13 Ways to Know if Your Planner is the Right Planner For You
April 21, 2017
You're planner should be a workhorse, slaving away to keep you organised. It should be easy for you to use and you shouldn't feel like you have to change any of your habits or routines to satisfy this book. It's just a thing made of paper after all, it should hold no power over you, however its power is to keep you on top of things!
Your planner is there to serve you, not the other way around. Take this quiz to see if your planner is the right planner for you.
- Do you find the boxes are too small? Do you often have to squeeze things in or does your writing often leak out into neighbouring squares?
- Are you a lefty and in a coil or rings? Those can really get in the way for us lefties (though if you love rings or coil binding there are work arounds).
- If you need to take your planner with you, is it a struggle to get it to fit in your purse?
- Is it hard to find things you are looking for in your planner?
- Does it need to close when it’s not in use and you just can't get it to shut?
- Are you keeping track of things for other people? Children, spouse, parents, co-workers, etc and there just isn't room for everything?
- Do you struggle with the layout of traditional store-bought planners but can't seem to find the perfect versatile layout with online printables?
- Are there too many things (elements, pages etc) in your planner that you just aren’t using?
- Do you dislike the order of the pages, boxes, lists etc?
- Do you need more of a certain element (boxes, lists, etc) on certain pages?
- Do you need less of a certain element? For example there are too many spots on your to-do list. You can only do so much in one day! ;)
- Are you writing on scraps of paper or backs of envelopes?
- Is your planner big enough to plan as far into the future as you need to plan?
If you answered YES to any of these questions, it may mean that your planner may need some tweaking. If you answered YES to many or even ALL of the questions then you really need to change things up!
What ever your answers, your planner should make you smile whenever you open it. Once you've decided on any changes you'd like to make to your planner, next add a fresh look to your planner! A new spread is a quick and easy make-over that you can do today. I've got a really pretty spread that you can easily recreate in your planner.
If you are having troubles changing things up to work better for you, stayed tuned for next week's blog post. I'm gathering a great list of resources for you to explore to help find your Practically Perfect Planner.
Don't forget to consider what IS working in your planner. What are the good and even great things about it? These are the things that work so well you don't even realise they are working for you until they go away. What have you not even noticed in your planner? It’s probably because it’s working, it’s often only the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
There are a trillion different combinations of planners, pages, and set ups, if you don't love the one that you are using now, if it's not working for you the way you'd like it to, then tweak a few things to get it closer to what you need from your planner.
Happy Planning!