My tip for functional planning is decorating after the fact: I love looking back through my old planners, but it's depressing when i've left big blank spaces due to my ADHD and experimental planning style. So I bought a thermal printer and fill all the blank spaces with things I love! Stickers, pamphlets, retroactive notes, all sorts of things work
I'm an artist, critical thinker, OCD planner, who is also the Operations Supervisor for a trucking company. I have 2 planners. Work and ME. They do cross once in a while. I like color, I like to doodle. So I planned both of my planners to be extremely efficient but creative. Doodle Space, Dump space, and Organizational falls into the middle. As of the last 8 months, I've gone back to a journaling/Doodle style planner with monthly in the front of each section and just dump space with doodle space. So I bought blank books. I have built my own planners for years so this works well for what life threw at me. Extreme stress set me on this path for now. I need to just be able to be organized to a degree and then free in the rest of my life. Loss/Stress/Illness - > takes a toll. Sometimes you just have to step away and put up a wall between work and life. At 60 that is me.
I've been bullet journaling for four years now, and my planning style has changed DRASTICALLY throughout the different seasons of life. Sometimes your needs and circumstances just change
I have watched so many planner videos and nearly got sucked into buying everything, but I caught myself in time and really thought through what I needed and what would work for me. I love seeing how other people use their planners, but I had to be honest with myself. Yes, I love seeing decorative and memory-keeping planners, and BUJO spreads, but I will never keep up with such planners. I actually made Pro/Con lists for all of the different styles and then settled on what would work best for me. Saved a lot of money by doing this! I will still watch all the videos, but I am at peace with my system!
I loved how you said that you love all the decorative and memory keeping planners but know that would you never keep up with them. That's where I am finding myself now. What did you end up with?
I've watched several youtubers explaining their methods. Most of them are entrepreneurs. Finally someone I can relate to, who works 9-5 AND knows what agile sprints are! So just thanks for being here. I like coloring and pens and papers but I don't think I could open a notebook each time I needed to know what the next task is, not to mention reminders, so looking into digital apps. My dream is Jira with the Features of my life. And to have someone who cleans the house ;-) Anyways I'm subscribing.
I currently need light, flexible, low-maintenance, pre-printed planning with extra space for customization, notes, or doodles. I've also realized that mid-year I might need to change my format or aesthetic to keep my brain engaged. In 2023, a weekly Pusheen calendar on the fridge worked great for me, but half-way through 2024 I instead started keeping a thin monthly planner by Rifle Paper Co. Both years I've also had a small, thick Barnes and Noble daily planner with one page per day for basic journaling or daily brain dumps. I keep a 3x5" hardcover spiral notebook in my bag for random notes. For 2025, I'm keeping with the thin monthly planner with each month's big boxes across a 2-page spread. The texture of the cover and pages of the daily B&N journals have changed, so I think I want to try the Midori page-a-day planner in 2025 for journaling, brain dumps, and doodles.
I realized that i prefer to DIY my spiral blank page planner. Found that I use 95% of it when I just keep it simple - pretty hardbook cover, annual calendar review, monthly calendar per page, and a saving tracker. This took me 3 years to figure out. Blank pages allow me the flexibility to use the planner as I need it for the day or moment. Love your video.
I just started in the cousin this year, and after years of struggling with my bujo layouts because I was trying to replicate things I had seen online I finally feel like I have something I can use long term. I love the vertical weekly layouts and the monthly calendars (I especially love that I don't have to make them myself) with the daily pages for journaling. I also found that decoration, as nice as it is, gets in the way of functionality for me because I wanted the decoration to look nice and that clashes with the messy functional style I have. My compromise has been using a variety of ink colors in my fountain pens when writing in the cousin! it's not technically decoration but having pink, green, blue, purple, etc. inks to play with still gives it a little bit of fun amidst my lists of chores :)
Yes! For some people, the decorations draw them to their planner so they'll actually use it. For me its a total freeze. Either it looks too good and I don't want to mess it up, or I made some sort of design choice that doesn't work and now the decorations are in the way. I get around this (and make use of all the stupid stickers I already bought) by decorating after the fact, if I'm feeling up for it.
I am mostly minimalist but this year I have gone Scientist and done some more decoration then I normally would. Last year I had the Cousin Avec but this year I have the entire year in one book. I also have broken my Cousin into sections. My months gives me what bills due, appointments, pay days, looking after my nephew and holidays. Weekly is split into sections. I split the page in half, where the top half is my todo list, appointments and weather (I have chronic pain and a nervous system dysfunction in hot weather). The bottom half I have split up into categories. Headings include: to watch, to buy, to pay, priorities, to contact, errands, chores, don't forget and appointments. This helps me to keep track of everything. Now my daily section has turned more Bujo styled, where each month focuses on a specific topic. January is my budget and does everything to focus on finances, February is my nephew and all to do with his care and growth. March is for my pets, April is work, May is the different colours that I do for diamond painting (each colour is colour in diamond painting has a code and once I finish a section, I write the colours down that I have completed) and have done similar things fornthe rest of the year. I have done some more decorating in my weeklies then I normally do with stickers. My faith planner, which is another Cousin has completely different system. Monthly section is where I put my prayer and praise, weeklies I put down the scripture for the day and daily section is where I write info from studies I have done or watched
I agree that reflecting in what you really need is the most important. Over time I’ve come to the realisation realisation that I actually do not want a life’s planner but an analog to-do daily list that I can see in a weekly layout and only for work; so even I love to watch people bujos and other planners they aren’t really for me but I now have a very compact system that I actually enjoy: My personal things/events I keep on my phone apps (calendar and reminders) that give me lots of flexibility, while my work tasks, activities, calendar, etc. I have on a TN that I have with me all the time, as it is easier for me to concentrate and plan strategies when I write them, and having a planner solely for work allows me to focus
I absolutely need a weekly spread that shows an hourly layout but also has space for a weekly to-do list. Sometimes I throw in a daily plan, and habit tracking. I absolutely love that this video is so functional!
