I’ve had many requests for my planner templates, but before I hand over the goods I want to tell you a bit about my “planner philosophy”, and why I will never buy a store bought planner again.

I think I have a dozen half filled planners laying around my apartment. I used to kick myself for failing to follow through, but one day I finally thought- maybe it’s not me, maybe it’s my planner? In a year I usually use three different planners. Excessive?

Maybe. But as a perpetual student, I break my life into three parts: fall semester, winter semester and summer. Each “phase” of my year is completely different, and I need different levels of organizational support.

I love being able to switch things up, and start fresh- but I always run into the same problem... since I don’t really know what to expect from phase-to-phase, there is a ton of guesswork that goes into my planner layouts.

I like to use my planner for functional things, such as do lists, class readings and my work schedule. But I also like to be a little aspirational, experimenting with things like health goals, mood trackers, meal prep, memories and accomplishments. But what seems like a good idea on my Pinterest board, doesn’t always end up being practical when in use.

So, I always end up with stretches of unfilled pages in my planner.

Sound familiar?

Thats when it hit me. If my life doesn’t look the same, day to day, week to week, month to month… why should my planner? Maybe its not about my inability to follow through, maybe the templates I set up at the beginning of the journey were no longer serving me. Maybe some weeks i’m feeling lazy, and don’t want to draw little leaves all around the boarders of my pages. Maybe some days my to-do list doesn’t fit neatly into the same designated box it fit into last week. Maybe I want to bring my planner on vacation, because it fits perfectly into my purse and I like to use my itinerary to fuel my daydreams.  Maybe I feel super into journaling for three weeks- then never again. Whatever.

There shouldn’t be rules, and planners should be as flexible and fun as you. You don’t need to be haunted by countless blank pages or forced to stick your dynamic life into static pages. 

Academic Planner, Fall 2018

TYPE
Hybrid Planner. Pasted in weekly pages, monthly calendars as well as mood trackers, goals, books I read, and monthly highlights.

METHODS

• Sticky note summaries

• Hourly breakdowns

• “big goals”

PROS/CONS
HUGE! lots of space to write, and add sticky notes. But that is also a con… as not every day needed a HUGE page, and it’s hard to predict in advance what days need full pages and which I could skip. Since I had to hand-draw my daily pages I could wait until the day before to set them up… but come on. I’m not going to do that. It takes up too much time, and makes me feel disconnected to my schedule.

Academic Planner, Fall 2017/Winter 2018

Senior High Section Head, Summer 2019

TYPE
Hybrid Planner for summer 2019. Pasted in weekly summary with all of my counsellors, set up daily pages at the beginning of the week. This was my second version of my camp planner. The first year I pasted in a new page for every day- yes it was pretty… but at the end of the summer I could hardly carry the book. So, this version is less focused on aesthetics, way more about function.

METHODS

• M/A/E to-do list

• Hourly breakdowns

• Sticky note summaries

PROS/CONS
at camp my planner is my best friend. I carry it with me always, and need it to function. I don’t even think “planner” is the right word for this book. It works more as a “task manager”. I guess the downside is that it doesn’t look so pretty… but hey, it helped me manage 150+ teens and a team of staff.

Junior High Section Head, Summer 2018