I have to admit that I’m a planner girl. I love planners. I love videos and blog posts about planners. And I have to be really careful when I pass stationary stores that sell planners because I will buy them all.
But there is a problem called “Planner Freeze”. This is when you have so many planners for so many different areas of your life that you get overwhelmed and freeze up and don’t do anything. So this year I’m determined to be choosy about which planners and notebooks I’m using, and below is my final, pared-down list. (If I have time, I will make a video about this and embed it below.)
Long-Term Goals Planner
Like I mentioned above, I am a big planner. And one of the things I like to do is goal planning by ten years, five years, one year, and quarters. So I usually start at the top with my ten-year plan and work my way down. These goals are both personal and work-related goals. Since I work from home, I often have a difficult time separating my time between family, personal, and work. For years, to help me with this separation, I bought the Lara Casey’s Power Sheets. It’s a great tool that breaks down ten areas in your life and helps keep you accountable to your long-term dreams. I loved it and used it for years until 2021 when I switched to Hilary Rushford’s Elegant Excellence Goals Journal.
While I loved the Power Sheets (and still do–they are an excellent tool), I needed something…. deeper. The Elegant Excellence Goals Journal is more than a planner. It’s actually a journal that has pages and pages of “work” that requires you to think about what you really, really want your life to look like. And after the crazy years we’ve all just lived through, I needed to go deeper into my dreams and goals. This journal is also in two parts, which I love. There are two books, each divided into 6 months, as well as monthly and quarterly reviews to make sure that the long-term goals (like more than five years out) are still what you want. Hilary is big on constantly reviewing where you are, what you’re doing, and how you’re going to get where you want to go. But if, at any time, any of these three things change it’s better to know sooner rather than later. This is NOT a daily planner. This is considered a “clarifying” planner that you refer to throughout the year, monthly and quarterly. This year’s planner also comes with live classes and videos and guided audios that help you work through the sections requiring deep thought. That means there is a nice community surrounding this product that can help answer any questions you have.
These two journals are spiral bound and use a thick white paper that takes markers without ghosting. The cover is like a plastic cardboard that holds up really well to being thrown in backpacks and purses. I used it last year, combined with my 2021 Goals planner (below), and loved it. So I reordered it again this year. It’s not cheap, but considering how much I accomplished last year, it was well worth the cost.
2022 Goals Planner
Once I review my long, long term goals, I need to begin breaking things down to figure out what I can realistically get done during the year. While the Long Term Planner (above) is for all areas of my life, I use my yearly goals planner for work. This year, like last year, I am using the HB90 Goals Planner. HB90 is both a course and a series of planners offered by Heart Breathings by Sarra Cannon. Sarra is a fabulous YA author who also has her own YouTube Channel and Etsy shop. She actually has two channels, one for her readers and one for authors and Heart Breathings is the channel for authors. Anyway, Sarra loves to plan as well and offers a fabulous course called the HB90 Goal Planning Method. If you take this course, you get her weekly/daily planner (see below). Otherwise you can buy it from her Etsy shop as a digital download.
The 2022 Goals Planner is just that… it’s a workbook that helps you work through your biggest dreams so you can break them down into goals, projects, and tasks. The great thing about this planner is that is forces you to look at time in a realistic way. She has charts and graphs to help you figure out how much time you really have and what you can realistically get done versus what you think you can accomplish. The first part is a lot of work, but since I do some of it in the Elegant Excellence Journal (above) it doesn’t take me too long. There is some duplication between this Goals Planner and the Elegant Excellence Journal, but going through both planners really helps me solidify my dreams and goals. The thing I love about Sarra’s goals planner is it forces me to be honest about time. And that’s not an easy thing to face.
This is a digital download that I print on white #20 printer Letter-sized paper. I then use a Happy Planner punch and assemble it with Happy Planner discs. I then put the entire thing into a large Happy Planner portfolio. The planner is set up with worksheets in the beginning, then a monthly calendar, then quarterly goals, projects, and tasks. There’s also monthly and quarterly reviews. The planner also come with weekly checklists that I love. I fill out this planner quarterly and then check in with it weekly when I set up my weekly planner (below). Sarra offers her HB90 Goal Setting Course quarterly. If you’re interested, fill out the newsletter form on her Heart Breathings site and you’ll be notified when the next class runs. (It’s fabulous and so worth the money!)