I stopped expending fantastical amounts of money and effort on expensive notebooks for my bujo/planner. I prefer functionality over aesthetic, artsy spreads which take way too much time to set up on the daily - that burns me out so quickly. This year I went with tiny field books for my day to day planning and to do lists, which is working phenomenally. I picked up a $7 annual pocket planner book and am using its allotted daily spaces for a miniature diary record of events or thoughts while utilizing the calendar aspect for appointments and monthly events. I could have used the daily areas for my "to do" list, but it's so tiny and I prefer my running "to do" list in the handheld field book. The field books fit perfectly under the elastic ribbon holding the planner closed, it's like they were made to be used together!
I‘m a writer, so I used to buy daily planners every year and used as a diary, but sometimes I wanted to write more and had not enough space or I didn’t want to write in a given day. That’s why I switched to moleskine and use it as planner (drawing myself), diary, journal, notebook to my writing ideas and whatever I need. In the past I just wrote, but since I‘ve taken drawing class I also draw on it. I‘m not much into deco and with moleskine I have to be careful with which pens I use, the pages are very thin. But I love it, it’s the place I can be creative and plan to achieve my goals.
I have looked at A LOT of Hobo videos for layout inspiration. I also listed what I really needed to keep track of. I took what could work for me from each creator and made my own system, which is wonderful for me so far. I love your videos. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience.
The most realistic planning video on the internet ❤️ you have changed my life and shown me that this is possible for me 😃 I shall forever be helpful to you Rachelle.
I really like this series and I really enjoy reading everyone's comments and seeing the different perspectives and struggles everyone has. I can't just be functional in my planner. Otherwise I'm like just buy a regular notebook and make lists. If I spend all that money on a planner I want to make it look nice. So I add all the things and it ends up looking like a teenagers diary or collage. But that works for me. The functional and mess just appeals to my brain. I know it's not for everyone. But my ADHD brain is like it's so pretty ha ha
That's actually such a perfect example of how decoration CAN impact functional style though! If you are decorating it to help you use it, I'd say that's perfect. Thanks for watching and commenting
@@RachelleinTheory whenever I look at my spreads it reminds me of whenever my mom tried to "tidy up" my room id be like don't touch anything! I know it looks like a mess but it's my mess I know where everything is 😂
Have you watched planning with bumble? She’s a very decorative functional planner and she has ADHD and says it works for her brain. I love her videos. She’s just a wonderful person and fun to watch. She uses mostly the HP but it really translates to any planner.
Lol I understand the adhd brain. I've tried being minimal but I get bored with things if it dosnt appeal to my brain I won't use it. It's a place that makes me feel happy that i want to look in my palette everyday especially if u decorate it etc.
@@apriltriggs2737 I'm so happy I'm not the only one. I had one "functional" planner and I was like just use some date dots and washi.... and now I'm using mini kits ....I'm like why am I like this lol but its the one planner I've used everyday so far so why fight it lol yay stickers
Absolutely loving your videos! 👏 Super helpful. As a super visual person (& artist & adhd), a 'pen only' planner will numb my brain. So decoration & colour, for me, is essential to a planner motivating me to use it (as you mention) and then, actually being functional. However, the creatives among us can become so caught up with decoration that we end up with impractical planners, and not understand why they didn't work. So focusing on 'pen mostly' (rather than 'pen only') with say some colour (like colour blocking) is a great way to test what you'll actually need. Also there are tons of super cheap planners from $ stores or £ shops. If the thought of setting up layouts on a blank page switches off your brain 😂 then a cheap planner is a great way to test them out before jumping into one of the big guys.
This is the best planning advice I’ve seen in 2 months. Having been a planner for my entire life, I now find current planning method not working and this video was so helpful for me. Thanks!
I remember that my first attempt at BJ was 2019, where I had planned 6 months of layouts in advance based on a lechturm I previously used and liked (just like the one you show at 6:50). But 3 months in, I realized I would rather draw my own weeklies. I change every year and keep what works... I realized also I have seasons... winter is usually much more sober and summer months are all over, artistically (even though I use the same structure, they're not decorated the same.)
I’m glad I’ve found your videos as you really encourage real planning not just selling stickers. Must admit though that I’m a happy sticker buyer 😊. I used to use Franklin planners from before Steven Covey became involved. I used those longer than any other but I like a good weekly view to. Maybe I should start from there; digital planners have never worked for me and the older I get the more I need to write to help me remember
I realised that i use my planner to mainly journal and memory keeping with a of back planning, with minimal planning for the future. So the cousin really seems to work for me, because once i backplan, i can easily decorate. And journaling keeps me coming back everyday to it!
Hello, I'm like you, testing several planers. I still can't use just one . Today I use a personal daily planner and a weekly planner for work. thanks for the video
I always wanted to have a nice paper planner, but I need notifications and hate redrawing the same layouts (I even tried to make own printables😅) So I gave up too many times. Now I plan to shift completely digital (Google Calendar + OneNote) saving the handwriting part as I can use pen on my laptop! I already use OneNote for my study notes and love it soo much🤷🏻♀️ Thus I have everything I love: handwriting esthetic and flexibility of digital format!
This series coming back to your quiz and planner matrix is *chef’s kiss* !! I’ve been trying to go back to basics but I have a hard time differentiating between pre-planning (for fun/to keep my anxiety out of my head), memory keeping (anything after the fact that has happened) and actual functional planning. Right now I’ve been dumping everything into a small lined notebook and organizing my information later 🤣
Thank you!! Creating the planner matrix has really changed how I think about planning so I want to share it as much as possible. It sounds like the little notebook is super functional for you, which is great! maybe that little notebook could be combined with a little calendar, so all of that brain dumping (which is what i'm lovingly calling preplanning lol) can be done in one place. Then you transfer it over to your main planner month/week/day of, or whatever works for you!
