Plan With Me // October 17-23

Hello, planner lovers!

I’m so excited to be back in the world of planner blogging– I had missed sharing my planner with you each week. This week I’ve been dividing my time between my perfect-for-Fall Recollections gold striped planner, and my Erin Condren blog planner (which is really more function than fashion, honestly!) I’ve been absolutely loving the Happy Planner stickers by Me & My Big Ideas lately, and I just ordered the cutest set of Autumn themed stickers from Sticker Bloom on Etsy– I can’t wait to share them on the blog once they get here.

As you can see, I’ve been really loving the Happy Planner stickers this week; they’re so pretty and motivational. I used Ban.do floral washi on several of the days to decorate my layout, but I didn’t want to use too much washi this week. I love this planner by Recollections (which you can find at your local Michaels store) specifically because it’s so perfect for Fall– the gold stripes are so pretty!

My kitty Toulouse wanted to keep my blog planner company in this photo! I know, I know, technically this is last week’s page, but my blog planner isn’t much to write home about (and I don’t want to give away any secrets about upcoming posts!) My blog planner is almost purely functional, I don’t spend a lot of time decorating it aside from the odd sticker here and there. Usually I need all the space I can get for blog-related tasks and to do’s!

There is a bit of sad news– I don’t have a Plan With Me video to go along with this week’s post. I’ve been planning to get back to my YouTube channel, but it hasn’t happened yet. If you’d like to see some of my older Plan With Me videos, you can visit my YouTube channel here (and feel free to subscribe, if you like my videos!) More videos will be on their way soon, as soon as I can find a quiet hour to sit down and film them.

I hope you enjoyed this small glimpse into my planner girl life! Plan With Me posts will be posted each Monday, so check back next week for another look into my planners. I love to share planner snippets throughout the week on Instagram & Twitter also, so if you haven’t visited me there you can go take a look.

Want to share your latest Plan With Me post? I’d love to see it! Comment with your links below or tag me (@adoreplannerco) on Twitter or Instagram and I’ll be sure to check it out.

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Note: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon products. If you make an Amazon purchase from a link in this post, I’ll receive a small percentage of the total cost. This helps to support my blog, and I appreciate any and all contributions.

Getting Organized… And Staying That Way

I would be a completely non-functional person without my planner. There. I said it. Acceptance is the first step to healing, or something like that.. But seriously– if I don’t have at least some kind of calendar to keep a handwritten schedule for myself, then my life devolves into darkness and chaos.

Everyone has their preferred way of staying organized: some people use calendars synced to their email, some use apps like Evernote— I’ve even heard rumors of people who can keep track of their schedule and to-do lists entirely in their head (but I’m pretty sure that’s just a myth..) Personally, I’ve always had a love affair with pens and paper.

For me, planning left the purely functional realm a while ago, and has become something of a expensive obsessive hobby. Honestly, I’ve been using planners for as long as I can remember, but until this past year I never knew there was an entire community made of people who have just as much love for creative planning as I do (thank you, Instagram!) I don’t even remember exactly how I was introduced to “fancy planners”– all I know is that in May of 2015 I stumbled across a photo of a gorgeous kikki.K ring bound A5 leather planner– then with just a quick google search, approximately $200 and three weeks later, the rest is basically history.

This was the first fancy planner I ever owned. /swoon.

The one major drawback to my kind of planning, obviously, is that it can get expensive if you let it. I see cute stickers or washi tape or a beautiful new binder, and the word “no” all but drops out of my vocabulary. But that’s more of a personal problem, really. The godsend of creative planning on a budget? Free printables & Pinterest.

Some of the best inserts I’ve found for my planners are printables, and even if you don’t find a free set that you love, most printable sets on Etsy are often sold in themed bundles for less than $10.

A few of my favorite printable sets on Etsy are from Printable Pineapple:

Her sets are so fantastic– they come with multiple sizes for each design, and usually have a few different color options in each set. I use several of her Daily Planner pages (usually the “get shit done” daily page) to keep track of my tasks each day.

