a daily planner. Especially if you have an office job that takes up most of your day & you do little else outside of that. You might have a few hours either side of work where you want to build routines and be productive; a planner can help here. You might have a job that has a lot of flexibility in how you accomplish tasks and a planner can be a great place to add some structure and give you clarity. This flexible working system is what I have at the moment with my work from home corporate job. I will be talking more about the system that I use in the next post 

There are so many options

The options are endless for what will and won’t work for you in a planner. It’s important to try a system out and see if it works for you. If it doesn’t then try something else. There is also no rule that says you must only have one planner. I often have one notepad, a monthly planner and a goal workbook which I use altogether BUT only because it works for me!

 OR if planning as a full system doesn’t work for you then quit using that system! Please don’t feel guilty about buying a planner and finding that it doesn’t quite work for you. It’s all learning points and will help you get closer to finding what works in your life. I’ve bought quite a few planners over the years only to find that they didn’t fit the phase of my life I was in.

One final thing to remember is the season of life are you in. This will impact your need for a planner and how much you will use it. For example a new mum will have much less time to plan and get things done with a screaming baby than, for example, a part time accountant who blogs and has plenty of time to cook and clean.

It’s about being kind to yourself and not putting yourself under pressure to have a planning system because you feel that it’s the right thing to do. It’s only the right thing for you if it FEELS right to you when you’re using it. Nobody has time to add yet another time-demanding project to their list for the day so don’t let planning become another thing you feel you need to do in your life.