I’m not a fan of the term pre-planning because to me that is what planning is. There are some people that truly keep a separate pre-planner which they write in and then they transfer over the information in a “pretty” way. To me that’s redundant and a waste of time and effort because my planner doesn’t have to be perfect and never will because plans change and your planner is your life and life is messy. To me “pre-planning” is merely writing in your plans - events, appointments, meetings, tasks as they pop up (either get scheduled or pop in your head)….when something pops up it goes in my planner where it goes. If it’s a task that doesn’t have a set date it goes in either an inbox page in my planner, on a brain dump task list keep in the back of my planner or on a sticky note (I keep a stack in my planner). Memory keeping depends on the person but for me a memory keeper or memory planner is a separate planner or journal where I memory keep for my kiddo or my family to read or look back on in the future. It’s not my planner because no one needs to know what I bought to fill the freezer that week 😅 so for me that process is separate. That said I do document things in my planner that I can refer back to when doing my memory keeper and because it’s part of my day/week. Thru the week if something happens that’s important to me that I want to note or that I want to refer back to when I get into my memory keeper I write that down. It doesn’t take away from the function but adds to it. Hope that helps some. I do have videos on my planning on my channel and will be doing more this year too.
@@notoriousMAG Yep you can call it bullet journaling and definitely do it in that fashion outlined by Ryder Carroll (or others that have followed suit with their own process), It’s been my process since before RC released the bullet journal to the public so although it falls into the bullet journaling process/concept to me it’s just planning 🥰
Thank you so much for doing this video. I wanted to get into more detailed planning this year and was actually dissappointed that most of what I was seeing on youtube was about decorating. Really happy I found your channel
Good discussion on style. I've been using Action Day planner for years. When the dated one wasn't available, I switched to something else that I thought could be similar (Clever Fox). I already knew I needed a vertical layout that started on a Monday. The new one let me realize what else I needed. I went back to Action Day and chose undated. Its larger To-Do section on the far left let me keep my mind on the weekly tasks. I also realized the design elements, while cute, were a distraction and didn't help with accomplishing my goals. The Action Day planner as design space on each spread so that's perfect. It really was about finding my functional style.
This really helped me a lot to determine how to move forward with planning. I was struggling so bad with planners not working for me but I know I need one to stay on task. Thanks!
I just love the way you explain every your decision and step and not only mention that "that works for me try anything works for you" as most do. Thank you for your experience and advice!
This was the most helpful video I've found to the point where I'm at. I've been doing pen only for 6 months, found more or less a style that works for me and wanted to go 1 step further. This is just what I needed!
I used your tip to find my best functional method for me. A few years ago, I just took a blank notebook and tried out different kinds of planning layout. I realized I liked hobonichi cousin layout to some extent, but it wasn’t prefect. So I just designed and published my own planner (for personal use), that I print each year. It’s much better (and cheaper) to do this than buy a cousin.
@@RachelleinTheory Unfortunately, I don’t 😅, but maybe I can do something like that in the future! But TH-cam is the way to go, that’s how I learned to design my own books and self-publish.
I really enjoyed this video, and I found it very helpful. I have watched it a couple of times and watched several other TH-cam videos on similar topics by other content creators. I waited to comment until after I did some experimenting, as you recommend in your video. For myself, I am extremely uncreative and unartistic - so a blank journal to create my own vision in for a functional format was simply terrifying. Instead I took your planner examples and waited a few months after the start of the year to find several different planner styles on sale (some on very deep discounts) to play with and figure out what I liked and what I didn't. I would recommend this method for others, like me, who have a hard time creating visually for themselves. I am now using two planners - a Hobonichi Cousin for my every day planning/journaling and a fairly generic weekly planner (Year of the Witch) for my reading/media planner. Thank you for your content. P.S. I also use Asana at work and LOVE it. 🙂
My planner style is three everything but the maximum. Using Composition Notebooks. I need a totally different page and a notebook for the maximum. Still working putting everything into one book, though. My contents page is my tracker but my pages do not equal the dates. I do have a legend key to stencil in arrows, circles, stars etc. to remind me to work the Contents list of pages “past” and the principles of hardcopy “filing” (Getting Things Done). Then I actually make quadrant pages to do experiments because relationships to each thing helps me to “see” how it all fits. (The Twelve-Week Year). Quite a thinking process, I know, but writing out my three Morning Pages ( The Artist Way) is something that I will not give up. Ever. I been learning by trial and error for a long time. This is something that I really needed.
Hobo weeks was only best for my finance, the cousin was only best for weekly schedule, while the dailies was best for scribbles/notes. It's been like more than 3 yrs and I'm still trying to find my best functional layout. So I'm always between Planners then I took a huge long break and just did only pen and small notebook and that worked best for me. Scribbles and messiness was better than being "perfect & neat" planning is suppose to be messy, well for me. And all the trends of appearance to be neat esp on IG, I just totally ignored and no longer "followed". And I notice I plan more when I not on IG. Thank you for sharing, love this video
Just found this video as I'm prepping for 2024. I resonate with your style.. the horizontal weekly with a notes page on the right. Anyway, I just had to say that I also totally related to your "this new moon wrecked my shit" note... perfect. just perfect. ;)
My style is mostly minalist. I do scientist in my weeks. I cannot stand to bulk up my planners really so artist is not my style. I will use washi or stickers sometimes but not every week or every day. I have bought travelers company journals that I can bulk up a bit and try that. But breaking a spine of a book is a big no no for the autistic person I am
I've bullet journaled for about 7 years ish now, and I loved it, but I've recently bought a hobonichi techno because I discovered I'm really a daily planner. I need a spot to write a to do list, a schedule and write journal entries EVERY DAY. I also need a spot to keep track of due dates for assignments that isn't in my to-do list, and I also need monthlies to look at big picture due dates and events. I really thought about making it work in a bujo but at the end of the day I would need two notebooks to get a page count that high, and if we're talking leuchterm and moleskine then that's about 70-80 bucks anyways so I might as well bite the bullet and get the techno. I'm hoping to even add a thin A5 dot grid mini notebook in the same case as my techno for the collections, goal tracking, and specific journaling (book reviews, movie reviews, trip notes, and crochet notes) that I would be doing outside of my daily journaling. I've always wanted everything in one spot and never achieved it so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works.
This is a great video! I couldn’t get into bullet journaling bc of the expectation of it being decorative! I don’t plan on doing it again, but I want to change my system for the next year, thank you!