A lot of my favorite free printables are from Day Designer by Whitney English:

Her printables are simple and chic, and so functional. The four pictured above are my favorites out of the 25+ free printable choices she offers: the weekly menu plan, monthly cleaning schedule, daily schedule & to-do list, and weekly priority planner.

Printables are a great option for any planner since they can be printed as many times as you want to use them, so you’re guaranteed to never run out of inserts. For me though, the one (rather large) drawback of printables– even the free ones– is the actual printing part. I’m usually lucky to even have ink in my printer, and that’s assuming that I can get my printer to work in the first place.

So, like anything, printables have their pros and cons. But even a cartridge of ink and a ream of paper is still better than spending upwards of $80 on an elaborate planner system, right? Right??!?! I’m trying to convince myself of this, too.

Honestly, I’d still like learn to use Evernote and a few of the other modern organizing tools– but even so, my planner will always be my bestie. 

What are your tried-and-true planning methods? Do you generally stick with digital planning apps, or are you a fellow pen-and-paper lover?  Comment below or chat with me on Twitter!

Planner Wish List

Confession: my planner wish list is about a mile long– when you’re as much of a planner geek as I am, it’s kind of unavoidable that you’re going to want all of the amazing planner accessories that you can find. My Etsy favorites list goes on for days, and my Amazon wish list is full of Kate Spade & Ban.do stationery goodies that I can’t afford to buy (yet.)

That’s the great thing about wish lists, though– I get to bookmark a place for all of these gorgeous accessories and make a mental note saying, “I’ll be back for you later..” I’ve gathered up a list of my most pined-after accessories, the ones that if I had space in my budget would be mine, like, yesterday.

1. This beautiful pastel set of personal planners by PapergeekCo on Etsy has a permanent place on my wish list until I own all of them– and I think I’ll be starting with the pink planner.
2. It’s like if you give a mouse a cookie— if you give a planner girl a new planner, obviously she’ll need cute charms to go with it– and it doesn’t get cuter than these polymer clay charms by Pixel Pearls on Etsy. (Side note, I follow her on instagram too, and her feed is absolutely lovely!)
3. I’ve been dying– dying— over this new mint Webster’s Pages personal planner from their Spring collection ever since the first moment that I saw it a few months ago. It’s available on Etsy, and I’ve had to stop myself at least three times now from ordering it– I need to wait until the bills are paid, and then maybe.
4. These bow sets are probably something that I could try to make myself, but I doubt mine would be anywhere near as cute as this pastel collection from PeoniesPaperie on Etsy.
5. This pen set from PapergeekCo is adorable, and my resolve has been weakening lately since they were recently on sale! Planner gods, why must you tempt me this way?? 

   

6. MochiThings makes the most amazing planner pouches, and I have been pining over their pink Pour Vous Multi Pouch since I saw it on Pinterest several month ago. The price tag is a bit steep, or else I would already own it!
7. This handmade fabric midori cover by MellonJournal on Etsy is so elegant and perfect– and also already sold. That’s the one downside to wish lists: if you don’t buy it, someone else probably will.
8. This pouch & pen set by kikki.K are part of their Vanskap collection, and as a raving cat lady I could not possibly be more excited. 

So did anything on my planner wish list end up on yours? If so, you can keep track of all your planner accessory wants with the free printable I’ve made for you today. You can download your copy of my wish list printable here.

If you use my printables, I’d love to see them in action! You can tag me on Instagram (@adoreplannerco) or on Twitter, or share the love on Pinterest!

What are some of the planner accessories on your wish list? Share them below in the comments or chat with me on Twitter (@adoreplannerco)! 

P.S. My blog is now on Bloglovin’ & Snapchat! You can follow along with cute planner posts on my Snapchat at @adoreplannerco!

This post was originally published on my first blog, For the Love of Planners.

Bullet Journaling 101: Supplies

Bullet journaling is all the rage in the planner community lately. I’ve always loved the idea of bullet journaling, but for the longest time I had no idea how to do it myself. I’ve made several attempts in the past and my layouts never quite turned out the way I wanted them to. Bullet journaling is fantastic if you’re like me and you’re a tad bit obsessive about tracking the minute details of your life– it’s always appealed to me, since keeping tabs on my daily habits and routines helps me (okay, forces me) to be a healthier and more responsible person.

