Planning is something everyone knows. The first time when we start planning as a child it’s often a lot of fun because we have stickers and colorful designs etc. When we get older we are confronted with boring plain and simple planners which make us feel bad when opening them. But it doesn’t have to be like that! In this article I show you how to have more fun with planners!
You maybe know these planners you get from companies like “Jolly” when you buy a kit for school start. As a child you often get them. When you open them they are full of color, patterns, animals, planets etc. They are designed for kids and try to motivate them to fill in their test appointments. Maybe they also offer enough space to write down the homework which has to be done. At this stage using a planner seems quite fun because they are colorful, helpful and the most important thing – they make us happy when using them!
Later, when you are grown up you get to know other planners. Everyone of us knows these planners you get from companies like insurances. Most times their cover is black and they do smell very much. When you open them the lines and all the writings are in black and at maximum they use 1 color. They are very plain and clear and to not have any charm. That’s maybe the reason why quite often they do end up in the waist bin.
In most cases as adults we end up not using a planner any more because they seem to be stupid overhead. At the same time they make us feel bad when opening them because they look ugly. Some of us use some digital possibility to still make notes but these system often are also quite plain and simple. They only do fit to the need to take notes but not to the need to make you happy when using it.
At some point people started to realize that there must exist a better way.
The people who started to make better planners
On part of these people started creating planners which really make you happy when opening them. And making you even more happy when using them! Most of them are a little bit more expensive than the normal plain ones but I can only say: Some of them are really worth the money!
One of the most popular I think is the Erin Condren. This is one of the more expensive ones which is available of the market I think. I haven’t tried it until now because it was too expensive for me but I do enjoy the youtube videos about planning with them. Many ideas you see there can also be transferred to other planners, so don’t be shy and watch these videos!*
I’m using one of the less expensive ones which is quite popular. It’s a planners of Me & My Big Ideas. You can also customize a lot and if you do not change your planner system every year after some years you have a lot of cover pages etc. These you can mix up like you want them and reuse them in a newly created planner. That’s quite cool I think!
I hope these videos give you some inspiration* 😀
The people who filled their planners with love and creativity
The other part of the people started to consume these more customizable planners and still made a lot more out of them. People started to fill them with painting, pictures, doodles etc. They also files them with classic stickers or stickers with motivation slogans on them. I think the stickers with these motivation slogans became really popular by the usage in planners. They also designed creative cover pages for every month and found different ways to get their shopping list into the calendar and other things they need. People also found ways how to produce their own stickers to have the perfect one for their need! It’s amazing how planning changed in the last years!
There are also some helper tools available which make you independent of the planner type you are using. At the same time you don’t need to for example buy the original cover pages because a tool helpf you doing your own cover page.
An example therefore is this Punch Board by American Crafts for which these punches are available. Every punch set is compatible to specific planner types. Every planner type has different distances between the holes which you can configure on the punch board. Therefore you have a universal solution for different planner types 🙂
Then you can buy for example these planner discs which fit for the happy planner and create your own planner without anything else! That’s really cool!
!AND! this can be also a great gift for someone who loves planning 😉
Here’s a video where this punch board is shown*
I hope you enjoyed this article!
♥ Keep on drawing! – Starlene ♥
* these videos were not done by me. You can find these videos on youtube.