Planner Madness: The Sequel

Wow, it's been more than a year since I posted anything here at SC-Chron. Sorry about that, folks. I've been concentrating on my book blog this year, and while I was doing that, somehow 2014 has buzzed right by, no matter how hard I tried to slow things down. And now 2015 is right around the corner. And we all know what that means, right?....

NEW PLANNERS!!!

But before talking about what I'm thinking of for next year, I thought I'd say something about my adventures in planning during the year that's about to pass on. So to start with, here's a shot of all the planners/diaries/journals/notebooks I've used in 2014 (well, most of them, anyway). I'll save most of the details for the next post, so check back in a day or two. Or three or four (things are crazy around here right now.) OK?

OK.

Click on photo to enlarge

1. Filofax A5 Finsbury in black.
2. Filofax Personal Finsbury in black.
3. Erin Condren Life Planner
4. Lett's Pocket Week-on-two-pages Diary
5. DIY Full-size Discbound Planner
6. DIY Household planner in Staples 3-ring binder
7. The Basic Scheduler from MochiThings.com
8. DIY Half-size planner in a Staples Arc Notebook
9. Paperblanks Day Planner in the Maxi size with the Grolier cover

I want to talk a little bit about each one of these -- why they did or didn't work out for me. But I'll do that in my next post -- the sequel to the sequel.

Ya'll come back now. Hear?

Planner Madness

So, autumn is here and I haven't posted anything on this blog since April!  Yikes!  Where've I been? OK, we really don't have time for all that -- it's mucho boring anyway.   So I'll just jump right in and pretend I've been here all along.

Yes, it's that time of year again, and I've been obsessing about planners, calendars, and diaries for the last month or so.  Well, maybe the last two months or so.  I'm still not exactly positive what I'm going to do in the way of planners for 2014 (DIY? Filofax? something else?), but I've got some ideas that I'll be exploring and writing about here at Supply Cabinet Chronicles in the next couple of weeks.  That's the PLAN, anyway.  With the hope that spelling it all out will help me come to some decisions.

In the meantime, here are links to a few of the most interesting posts/websites I've come across in my search around the internet.

• 10 Ways to Keep Track of Daily Routines in your Planner (10/09/2013: Patty @ Homemakers Daily)   This website has tons of good ideas and tips on planners and organization.  And you don't need to be a homemaker to benefit!
• 2014 Plannerisms Going Places Planners ready to ship (9/23/2013: Laurie @ Plannerisms).  I've admired these since they were introduced last year, and they still look interesting.  The one thing that always stops me from ordering one is that I just don't do very well with a bound planner.  I know from past experience that I'm really only comfortable with spiral or loose-leaf bindings.  So if these ever become available in a different format, I just might try one.
• 2014 Printable Planner - and a whole lot more (10/12/2013: Kayla Domeyer @ Say Not Sweet Anne).  There are dozens of cute and useful printable planners out there (just do a little searching on Etsy), but this is one of my favorites.  Love the colors and patterns -- and the "modular" design allowing you to use just the sections you need.  Also, it's not tarted up with a lot of "inspirational" quotes or cutesy illustrations.  (Not that there's anything wrong with any of that.)
• My 2014 Planner: The Inspiration (9/25/2013: Shelby Leigh @ Something Southern).  I'm having the same sort of experience, thinking about a DIY planner for next year -- lots of design ideas floating around in my head, but haven't found the ideal combination yet.
• Pinterest boards by Erin Condren.  I'm addicted to Pinterest -- the website offers a gazillion good ideas for planners, both DIY and the manufactured kind.  And Erin Condren's boards are some I return to most frequently.  I've used her Life Planners, off and on, for the last couple of years, and I'm still toying with the idea of ordering one for 2014.  They aren't the perfect planner, but they're so much fun and I'm easily tempted.

OK, enough for right now, but I'll have more to say about planners in the near future.  And please note -- I don't have any official connection with any of these websites or products, and all these opinions are entirely my own, influenced only by personal taste and whim.

Plannerisms Planner Giveaway

Just a heads-up: Over at the Plannerisms blog, the amazing Laurie is hosting a worldwide giveaway of one of her new Going Places planners. You can see photos and read all about the planners and the giveaway here. Great opportunity to try one of these lovely-looking new items.

New Filofax Set-Up (What, Again?)

Just spent a very pleasant morning organizing the new set-up in my Personal size Finsbury.

I've gone back to Finny after a torrid but brief love affair with the Erin Condren Life Planner. The Condren planner is gorgeous...

and really fun to use (love all those colors and pithy quotes):

But it weighs a ton and is just a little too big to conveniently throw into my handbag and take along.  And at $50 plus shipping charges, it really does require complete commitment. Ultimately, though, I just got frustrated with not being able to move things around in it. Same problem I always have with bound planners -- I'm attracted to them, but in the end they always let me down. Planner love hurts.

Which reminds me -- I need to do a blog post about all the planners I've tried this year.  More on that later.

Right now, I just want to do a little Filo show and tell.  For my 2013 system, I'm going with both monthly (month on two pages)

and weekly (week on two pages, horizontal spread) diary pages.

That seemed to work pretty well this year, so thought I'd try it again.  And next year, for the first time, I'm going to give these Filofax day-planner pages a try:

That means monthly, weekly, AND daily scheduling and notes, which definitely could be overkill. Especially if I'm going to go on keeping my separate daily diary, too. So -- not sure how long that will last.

And I finally decided to go ahead and do a little tab editing.

Up to now I've just used the tabs that came with the Filo (Diary, Notes, Projects, Information, Financial, Addresses), but I've never been really satisfied with those designations (I never really used the Financial tab at all, since I don't keep financial info in my planner). So I got out my trusty P-Touch and printed up some labels with my own categories, and pasted them on. 

"Monthly" and "Weekly" are obvious. The "Daily" tab will house those day-planner pages (at least until I figure out if they're usable or not).  "Lists/Info" is also self-explanatory; I've cleared out all the old lists, so right now all I've got is a list of movies I want to watch, and a few shopping notes.

The "Projects" section is a bit of a catch-all area. At the moment it's mostly taken up with lists of household projects and plans. But I'm hoping to use it for various craft projects too, when I get around to doing crafty things again.

And the "Addresses" section remains the same.  Won't show any photos of that, since I'm using it to store a few passwords and personal info, too.  All in code, of course, but even so....

One of these days, I really want to make my own tabbed dividers using decorative papers or cards -- something a little more colorful and interesting than these generic manila dividers. But that's a project (and a blog post!) for another day.