Thank you for the video. I have such a challenging time with planners. I love all of them is the problem. I have the Hobonichi Cousin because I wanted to have an all in one... but I hate giving up the Leuchtturm 1917 consistency where I have all Leuchtturm products for my daily work. Very challenging, and addictive!
I love having a monthly habit, mood, and medication observation tracker all on the same double spread at the beginning of each month. It makes tracking symptoms, period flow, everything really easy to view all at once. I’m trying a new thing this year though where instead of just dotting that I did a habit, if it’s something like water I’ll tally how many times I refill my bottle, or tally how many healthy meals I had that day. Or for a habit like “create something”, I have a new key of different color dots to use to show even more info of what type of thing I created that day. Even within my consistent monthly tracker I’m still trying to find ways to experiment and make it more useful. Thanks for sharing your memory spread! I might try that next!
That is so awesome, and I love that you keep it all on one spread. For me, if it's not on the spread, it's usually not getting checked 👀 super valuable!
Interesting video! I agree, you need to try each style / productivity idea for a few weeks, more important if your day to day routines are not very stablished, to know if they work for you or not. As a planner user (for years) I'm always trying new styles and productivity tips.. because you know what could be working for you nowadays, but maybe there's something you didn't think of before and could be useful for you, and you also change with the years.
I found this video helpful. As someone just starting to add tracker and planner elements to their journal, thinking about how I would be using it really shapes what layout to choose like you said. Thanks!
This video has been SUPER helpful! I've been struggling with productivity for YEARS (and I know that my value/worth is not dependent on my productivity, but I want to be more productive than I am) and functionality has been a huge barrier. I'm absolutely going to try some of your tips. I wanted to take the quiz (I have only JUST discovered your channel!) but it is not currently available. I have signed up to be notified when/if it does come back online, though! From watching your first Planner Matrix video, I can guess that I am somewhere between Maximalist and Scientist (leaning more toward Maximalist). But this current video is really making me think about the functionality that I'm lacking and how to find it, so my first step will be to follow your advice and think about the things that I CANNOT do without in a planner! Thanks for sharing, and I'm definitely going to check out the rest of your channel!
I would love to see a video on how to use productivity book tips in your planner. I am a fairly new subscriber and I love your content because its different and practical. Great job!
Would love to see how to apply productivity books to a planner! The idea of this video and series is so good, and made me think of new things to consider when I'm using my planner. I've done a lot of experimenting myself (although I still very much like to stick to blank notebook for bullet journaling) and it's good to know that there's still other things to think about.
It took me many years and planners to found out what I love in a journal. My favorite is the hobonichi eels I adore that planner I wish I had see this video long time ago lol
Back in 2015 and 2016 I used the Moleskine Horizontal planner. It was just a horizontal weekly on 2 pages. It worked well for me. For 2017, I couldn't get a hold of it (it is not common) and tried bullet journaling. I like pocket sized, so I was in the pocket Leuchtturm 1917 until 2022. My style of bullet journaling evolved, ebbed and flowed with my life changes. When I was super busy with schooling, it was a bujo style running to-do list each week. When I traveled it became a scrapbook for the trip. When I wasn't as busy, it was just a journal. I loved the flexibility. However, it was starting to get old for me. In the past 2 years, I have really enjoyed my google calendar. I like the monthly at a glance layout. All of that led me to get the hobonichi Day-Free planner A6. I like the monthly layout and the horizontal monthly layouts for habit tracking. Then all the note pages for my weird hybrid commonplace/journal/to-do list/art journaling method.
The Hobonichi Day Free sounds awesome, a lot of people have recommended it to me and I think I'd like it! I'm also considering pocket bujos... even though it's only 14 days into 2023... hazard of being a part of the planner community I guess 😂 Do you ever feel like that size is too small?
@@RachelleinTheory During the 7 years i was in a moleskine/Leuchtturm style of pocket, I only started to feel like it was too small near the end. I still wanted to stay small, that is why I went for the smaller A6 hobonichi, but the hobonichi was a bit wider. I like that I can take it with me so easy. While I was in a pocket bujo, I only had one hardcover version, the rest were softcover because I stuff so much other stuff into them they expand so much...
There was a wonderful Moleskine layout that I used for one year and I could never find that layout again. I thought maybe I accidentally picked up some special edition. Your comment makes me think they just update their style more often than I would expect!
I don't know about everyone else but I have things I hate in planners and things I love in planners. I already know I am a vertical weekly girl. I would love a Sunday start but I can't find an off the shelf one. I dislike disc bound planners and book bound planners. I prefer spiral bound but can deal with the wire c bound. I like a slightly off white paper that is thick enough to use markers without too much bleed through. I prefer a 7 vertical columns and a notes column. I sometimes use trackers and sometimes don't. I add them when starting new habits, once they become routine I no longer need it. I am a person who needs the pretty stickers and color to stick with a planner... that is the part of it I like. I have used the Conquest Harry Potter planner for years but this year I started working in it and decided I hate the red ink so I bought an inexpensive basic planner. It doesn't have exactly what I want but I'm irreverent of lines and boxes and can customize it to be what I want. I know all these things. I'm currently trying to find my goals and long range planning style. I bought a dot grid notebook. So far it is a mix of junk journal, reference book and goal planning, I'm just not sure what works for me, I have never really goal planned before. So yeah, I know my planner style but not my goal planning style. I did print out the makse life life compass and goal work sheets to see if I like them but so far are ambivalent about it. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
I'm intrigued by that hobonochi Cousin I haven't really looked into them, I've been bullet journalling for years rather than planners so this gives fresh ideas for set ups! P.s I love that you play Dnd and have it scheduled and proceeded to be momentarily distracted when you were doing your journal flip through
I absolutely got sucked into buying Happy Planner and went a little too hard on purchasing. Luckily a good portion of what I bought was on clearance but it was still a lot. I've tried all kinds of things but at this point, I think I'm going to stick to a commonplace/bullet journal method rather than a pre-printed planner. I'm dedicating myself to using what I have for the rest of the year because I already bought a planner for this year, but I'll be giving a lot of the rest away and moving to a smaller and simpler planning style next year.
