I will honestly admit I am addicted to my planner. If I leave my phone at home for a day, I will live. I shrug it off, send some emails to important people in my life containing an FYI I am not responding to texts today, and then just leave it at that. Leave my planner home? I will turn around in the middle of the road and be late to class to go back and get that little book.
The first day of middle school, my school gave us planners to mark all our homework down and I just loved it. It was 8.5x11" and it housed EVERYTHING. I would just stuff all my homework in there and it was great.
Then, in high school, I graduated to my high school's planners (yes, they put out their own planners too) which were also 8.5x11" and the young women at my school were (are) INSANELY talented and would create amazing collages for the covers of their planners with magazine cutouts or pictures of them and friends... mine just got random pen marks on it. We didn't have washi tape back then, but I can only imagine what they would have looked like. I color coded with highlighters and that was about the extent of my decorating skills.
In college, I was introduced to the Lilly Pulitzer planners and I just LOVED them. They are so perfect for college - they come with all kinds of fun stickers and in bright colors and three (four?) perfect sizes depending on how much you need to put in your planner. I also dabbled with the Moleskine planner (amazing, but just a little bland for my taste, and I prefer a hardback planner as I use it for a surface for writing just about all the time), and then went back to Lilly. At one point, when I was the president of my sorority, I had TWO planners - one for school and one for the sorority. Some people thought I was extreme. I loved it.
Then, when I entered grad school, suddenly I had WAY more to manage than just my classes and so I knew I needed to upgrade my planner. I needed something that had a ton of space - I needed to be able to write grocery lists, when bills were due, grad assignments, workouts, and meal plans (among other things). So I did some research, and came across the Simplified Planner by Emily Ley. It was love at first sight people. Love. At. First. Sight.
I just LOVED this planner. This took my planner love to a whole new level. It fit ALL of the stuff I needed, it had a whole page for a day, it had the cutest little quotes... and the layout is like simplicity bliss. I loved the minimal color and the space for everything.
Seriously, it's an amazing planner. And she updates it every year - so now the layout is slightly different (although still amazing), she has a weekly version, a contacts binder, a journal, a Home Base Binder... seriously this woman has thought of everything, and made it gorgeous.
side note: I also briefly considered getting an Erin Condren planner when one of my dearest friends introduced me to them, but the brightness was too much for me and the layout isn't to my taste. But definitely check them out here if you're interested, SO many people love them.
In about October, I ditched my Emily Ley planner. It's certainly not a bad planner by any means, but it was just the wrong fit for me - I was trying to put school/ bills/ workouts/ grocery lists/ and anything else into here, and it was just not working. I needed a week layout, and at that time, she didn't have one. I'm a very compartmentalized person, so when I put everything in one place, it just looked cluttered (I do not do color coding) and overwhelming. For many other people, this would be perfection, but for me, it just didn't work.
So in October, I bought a cheapo planner for my school needs, and started using OneNote (make sure to see Carly's post on OneNote) to keep track of all of my home stuff. It's worked pretty well, especially for trip planning, but I really am a pen-and-paper girl, so I was looking to switch back. I'm currently using two cheapo planners from my school's bookstore (one for home and one for school) and it is working so much better. There are certain things I still feel could be better, but I haven't made any decisions (currently planner scheming).
In the mean time, I am 100% embracing my planner nerdiness and watching YouTube videos about amazing planners while jogging on the treadmill (running a mile is so much easier when you're mesermized by glitter and washi tape)... who knew there was a whole community centered around being obsessed with planners? I am not alone!?! Check out my YouTube playlist of the planner videos I'm currently watching (and learning so much! Midori/Fauxdori/Filofax/KikkiK... these were foreign to me).
I'm currently planning my next planner move and I'm thinking two planners, probably a Lilly Pulitzer or Kate Spade for school and then a Kikki K/ Filofax for everything else. I love the idea of the dividers and customizing a planner!
