I am a huge sucker for planners, and I love seeing how other people use theirs. I have done another planner post before, but this one is a little more in depth on how I actually stay organized. The planner pictured in this post is by XO Planners, but I also have a Passion Planner that I use sometimes. I love the simplicity of this particular planner. So here’s what I do with my planner:
Supplies you should have:
- Lots of different colored highlighters
- Fun paper clips
- Something to mark your page
- Colored pens
- Various different sized sticky notes
- Scissors
- Cute Stickers
- Sticky note flags
Here’s how I organize my planner.
1. Monthly overview. Here I write everything in black pen. Then I go back and highlight each event according to my color code.
- Green Highlighter = work
- Blue Highlighter = photography business
- Orange Highlighter = fun stuff
- Yellow Highlighter = bill and appointments
- Pink Highlighter = school/school events
2. Day by day pages. I use different colored pens to write down the event and the time each day. I tried to match the pens with the highlighters of the categories above. When something is done, I like to cross it off with black pen. I feel super accomplished when I see things crossed off!
- Pink Pen = school/school events
- Blue Pen = photography business
- Purple Pen = work
- Orange Pen = fun stuff
- Black Pen = everything else
3. Here’s where the sticky note flags come in. I have one for each bill due and I move them around each month. They’re bright and catch my eye when I’m flipping through my planner so I am sure I don’t miss a bill. I wrote on mine with a fine tip Sharpie. I keep the flags on the inside cover of my planner when I’m not using them or don’t know the due date of a bill yet.
4. Now for the bigger sticky notes. I use these to keep a running to-do list. Usually it’s pretty long and takes up more than one sticky note. I stick these on the inside cover of my planner and cross off things as I go. I also use these to make grocery lists and to write down important reminders.
5. The back pages. There are a bunch of blank pages in the back of my planner, and here I write down every single username and password I might ever need. There’s nothing more annoying than when you go to login somewhere and you can’t remember your username and password!
So now that we’ve talked about how to effectively use your planner, here are a few that I recommend trying out. My next planner that I am about to break into is the Day Designer! I am pumped to start using this, so stay tuned for posts on that! What planner do you use and what are some ways you stay organized? Let me know in the comments!