Awww. We have the same orange Fox journal from Notebook Therapy. My idea was to use it in a seasonal/ 12 week plan for fall. But it was so cute and so pretty I feel guilty for using it 🤣
I have a mini HP and a classic HP that I flip between. I know that for work, I need a lot of list space and a little scheduling space, so a dashboard layout works relatively well. At home, i'm on and off with my planner, so this month, I'm trying time blocking to try and keep myself in it. I've got one page for calendar, one broken up into quarters for tasks each week, and then time blocking to both see where my time goes and where I want it to go.
Pen only doesn’t work for my adhd nor does beautiful aesthetic sticker layouts. I have found messy and random help keep me going back to look at it but I’m not past the 6pm the mark to really know if it will stick - so far looking at it daily is a win!
Thank you for all the great input as I’ve been struggling to purchasing a calendar/ planner that works for me. I like quotes, stickers, music of the day & lil moments learned for the day.. Any tips on a calendar/journal?
The quiz was fun to take. Thank you for putting it together, Rachelle. Maximalist, as expected. I'm a minimalist in my work planner. Color coding plus I use a bit of small washi to mark things that last more than one day like business vacation. Everything is used purely functional. My EDC, personal planner, my financial planner and my journal are sticker, washi, colors, 1001 pens and styles galore. 😄 Except for my journal all planners need to be functional. I actually use stickers to make my financal planner calendar cute and at the same time functional (bills due never looked better). 😄
I want to see a video on the different productivity books/styles! I use a variation on GTD for my work planning, and aspects of BuJo in my personal planner. It's been so helpful! I'd love to learn more!
@@RachelleinTheory mostly I'm just not very good at GTD haha My work is pretty flexible but I deal with a lot of unexpected stuff cropping up all the time, so planning and scheduling can be hard. I use the website/app "Get It Done", and supplement that with lots of sticky note lists around my office that focus on the most urgent things and things I need to follow up on with people and what not.
So glad I stumbled upon your channel recently! Fell down the "buying too many planners for 2023" rabbit hole and now totally stuck on what I want to go with. I have bullet journaled for years with varying degrees of functionality and decoration because I'm so picky with my planner layout and find that sometimes I need to change it up based on my mood or how much I have going on. Last year I used just a regularly weekly planner that I randomly bought at target that worked nice, but haven't been able to find the same one for this year! Hoping to find some clarity on what planner stack I want to go with for 2023!
Yay I'm so glad you found the channel too!! It sounds like you are embracing the work in progress nature of finding/building your dream planner and that is what counts ♥️ Keep us informed in the comments of future vids!!
So this is just for the little notebooks you have to create for yourself... I was hoping for more info on pre-made planners. But good info on the others.
I’m a very functional planner. I’m very busy between a full-time job in leadership in a large corporation, a family and my channel plus hobbies and friends and life. But I’m a decorative planner too because it makes me happy and inspires me to use my planner. And it prevents me from getting bored. But I’m not a heavily decorative planner. My planner has to be functional first and it can’t be so cluttered or busy that I can’t see what I need to focus on. One of the reason I can’t use a Cousin is because of all the color already in the page it makes my brain hurt and it clutters it before the pen even and distracts me even in a pen only spread. Finding a clean slate planner is really important for me to be successful in my planners. I also think it’s important to remember that the layout of a planner isn’t set. You can modify the layout and use it in different ways. The lines and sections are guides but you don’t have to stick to them and you can modify it to fit your style or needs that week or that month. Because life changes and sometimes you might need something different. Size of your planner and what you need there - how portable it needs to be, if it’s comfortable size wise to write in, how big your handwriting is and how busy you are all play a roll.
Adding to this… I reset the numbers on the weekly layout by using a Tombow correction tape and adding in only my work hours. I get from 8 am to 7 pm in one column and can track meetings and see open blocks for project planning and focus time and (most importantly) I can see at glance when the day is getting too loaded. The HC layouts are guides and seeing this was a breakthrough for me.
Have you tried just tracking by week? I primarily use a weekly plus memo format, so I use weekly, not monthly trackers. I find I get satisfaction from seeing a consistant week and don’t forget tracking like when I try a monthly or yearly tracker.
When I buy a planner, I get a spiral bound one with horizontal weekly and create other spreads I can punch and slit the holes to insert the pages. Printing an old half sheet sized diyfish planner for half size binder is saving me this round where I can adjust the weekly spreads to make them function and putting in extra note pages where I can sketch in a daily if need be. The only decorative elements are lettering for headers and a light grey highlighter for the headers. Otherwise, I get sidetracked by it.
It's nearly April and I'm still going "uhmmm" and "hnnngg want" at Hobo Weeks ( the spring release). I started plannering/journaling in Hobo Weeks in 20...20. Yes. Because it began in December and after the one month I realized I need more... braindumping and journaling space, but the slimness of the planner just didn't make me want to write on the note pages. So I got a Cousin in January. Used it consistently for like 3 months, fell off for 4 months and then began to again use it because I got a desk job and had some "idle time" while waiting for responses. (I used the empty daily pages to write down story ideas and world building) 2021 I tried... Cousin again, but Avec. It worked better and it was a big relief in a way to start the second book. Just to leave some bad thoughts behind and so on. I also experimented on making the weekly layouts into horizontal ones with printing out stickers and covering up the dates for the last part of the year. I loved it. It was like an A5 Hobo Weeks dream. In 2022 I got Hobo Day-Free, because I wanted to try the Bujo style. I wasin real life anxiety slump and being creative was a way for me to keep on living instead of some other options. It worked out kind of. I didn't like the way I completely forgot the passing of time. Forgot to draw layouts. Forgot to... write down anything. And now in 2023 I'm back in full Cousin, because I really missed the layouts and the dated aspect. Going strong again for month 3 so far. I might turn the weekly layout into Horizontal ones next month again because it was super fun and my current job situation is... almost non-existent so the hourly tracking doesn't matter.
In college i had this giant weekly whiteboard before handing it off to a younger sister. I kind of want that again. It was also horizontal on layout iirc
Steven Covey's: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is another Book and possible Functional System. Planner community makes a lot of reference to Franklin Planner, that is another one. Will be interesting if you could do a book match with planner integration.
