Caught the Planner Bug

I have felt like I needed something more than just the calendar on my phone for a while. In December I started to use the Family Planner version of a Plum Paper Planner and it has really helped to be able to see the monthly overview and a whole week at a time with a row for each member of the family and extra rows to decorate or use for activities for the whole family. I fell down the decorating rabbit hole too with washi tape and functional stickers from Etsy. I love my small collection of stickers and clips and bookmarks but I don't like how big the book is. Often I would set up my week on Sunday and then not look at the planner at all until the following Sunday. I need something that I can take with me so that I remember all the little things that I have to do during my lunch breaks and after work before going home, I would sometimes get home and then have to leave again because I remembered the 3 things I forgot to pickup as soon as I parked the car.

I started to stalk the facebook groups to see what other people were doing to keep track of their lives. I had seen the Midori travelers Notebooks (MTN) on Goulet Pens a few years ago when I was looking for fountain pens but didn't see the point of a small journal since I hadn't kept a journal since college and for a year after hubby's accident, I also couldn't handle the price it seemed like a lot of money to spend on a piece of leather with a blank notebook. With my new searches into planners I saw new inserts with monthly/weekly/daily calendars and some great layouts which just might work for me. I picked up a field notes sized fauxdori, a knock-off journal cover based on on the MTN to give it a try. The cover was on sale and the small size seemed good to me. I printed up a montly calendar and a gid notebook to give it a try. I love this colour and the size was definitely handy, I even printed off a monthly calendar and made some inserts to fit in it.

Purple PocketJot

Inserts for fauxdori

This PocketJot worked pretty well for a while, but it was too small to put in more than just the basics and I never did figure out what to do with the grid notebook. So I kept looking. 

I came across Bullet Journaling which seemed just simple enough to work for me. I looked at facebook groups and youtube to see how other people were using this system and saw that some of them were using MTNs and making changes to match their own lives. I decided to try bullet journal insert in the 'standard' size just to see if it would work for me I love the free inserts from My Life All In One Place by Ray Blake. I have used this insert for about 2 weeks and it has gone everywhere with me to make sure nothing gets missed. So far it has worked for me. I have added a weekly overview so that I can still see where everyone is each week and catch overlaps which could trip us up. I think this is going to work for me.