“Planner Peace” is a very elusive thing. Ask anyone in the planner community how long they’ve been perfectly content in one planner. But I thought I’d found it. I’d been in my pocket size Filofax Malden for seven months and was going strong.
But something didn’t seem quite right. Life was getting busy; my daughter’s first birthday party was coming up, but every time I looked at my planner, I felt more dread than calm. It had started to feel like a capricious taskmaster than a serene companion.
Enter One Book July: the ever-evolving month-long planner community challenge. It started out simple–one book, one pen, one month–but now has morphed into a one-size-fits-all planning celebration. (Read more about it here.)
Even though what I had in mind didn’t fit that original description, I hoped that Carie Harling wouldn’t begrudge me the option to take July as a test case month to figure out what needing changing in my planner system.
Was it the size? The format? The content? I needed to take a step back and reevaluate what I was doing, which I did in a tour of three different systems. Each had its own pros and cons:
Week 1: Happy Planner Micro Notes
PRO: Cut out all the distractions
The only things I migrated into my DIY Micro Notes were projects and tasks I would need that week. Extra trackers, reference pages, even my future log, stayed behind at home.
This meant that the only things in my planner were immediately actionable, and cutting out all the fluff meant I was super focused and productive that week.
CON: The discs were too big
I’m used to running out of space in my Filofax, so I naively opted for the largest rings they had at Michaels. It was way too much. Even my mother-in-law noticed, and referred to my planner as “that thing with the giant discs on the side”
CONCLUSION:
If you need to focus on one project for a period of time, moving into a temporary planner setup is a great way to do that.
Week 2: Clever Fox Daily Planner
PRO: Space for review
The thing that makes the Clever Fox stand out for me is all the space to evaluate your day and your week as you go, look back and think about how you’ve been doing and look ahead to how you can do better.
Sure, this is something you can do just fine in a bullet journal, but do I? No. I do not. Like, ever. And having the space set aside in my planner to reflect on my system forces me to think things through more often.
CON: It’s just so big!
I knew this going in, but skipping from a Micro Notes to an A5 was quite a jolt. Add to this the fact that this is a six month day-per-page planner (read: thick AF) and you end up with quite the notebook to lug around.
CONCLUSION:
It’s nice to switch things up every so often, but I’ll always miss the flexibility of a DIY planner setup.
Weeks 3-4: Filofax Malden
PRO: Familiar and Comfortable
I’ve been in this binder for 8 months now, and in this size for over a year. My system and the inserts I use for it have been tweaked over this time, but the major vertebrae in its backbone remain largely unchanged.
This makes it a matter of course to find my way around the planner. I know exactly where to place new items, and exactly where to find old ones. It just feels right when I hold it.
I’m really glad to be back “home” here.
CON: Deep Dark Holes
There are certain sections I reference more often than others, and one section in particular that I avoid because it only reminds me of the projects I don’t feel like working on but know I probably should someday.
This section feels like a deep dark hole. An overgrown jungle. The Fire Swamp full of traps and Rodents of Unusual Size.
I really need to do some gardening in that section, but until I “get around to it someday”, I’m basically just carrying around a chunk of guilt in my purse at all times.
CONCLUSION:
I really need to go through my planner every few weeks to remind myself what’s there, or it starts to feel unknowable and overwhelming.
So maybe switching between three planners isn’t what the creators had in mind when envisioning the first One Book July challenge, but I’m so grateful to Carie, Vicky and Rhomany for starting it and continuing to keep it going. (If you’re not already following these ladies, do!)
I found that this month really helped me pin down the sources of my planner “funk” and find that sense of “Planner Peace” again–right where I had left it.