I have been trying to find a planner that squeezes monday to friday in one page, and gives the second page entirely to the weekend. Because my week is very wash-rinse-repeat, i can run in automatic mode. Weekends are when i need to keep multiple balls in the air.
I've been making books(quite literally finding cheap notebooks with the wire bindings, taking them apart and cutting my choice of plain white copy paper, punching holes, then reconstructing the book and covers to my style and mood for each new year) for the past 6 or so years. HERE'S MY QUESTION, what the heck should I be planning in my book.? I have used these books for keeping notes from anything from church meetings, to community council, from trying to do some handlettering, to doodling when my brain needs a creative outlet, to tracking family birthdays or events. Is this planning? I draw up a monthly calendar, put big events on it. But the day to day stuff as a stay at home mom, doesn't really inspire daily or even weekly tracking. I love recreating each month and somehow by the end of the year I have a full book, I just feel like I am missing out on more benefits from my effort.
@RachelleinTheory I had to come back to this video to let you know that I’ve been reading/listening to your book recommendations and they’ve been so helpful! Thank you 🙏 do you have any other books that you’d suggest? Any sort of self improvement I would be interested in 👍🏻
I'm so dumb. I'm in travelers with weekly with memo and monthly and itching to try a hobonichi weeks. It's dumb because it's the same layout. Also interested in the original or techo. The idea of switching planners in the middle of the Year makes my skin crawl though
Your quiz link doesn't work off your website anymore
My tip for functional planning is decorating after the fact: I love looking back through my old planners, but it's depressing when i've left big blank spaces due to my ADHD and experimental planning style. So I bought a thermal printer and fill all the blank spaces with things I love! Stickers, pamphlets, retroactive notes, all sorts of things work
i think you’re right, i want some stamps that’ would make my life easier. but then i’m scared i’ll be hyper fixated on stamps 😂😂😂
That’s a great idea! I’ve adhd too and I think this could work for me
I wish the quiz still existed, I was super excited to see if I could figure out what style I fell in
you can now again!
Where at?
when I click on the Take Quiz Button it only offers to sign up (which i did, just in case) but no quiz..what am i not seeing?😅
@@isabellak.8365same
@@isabellak.8365same here! Where is it ahadhkjsd
I'm an artist, critical thinker, OCD planner, who is also the Operations Supervisor for a trucking company. I have 2 planners. Work and ME. They do cross once in a while. I like color, I like to doodle. So I planned both of my planners to be extremely efficient but creative. Doodle Space, Dump space, and Organizational falls into the middle. As of the last 8 months, I've gone back to a journaling/Doodle style planner with monthly in the front of each section and just dump space with doodle space. So I bought blank books. I have built my own planners for years so this works well for what life threw at me. Extreme stress set me on this path for now. I need to just be able to be organized to a degree and then free in the rest of my life. Loss/Stress/Illness - > takes a toll. Sometimes you just have to step away and put up a wall between work and life. At 60 that is me.
I've been bullet journaling for four years now, and my planning style has changed DRASTICALLY throughout the different seasons of life. Sometimes your needs and circumstances just change
I have watched so many planner videos and nearly got sucked into buying everything, but I caught myself in time and really thought through what I needed and what would work for me. I love seeing how other people use their planners, but I had to be honest with myself. Yes, I love seeing decorative and memory-keeping planners, and BUJO spreads, but I will never keep up with such planners. I actually made Pro/Con lists for all of the different styles and then settled on what would work best for me. Saved a lot of money by doing this! I will still watch all the videos, but I am at peace with my system!
I loved how you said that you love all the decorative and memory keeping planners but know that would you never keep up with them. That's where I am finding myself now. What did you end up with?
would love to know what system(s) you landed on that lasted for you!
I've watched several youtubers explaining their methods. Most of them are entrepreneurs. Finally someone I can relate to, who works 9-5 AND knows what agile sprints are! So just thanks for being here.
I like coloring and pens and papers but I don't think I could open a notebook each time I needed to know what the next task is, not to mention reminders, so looking into digital apps. My dream is Jira with the Features of my life. And to have someone who cleans the house ;-)
Anyways I'm subscribing.
I currently need light, flexible, low-maintenance, pre-printed planning with extra space for customization, notes, or doodles. I've also realized that mid-year I might need to change my format or aesthetic to keep my brain engaged.
In 2023, a weekly Pusheen calendar on the fridge worked great for me, but half-way through 2024 I instead started keeping a thin monthly planner by Rifle Paper Co. Both years I've also had a small, thick Barnes and Noble daily planner with one page per day for basic journaling or daily brain dumps.
I keep a 3x5" hardcover spiral notebook in my bag for random notes.
For 2025, I'm keeping with the thin monthly planner with each month's big boxes across a 2-page spread.
The texture of the cover and pages of the daily B&N journals have changed, so I think I want to try the Midori page-a-day planner in 2025 for journaling, brain dumps, and doodles.
I realized that i prefer to DIY my spiral blank page planner. Found that I use 95% of it when I just keep it simple - pretty hardbook cover, annual calendar review, monthly calendar per page, and a saving tracker. This took me 3 years to figure out. Blank pages allow me the flexibility to use the planner as I need it for the day or moment. Love your video.
I just started in the cousin this year, and after years of struggling with my bujo layouts because I was trying to replicate things I had seen online I finally feel like I have something I can use long term. I love the vertical weekly layouts and the monthly calendars (I especially love that I don't have to make them myself) with the daily pages for journaling. I also found that decoration, as nice as it is, gets in the way of functionality for me because I wanted the decoration to look nice and that clashes with the messy functional style I have. My compromise has been using a variety of ink colors in my fountain pens when writing in the cousin! it's not technically decoration but having pink, green, blue, purple, etc. inks to play with still gives it a little bit of fun amidst my lists of chores :)
Yes! For some people, the decorations draw them to their planner so they'll actually use it. For me its a total freeze. Either it looks too good and I don't want to mess it up, or I made some sort of design choice that doesn't work and now the decorations are in the way. I get around this (and make use of all the stupid stickers I already bought) by decorating after the fact, if I'm feeling up for it.