Weekly/Daily Task Planner
I use another Heart Breathings product for my weekly and daily task planning for work. It’s Sarra’s HB90 Method planner and is available as a digital download from her Etsy shop. The beginning of the planner is similar to the Goals Planner I discussed above, but it’s also different. The pages in this planner are specifically designed to get the projects and tasks that you’ve already outlined in the Goals Planner done in a timely manner. There is a weekly spread followed by daily pages. There is also a weekly check-in to make sure you’re doing those things that will help you accomplish your near-term and long-term goals. There are task blocks as well as lots of open space on the daily pages to keep notes. There are even pages to help you keep track of blog post ideas and other creative endeavors.
I print this out in A5 size on white #20 paper. Then I use a hole punch designed for my A5 ring notebooks. I use the Recollections ring binders from Michaels as well as the A5 binders from Kikki-K. But I always buy them on sale! I use the Monday start, undated version of the planner. I also use this planner daily. It sits on my desk and I fill it out on Sunday afternoons, and then add to it through the week as things come up.
Blogging & Social Media Calendar
Besides writing books, I blog 5-6 days a week. In order to keep up this schedule, I actually write and schedule my blogs out 6-8 weeks in advance. (I may even be writing this blog while eating leftover Thanksgiving pie!). So I needed a planner/calendar that was easy to use, had a large enough monthly calendar, and pages in between so I could keep notes about what I want to write about. Because I write ahead, I plan out 80% of my blog posts six months in advance. I am also a founder of two big Facebook Reader Groups (The Isn’t it Romantic Book Club and Midnight in the Garden reader group), and I want to post to Instagram when I remember. Then there are all the guest blogs and Facebook/IG promo events. Not to mention the book club videos I’m in, and newsletters I need to send. So I really needed a separate Social Media calendar system that would keep all of the details straight.
Last year I stumbled upon the Erin Condren Academic Planner. It was on sale because the year was half over. So I bought it and used it for the last six months… and loved it! It’s the classic size (7″ x 9″) and it has thick paper and a sturdy coil. Because it’s an EC planner, I can also switch out the covers whenever I want. But what I really love about it is the spread is large enough for me to write in my blog post subjects and any other SM events I’m running that day. Then there is a page where I can take general notes about the month. After that, there are weekly spreads and there’s plenty of room in each’s day’s entry box to keep notes on what is happening each day like notes on a blog post, or more information on my FB group events. And in the back, I added more note pages (for an extra fee) which I use as I research my blog posts.
The other thing about this planner is that there is enough room to keep track of my newsletter schedule (and topics) as well as my launch schedule for new releases. It’s thick because of the high quality paper and the extra note pages in the back, but the coil is so large that the pages turn easily. So far this has been a great choice to keep track of all my SM ideas and plans, and I hope that it works just as well in 2022. This sits on my desk along with my HB90 A5 planner (above) and I use both daily.
Daily Home Planner
Since I also run a home and have a family, I needed something to help me keep everyone in order! I also needed a planner that could easily sit on the kitchen counter and that the family could refer to. And I wanted a planner that offered me a clean to-do list every day. For the last seven years, I have used the Emily Ley Simplified Planner to keep my family organized and on task. I love this planner because it’s simple and every day offers me a clean, bright-white sheet to use with both an hourly layout and a to-do list checklist. If I had to choose only one planner for my life, it would be this one.
It’s not huge, about 7″ x 9″, and uses a white Mohawk #70 paper that I love. It doesn’t ghost or bleed through when I use markers. I rarely use stickers or washi tape because I just love the clean look it offers. This is a daily planner that sits on my counter, almost always turned to the current page. Everyone in the family refers to it. The monthly spread keeps track of vacations and appointments, etc., while the daily pages keep track of all the family to-dos. I even list what’s for dinner on the top of the page, even though there’s no special place for it. (which I like!) There’s a notes section on the bottom where I add phone numbers or jot down things we all need to know that day. Like it’s title, it’s a simple, clean, functional planner that works well for the household.
