Using a planner correctly?

Whilst having lunch with some girlfriends recently, talk turned to keeping ourselves organised and how we use planners. My friend cooed over my Filofax before complaining that she loved planners but didn't think she would use one right.

When I got home that evening, this really got me thinking. Is there such a thing as a right way to use a planner? 

With a multi planner system on the go, I would argue there is no hard and fast rule about how to use a planner. It's all about what works for you. A planner is a deeply personal thing, by the time you have it in your hands you've already chosen colour, size, style based on need and taste, so why would what goes inside be any different?

I use separate planners for work because I want to keep my home and work life separate. There are some people who can't abide a multi planner system, but personally I need the compartmentalisation. 

I also use a Filofax as a reading journal, again, I could choose to have a book section in my planner but I like doing it this way. I know of some people who break their planner use down even more with reading, exercise, dream journals, housekeeping all being managed in separate planners. This isn't right or wrong. It's what works for them.

For my personal life I have two planners, one on the desk and one in my bag. I also decorate my pages, I find it quite cathartic. This isn't everyone's cup of tea, for some my pages are too busy and difficult to keep track of my schedule.

One thing I'm certain of, there is no right or wrong way to use a planner so long as it works for you and more importantly so long as you use it. Everything else is just details.

Preparing for Back to School

Alas, the summer break will soon be over and like many others up and down the country, preparations are being made for that return to school come September. 

So the planner is being prepared:crisp, fresh to-do lists await being filled in and checked off. Notebooks have been carefully selected to coordinate with my planner, after all half the fun of back to school is choosing new stationery!

I'm making use of a month to view when we go back, as well as the weekly spread I showed previously. These awesome dividers are from the sn@p range although needed a little trimming to fit the A5 size. 

I then added the dates using coloured dots and marked out important dates using washi and sticky notes. Each month is a different colour, so it was great fun preparing each one.

I'm looking forward to adding a bit of colour and filling these beauties in as the school year progresses.

So, just to add a sticky note selection and lesson plans then I'll be good to go!

Work-Life Balance

A work-life balance is a planner in each hand? 

Personally, I've found by operating a planner for my work life and a planner for my personal life. This has been hugely helpful for me as a balance is something I've struggled to achieve for many years.

My work planner is for literally that; I schedule meetings, jot down deadlines and keep track of what I need to do each day. This means at work I'm organised, everything I need is in one place and that place is work. Things don't creep across into my personal life.

My personal planner is exactly that: birthdays, addresses, doctors appointments, even TV schedules. The wonderful thing is I can do this without worrying about what I've got to do at work the next day.

How do you use your planner to get a work-life balance?

A sneak peek inside my work planner

I've been setting up my work planner ready for the morning so I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at how it's looking.

Firstly I swapped out the white notepad and added funky green post-it's for a contrast.

For the time being I've kept the dividers the same, using my Roald Dahl ones although I'm working on some new ones.

I added some cute washi to some pretty lined pages so I have plenty of space for taking notes and jotting down important info.

I tucked some cute journalling cards in the front too in order to remind me to keep my chin up. Sometimes we all need some words of wisdom. 

I've also been working on a new dashboard for my new planner but it isn't finished yet.

New Work Planner

For some time now I've had my eye on a springy and fresh filofax to switch out to for work. Although I love my domino, the red is a little dark. I'd been umming and ahhing between two particular planners, that is until I went to Paperchase.

My main planner is a Paperchase one, and I love my tweed dearly. It was love at first sight with this one too. 

I love the fresh blue colour and the contrast of the yellow elastic. I wasn't too sure on the owls to start with but soon decided that actually I love them. I opted for an A5 again so I can just transfer the inserts over and as an added bonus it has 2016 pages which I can put away for my tweed.

She's got a lovely selection of pockets for me to tuck all my bits and bobs into and carries on that lovely colour inside.

There's a notepad and pen loop at the back which is always handy. My only complaint would be that there is only one pen loop instead of the two my domino offers, but this isn't a deal breaker.

I'm going to save the 2016 one of these for tweed but there's a 2015 which will be perfect for adding to my work planner to enhance it further. 

I got a few other bits for my butterfly from Paperchase too, but I'm waiting for a few bits to arrive from Amazon first before I share those with you. Keep your eyes peeled! 

First attempt at inserts

I seldom share my use of my Domino, as although it's well used and much loved, it's very functional as it's my work planner. However this week I've made my first attempt at creating inserts that are built to purpose, particularly as what I'm currently using doesn't work for me.

As I am using an A5, the inserts were easy to make using clip art and bullet points. The first thing I made was a to do list. It's cute but needs some tweaks.

I love the Alice in Wonderland themed page. I downloaded the font from a website, I'm not 100% sure which, I'll see if I can find the link and the picture came from clip art.

I created a day per page insert as a week per page wasn't cutting it. As it is, this works for me and was so easy to make. I've held off on prettying my pages as it's supposed to be for work, but I'm slowly starting to yield to that desire to make my planner even more personal than it already is.

Sales Joy!

Now you may remember I was a little upset a few weeks back as I'd attempted to buy a domino via eBay which went missing in the post. We're still trying to resolve that at the moment but in the meantime I've been doing a cheeky bit of sales shopping.

As such I landed myself a lovely domino A5 in red for less than £20! I like that the domino is budget friendly compared to some of the other Filofax products, but I thought this was a real steal! 

It's got plenty of space inside and as I'm going to be using this one for work, the week to view layout is perfect for my needs. The cover is lovely and smooth, really nice to touch and the red is a great deep red.

I'm a bit unsure about personalising the pages at the moment, I'm not too sure how that'll look in a meeting or what have you, but I will be personalising my dividers and dashboard as soon as I can.