I am mostly minimalist but this year I have gone Scientist and done some more decoration then I normally would. Last year I had the Cousin Avec but this year I have the entire year in one book. I also have broken my Cousin into sections. My months gives me what bills due, appointments, pay days, looking after my nephew and holidays. Weekly is split into sections. I split the page in half, where the top half is my todo list, appointments and weather (I have chronic pain and a nervous system dysfunction in hot weather). The bottom half I have split up into categories. Headings include: to watch, to buy, to pay, priorities, to contact, errands, chores, don't forget and appointments. This helps me to keep track of everything. Now my daily section has turned more Bujo styled, where each month focuses on a specific topic. January is my budget and does everything to focus on finances, February is my nephew and all to do with his care and growth. March is for my pets, April is work, May is the different colours that I do for diamond painting (each colour is colour in diamond painting has a code and once I finish a section, I write the colours down that I have completed) and have done similar things fornthe rest of the year. I have done some more decorating in my weeklies then I normally do with stickers. My faith planner, which is another Cousin has completely different system. Monthly section is where I put my prayer and praise, weeklies I put down the scripture for the day and daily section is where I write info from studies I have done or watched
I love how you incorporate different themes into the months, what a great idea : )
I agree that reflecting in what you really need is the most important. Over time I’ve come to the realisation realisation that I actually do not want a life’s planner but an analog to-do daily list that I can see in a weekly layout and only for work; so even I love to watch people bujos and other planners they aren’t really for me but I now have a very compact system that I actually enjoy:
My personal things/events I keep on my phone apps (calendar and reminders) that give me lots of flexibility, while my work tasks, activities, calendar, etc. I have on a TN that I have with me all the time, as it is easier for me to concentrate and plan strategies when I write them, and having a planner solely for work allows me to focus
Wow it is the first time I see such a good analysis of planner. What a clear view you have of this practices. Thanks for sharing.
I absolutely need a weekly spread that shows an hourly layout but also has space for a weekly to-do list. Sometimes I throw in a daily plan, and habit tracking. I absolutely love that this video is so functional!
I stopped expending fantastical amounts of money and effort on expensive notebooks for my bujo/planner. I prefer functionality over aesthetic, artsy spreads which take way too much time to set up on the daily - that burns me out so quickly. This year I went with tiny field books for my day to day planning and to do lists, which is working phenomenally. I picked up a $7 annual pocket planner book and am using its allotted daily spaces for a miniature diary record of events or thoughts while utilizing the calendar aspect for appointments and monthly events. I could have used the daily areas for my "to do" list, but it's so tiny and I prefer my running "to do" list in the handheld field book. The field books fit perfectly under the elastic ribbon holding the planner closed, it's like they were made to be used together!
I‘m a writer, so I used to buy daily planners every year and used as a diary, but sometimes I wanted to write more and had not enough space or I didn’t want to write in a given day. That’s why I switched to moleskine and use it as planner (drawing myself), diary, journal, notebook to my writing ideas and whatever I need. In the past I just wrote, but since I‘ve taken drawing class I also draw on it. I‘m not much into deco and with moleskine I have to be careful with which pens I use, the pages are very thin. But I love it, it’s the place I can be creative and plan to achieve my goals.
Wow an everything notebook sounds so dreamy. I love this. ♥️
I have looked at A LOT of Hobo videos for layout inspiration. I also listed what I really needed to keep track of. I took what could work for me from each creator and made my own system, which is wonderful for me so far.
I love your videos. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience.
That is so great and such a perfect tactic. Thanks for watching and commenting
The most realistic planning video on the internet ❤️ you have changed my life and shown me that this is possible for me 😃 I shall forever be helpful to you Rachelle.
I really like this series and I really enjoy reading everyone's comments and seeing the different perspectives and struggles everyone has. I can't just be functional in my planner. Otherwise I'm like just buy a regular notebook and make lists. If I spend all that money on a planner I want to make it look nice. So I add all the things and it ends up looking like a teenagers diary or collage. But that works for me. The functional and mess just appeals to my brain. I know it's not for everyone. But my ADHD brain is like it's so pretty ha ha
That's actually such a perfect example of how decoration CAN impact functional style though! If you are decorating it to help you use it, I'd say that's perfect. Thanks for watching and commenting
@@RachelleinTheory whenever I look at my spreads it reminds me of whenever my mom tried to "tidy up" my room id be like don't touch anything! I know it looks like a mess but it's my mess I know where everything is 😂
Have you watched planning with bumble? She’s a very decorative functional planner and she has ADHD and says it works for her brain. I love her videos. She’s just a wonderful person and fun to watch. She uses mostly the HP but it really translates to any planner.
Lol I understand the adhd brain. I've tried being minimal but I get bored with things if it dosnt appeal to my brain I won't use it.
It's a place that makes me feel happy that i want to look in my palette everyday especially if u decorate it etc.
@@apriltriggs2737 I'm so happy I'm not the only one. I had one "functional" planner and I was like just use some date dots and washi.... and now I'm using mini kits ....I'm like why am I like this lol but its the one planner I've used everyday so far so why fight it lol yay stickers
Absolutely loving your videos! 👏 Super helpful.
As a super visual person (& artist & adhd), a 'pen only' planner will numb my brain. So decoration & colour, for me, is essential to a planner motivating me to use it (as you mention) and then, actually being functional.
However, the creatives among us can become so caught up with decoration that we end up with impractical planners, and not understand why they didn't work. So focusing on 'pen mostly' (rather than 'pen only') with say some colour (like colour blocking) is a great way to test what you'll actually need.
Also there are tons of super cheap planners from $ stores or £ shops. If the thought of setting up layouts on a blank page switches off your brain 😂 then a cheap planner is a great way to test them out before jumping into one of the big guys.
This is the best planning advice I’ve seen in 2 months. Having been a planner for my entire life, I now find current planning method not working and this video was so helpful for me. Thanks!
I remember that my first attempt at BJ was 2019, where I had planned 6 months of layouts in advance based on a lechturm I previously used and liked (just like the one you show at 6:50). But 3 months in, I realized I would rather draw my own weeklies. I change every year and keep what works... I realized also I have seasons... winter is usually much more sober and summer months are all over, artistically (even though I use the same structure, they're not decorated the same.)
