I love my planner. I
REALLY LOOOVVVVEEEEE my planner. It’s
fun. It’s pretty. It lets me be
creative. It helps me stay
organized. It looks cute when I say “let
me check my schedule for that” and open these adorable pages. I’ve had the plain schedule planners in the
past and they are quite a bore to use…you know the kind… But….when I decorate THIS I have a desire to
look at it daily and stay on top of what I need to do. I also try to document what I did that
day/week, so it’ll be something I can look back on.
I love NEW planners….but I also love the consistency of same
size, easy to add to, etc….which is why I keep going back to my 8.5x11 3-ring
binder. <sigh> It just does the trick. However, after attempting to use [my homemade
version of] the MAMBI Happy Planner for a few weeks (I considered it too much of a $$
investment I questioned some of the formatting anyway) I
realized that what I liked was the size of the squares, the size of the
sidebar, the overall layout and the decorating options the layout provided…who
doesn’t like alllllll the coordinated planner stickers and washi that are out there….you
can decorate to your heart’s content!
What I didn’t like was the oddball size of the planner, there was
wayyyyyy more real estate than I needed every day/week, I could not deal with
starting my week on Monday instead of Sunday (and there isn’t an option offered
by MAMBI or anyone else that I could find with a Su-Sa week instead of Mo-Su
week, and finally, to add my own pages I needed to cut EVERY . SINGLE . PAGE to fit properly and [eventually]
purchase a special hole punch. None of
these were things that I was willing to overcome to continue using the
planner… L Honestly, the Mo-Su order was the clincher
for me and sealed its FILE 13 fate.
Alas, I also like to DESIGN things, so why not take the features
I LIKE and create a planner that works for me?
DUH! <facepalm> I JUST wanted a bare-bones version that did
what I wanted it to do and fit in MY binder…and this one does.
1.
It has the same size boxes as the Happy Planner
(good for all those oh-so-wonderful planner sticker sets!)
2.
It has an ENTIRE week on ONE PAGE (so each 2-pg
layout is actually 2 weeks instead of one.)
3.
The sidebar is the same dimension as the Happy
Planner one, though mine is found under Sunday/Wednesday instead of covering the
entire side of the page. I designed it
so that the sidebars are on the outside
of the 2 page layout, not in the same place on both the left and right pages.
4.
Instead of “MORNING”, “AFTERNOON”, and “EVENING”
I used that space for the day of the week….not all of us need 3 boxes a day to
keep track of it all, so there are 10 boxes/week.
5.
3 extra boxes at the bottom…We have bills due
every week and birthday/anniversary cards to send weekly, so I use a couple
boxes to preplan sending those and I have a spare box to use for any special
events coming up, preplanning, etc. If
you need that tiny calendar then you can print some readymade ones out on
sticker paper and use the 3rd box for it!
I have a couple versions…the Roman Calendar Sunday-Saturday one and
the Jewish Girl Sunday-Shabbat version.
Click the link to which one you want to download it from dropbox. I don’t
mind if you share it as long as you link back to me for it! J
Some quick hints for printing & using these pages:
- It's designed to be printed double sided but can always be used as single pages also.
- Grampa W. always said KISS-Keep It Simple not Stupid...streamlined undated, no-frills design makes this page useable year after year. It's created to accomodate the sticker numbers out there or to fill in your own.
- Planner layouts designed to fit the MAMBI Happy Planner will fit this perfectly so decorate away!
In a few day's I'll try to post a few pictures of my personal planner in action and a few tricks I use to keep it easy and fun(ctional)!
Blessings and Happy Planning! :)
