I am a planner, through and through. I schedule everything and I'm basically the opposite of what society says my age group should be. I hardly ever do anything on the fly; I typically have my days and weeks mapped out well in advance. (Although since moving to Dublin, we have enjoyed a slower pace of life, allowing us to be more spontaneous and not so scheduled.)
When I used to work full time, I kept my Outlook calendar updated constantly and synced it with my iphone. If something wasn't in my calendar it didn't exist (and yes, I even once scheduled spontaneous time in my calendar - which resulted in my getting engaged!!!!). However, since I no longer work full time, I don't have the luxury of Outlook anymore (yep, good ol' gmail for me!). I discovered The Day Designer by Whitney English last summer and loved it all year long - I purchased the August-July edition. So when my planner came to an end in July, I didn't hesitate to buy another one.
There are so many reasons why I love The Day Designer, and the biggest reason is because it keeps me so organized! I love that there are pages for each day as well as a month at a glance. I use the day pages the most because each day is broken down by hour, this allows me to map out how I want my day to look. I tend to put my to-do list in my daily calendar, just to make sure I actually allot time to accomplish each task. And yes, I schedule my workouts and daily cleaning activity!
The Day Designer has so much space where I can keep track of everything: what we are having for dinner that night, what my blog post for the day will be, my to-do list and notes. In the notes section, I like to write down extra information that I may need that day (i.e. a phone number or address for a location we are heading, a twitter handle or hashtag if I'm participating in a twitter party, anything!). I also love that on the Saturday/Sunday pages there is a portion at the bottom where you can see all of the days for the next week, this is where I like to actually plan out what meals we will have each night.
In addition to the incredible organization that The Day Designer provides, I love that there is an inspirational quote on every page. The positivity keeps me going on days when I have a lot on my plate. There is also a section to record a daily gratitude - I never used this section in my planner last year, but I think I will this year. It will be fun to look back later and see what instances made me happy - kind of like a gratitude journal.
I know there are a lot of other planners out there, but The Day Designer has served me well, so I didn't feel a need to try any others. And thank goodness the company shipped me a new one when the USPS failed to deliver my first one to me. Those first eight days of August were kind of miserable without my
I love a good planner! This one sounds great!!
ReplyDeleteI remember in our planners in MS and HS there used to be inspirational quotes (or quotes about education) which I always read. Love that yours has that :)