Budget Planner
I like to keep track of my spending on a daily basis, but I hate doing it in Excel or on my phone. To be honest, I spend so much time looking at screens that I plan in time away from my computers and phone. Last year I watched a Youtube video about using a Hobonichi Weeks Sneaker as a budget tracker. It’s small and fits into a zippered wallet that I keep in my purse. As I go about my day, I just slip my receipts into the Hobonichi Weeks and then, when I get home or stop for a coffee, I record my spending in the weekly sections.
Hononichi uses Tomoe River paper which is super thin and a light cream color. I love it but I know that others prefer thicker paper. Because the paper is so thin, this is a thinner notebook that fits easily into my zippered wallet. I also love the sneaker version because it has a soft cover and extra notes pages in the back. Because I keep this in my wallet, I prefer the soft cover to the hard cover. It’s just lighter weight and easier to carry around.
The Hobonich Weeks Sneaker has a Monthly spread as well as a weekly calendar that is faced by graph paper for taking notes. There are a ton of YouTube videos about how to use this little notebook. Most people use it as a daily planner or for daily journaling, but I love to use it to keep track of all of my spending, both for work and the household. Oh, the calendar notes are also in Japanese.. but that just adds to its uniqueness!
Cleaning & Routine Planner
Yes, when I have time, I attempt to clean the house. I used to do zone cleaning with the Flylady. But then I switched to Clean Mama’s home keeping routine and found it easier to keep up with. Although, if you follow both women on SM, you’ll see some fun throwdowns between women who love/hate these systems. The FlyLady system is great, but for some reason I could never keep up. Although I adore Diane in Denmark’s videos about how she uses the FlyLady system and I highly recommend her channel. Anyway, once I switched to Clean Mama’s routine, things in the house calmed down a bit. For a while I used her downloads to help me keep track of what needed to be done, but this year I bought her Homekeeping Planner. It’s undated so although I bought it during her fall sale, I didn’t have to start it until January. (because why start cleaning earlier!)
I just started using it and so far I like it. I just wish I could add in some notes pages in between the months. While she has space for checklists and notes, I like the flexibility of having extra pages. I was originally thinking that this could replace my Emily Ley planner (above), but I really need the daily pages that this planner doesn’t offer. So we’ll see… I’ll let you know in a few months what I think about it.
Holiday Family Notebook
This is something that’s not really a planner but a notebook I’ve been keeping for a while. I wrote about it more here in my Prep & Plan series. But basically it’s just a cheap notebook where I mark each holiday or special event so I can keep track of what worked (menu-wise, guest-wise, etc) and what didn’t work. I also tape in all of my receipts for each event so I can keep track through the years of what I bought, what I regretted buying, and how much things cost.
If you want to learn more about it, here is a blog post I where wrote about this notebook after Thanksgiving.
Plotting Notebook
So I totally borrowed this idea from Sarra Cannon, and here’s her video on how to make a plotting notebook using a classic Happy Planner. I have used Sarra’s free plotting downloads but have also made my own that I print out and use in this planner. I make one of these notebooks for each book I am currently working on. If you’re not a writer, you can totally ignore this one! Although I think this type of frankenplanning using old HP pages could be of use to anyone who does creative work. Basically, you use an old Happy Planner, including the old page dividers, and turn it into a usable notebook that keeps track of all the elements of you story. I’m not describing it well, but the video is great. If you’re interested, I highly recommend watching it!
Home Emergency Binder
I run a series on this blog called Prep & Plan, and one of the things we do is set up a Home Emergency Binder. This does not have to be expensive or time consuming. I took an old 3-ring binder (Letter size) and some page protectors and started collecting copies of my family’s most important documents. I store these copies in the page protectors within this binder for one reason — to grab all of our important papers on the way out the door in case of an emergency. There is an excellent download at the bottom of the Ready.gov site that talks about the kinds of documents that you need in your binder. And we will be discussing how to put together this binder in the Prep & Plan group in the coming weeks. So if you want more information, sign up for my blog below so you can keep up to date. Things to think about including in this binder are: mortgage or leasing documents, vehicle titles, birth certificates, social security numbers, copies of driver’s licenses, professional/work licenses, etc. And if you already keep an Emergency Binder, January is always a great time to review the documents and update them as needed.
So I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk through of planners and notebooks. And in case you’re wondering, yes this is about five fewer than I had last year! One day I’ll do a blog post about what planners didn’t work and why. But for now… happy planning and Happy New Year!