Bullet journaling is a type of planning where you can create monthly, weekly, or even daily layouts from scratch in a blank or grid notebook, and your layouts can be as simplistic or as creative as you want them to be. Personally, I like a mix of artsy and minimalism– which is mostly a cop out because I’m not very artistically inclined, so whenever someone asks I can just say it’s supposed to look that way!

In this post series I’m going to be introducing you to the world of bullet journaling, and sharing some of my favorite supplies and most loved layouts, both mine & others’. Before diving into dot grid notebooks and weekly layouts and collections and index keys though, I’m going to share my own (very) humble beginnings with bullet journaling.

This is where my bullet journal journey started, at 3am one night when I couldn’t sleep and was stressing over the upcoming events of my week. I was using one of my Moleskine Chapter dotted notebooks, and I created a very simplistic, sleep-deprivation induced layout. Needless to say, it’s not the pride and joy of my bullet journaling career, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Speaking from personal experience, I really recommend experimenting with your bullet journal layouts until you find one that fits just the way you want it to. I went through at least five different notebooks and multiple layout styles before finally (I hope) reaching bullet journal bliss.

Starting Your Bullet Journal: Supplies

This is my favorite part: gathering supplies to begin a bullet journal. You’ll need a notebook, a pen or set of pens/markers, and really those are the only absolute necessities. If you want to jazz up your bullet journal though, I highly recommend washi tape, highlighters, colored pens, and stickers. Here’s a list of some of my favorite supplies, and a few that seem to be canonical across the bullet journal community.

Leuchtturm1917 dotted notebooks seem to be the gold standard for bullet journaling. I personally can’t vouch for them, because I’ve never owned one (although it’s on my wish list!) They’re a bit on the pricey side, but I hear that their quality is unparalleled.

If Leuchtturm1917 notebooks aren’t your style, there are many other options for notebooks, all the way down to a standard composition notebook picked up from your nearest Walmart. Personally, I’m waiting to buy a Leuchtturm1917 until I really feel like I’ve gotten “good” at bullet journaling.

I’ve recently ordered a dot grid notebook from a seller on Etsy that looks like it might be the perfect fit. It’s an A5 size notebook, and even after shipping from Taiwan it was less expensive than a Leuchtturm1917.

Staedtler Triplus Fineliner pens are widely acknowledged as one of the pen sets of choice in the bullet journaling community, and I wholeheartedly agree. The colors are beautiful, and best of all, the ink doesn’t bleed.

Zebra Mildliner pastel highlighters are some of my absolute favorite markers. I have the pink set, and I absolutely love it. The colors are perfectly soft and muted, and the concept of a mint green highlighter makes the stationery fanatic in me go wild. A lot of people in the bullet journal and studyblr communities are huge fans of the mildliners, and I definitely understand why.

Like I mentioned earlier, all you really need to get started bullet journaling is a pen and some paper, but it’s glam planning tradition to deck out your planner in washi tape and stickers, and those decorative elements can absolutely be incorporated into your bullet journal as well.

Ban.do Washi Tape is some of my favorite, especially the floral print and the “I’m Very Busy” print! I use these tapes in my bullet journal and planner layouts all the time, as you’ll see in upcoming posts.

Some of my favorite stickers for bullet journaling come from a shop on Etsy named Sugarloop.

Each photo is linked to the listing if you want to check them out; I highly recommend her shop!

A good bullet journal starts with good supplies. In this first part of the series, I wanted to introduce you to a few of my favorite bullet journaling supplies, and provide some accessory recommendations for beginning your own bullet journaling journey.

Feel free to comment below with some of your own favorite supplies, or let me know if I missed anything amazing! You can also tweet to me @catladyplans or tag me on Instagram to share your favorite #bujo supplies.

I hope that you’ll join me soon for the next part in my Bullet Journaling 101 series, where I’ll be taking a look at the starting setup for your bullet journal, including setting up an index, key, and creating your first layout.

Until then, happy shopping!

Note: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon products. If you make an Amazon purchase from a link in this post, I’ll receive a small percentage of the total cost. This helps to support my blog, and I appreciate any and all contributions.

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