I’m glad I’ve found your videos as you really encourage real planning not just selling stickers. Must admit though that I’m a happy sticker buyer 😊. I used to use Franklin planners from before Steven Covey became involved. I used those longer than any other but I like a good weekly view to. Maybe I should start from there; digital planners have never worked for me and the older I get the more I need to write to help me remember
I was curious why you used Franklin before Covey got involved.
Tell me more about this, please.
I realised that i use my planner to mainly journal and memory keeping with a of back planning, with minimal planning for the future. So the cousin really seems to work for me, because once i backplan, i can easily decorate. And journaling keeps me coming back everyday to it!
That’s so great to realize! I think the cousin is perfect for that.
Journaling also helps me come back to my planner :) I never thought of it that way until you said it
Hello, I'm like you, testing several planers. I still can't use just one . Today I use a personal daily planner and a weekly planner for work. thanks for the video
I always wanted to have a nice paper planner, but I need notifications and hate redrawing the same layouts (I even tried to make own printables😅) So I gave up too many times. Now I plan to shift completely digital (Google Calendar + OneNote) saving the handwriting part as I can use pen on my laptop! I already use OneNote for my study notes and love it soo much🤷🏻♀️ Thus I have everything I love: handwriting esthetic and flexibility of digital format!
This series coming back to your quiz and planner matrix is *chef’s kiss* !! I’ve been trying to go back to basics but I have a hard time differentiating between pre-planning (for fun/to keep my anxiety out of my head), memory keeping (anything after the fact that has happened) and actual functional planning. Right now I’ve been dumping everything into a small lined notebook and organizing my information later 🤣
Do you use an inbox at all? I haven't tried it yet.
Thank you!! Creating the planner matrix has really changed how I think about planning so I want to share it as much as possible. It sounds like the little notebook is super functional for you, which is great! maybe that little notebook could be combined with a little calendar, so all of that brain dumping (which is what i'm lovingly calling preplanning lol) can be done in one place. Then you transfer it over to your main planner month/week/day of, or whatever works for you!
I’m not a fan of the term pre-planning because to me that is what planning is. There are some people that truly keep a separate pre-planner which they write in and then they transfer over the information in a “pretty” way. To me that’s redundant and a waste of time and effort because my planner doesn’t have to be perfect and never will because plans change and your planner is your life and life is messy. To me “pre-planning” is merely writing in your plans - events, appointments, meetings, tasks as they pop up (either get scheduled or pop in your head)….when something pops up it goes in my planner where it goes. If it’s a task that doesn’t have a set date it goes in either an inbox page in my planner, on a brain dump task list keep in the back of my planner or on a sticky note (I keep a stack in my planner).
Memory keeping depends on the person but for me a memory keeper or memory planner is a separate planner or journal where I memory keep for my kiddo or my family to read or look back on in the future. It’s not my planner because no one needs to know what I bought to fill the freezer that week 😅 so for me that process is separate. That said I do document things in my planner that I can refer back to when doing my memory keeper and because it’s part of my day/week. Thru the week if something happens that’s important to me that I want to note or that I want to refer back to when I get into my memory keeper I write that down. It doesn’t take away from the function but adds to it. Hope that helps some. I do have videos on my planning on my channel and will be doing more this year too.
The definition of bullet journaling
@@notoriousMAG Yep you can call it bullet journaling and definitely do it in that fashion outlined by Ryder Carroll (or others that have followed suit with their own process), It’s been my process since before RC released the bullet journal to the public so although it falls into the bullet journaling process/concept to me it’s just planning 🥰
Trying an undated daily plannersince I dont need one everyday as I am retired. Good video.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I wanted to get into more detailed planning this year and was actually dissappointed that most of what I was seeing on youtube was about decorating. Really happy I found your channel
Good discussion on style. I've been using Action Day planner for years. When the dated one wasn't available, I switched to something else that I thought could be similar (Clever Fox). I already knew I needed a vertical layout that started on a Monday. The new one let me realize what else I needed. I went back to Action Day and chose undated. Its larger To-Do section on the far left let me keep my mind on the weekly tasks. I also realized the design elements, while cute, were a distraction and didn't help with accomplishing my goals. The Action Day planner as design space on each spread so that's perfect. It really was about finding my functional style.
This really helped me a lot to determine how to move forward with planning. I was struggling so bad with planners not working for me but I know I need one to stay on task. Thanks!
I just love the way you explain every your decision and step and not only mention that "that works for me try anything works for you" as most do. Thank you for your experience and advice!
Thank you
This was the most helpful video I've found to the point where I'm at. I've been doing pen only for 6 months, found more or less a style that works for me and wanted to go 1 step further. This is just what I needed!
I used your tip to find my best functional method for me. A few years ago, I just took a blank notebook and tried out different kinds of planning layout. I realized I liked hobonichi cousin layout to some extent, but it wasn’t prefect. So I just designed and published my own planner (for personal use), that I print each year. It’s much better (and cheaper) to do this than buy a cousin.
ok THAT is awesome! Do you have a how to somewhere? I’d be so curious to know the process.
@@RachelleinTheory Unfortunately, I don’t 😅, but maybe I can do something like that in the future! But TH-cam is the way to go, that’s how I learned to design my own books and self-publish.
@@petagayesterling Awesome, great idea! Thank you for sharing
I really enjoyed this video, and I found it very helpful. I have watched it a couple of times and watched several other TH-cam videos on similar topics by other content creators. I waited to comment until after I did some experimenting, as you recommend in your video. For myself, I am extremely uncreative and unartistic - so a blank journal to create my own vision in for a functional format was simply terrifying. Instead I took your planner examples and waited a few months after the start of the year to find several different planner styles on sale (some on very deep discounts) to play with and figure out what I liked and what I didn't. I would recommend this method for others, like me, who have a hard time creating visually for themselves. I am now using two planners - a Hobonichi Cousin for my every day planning/journaling and a fairly generic weekly planner (Year of the Witch) for my reading/media planner. Thank you for your content. P.S. I also use Asana at work and LOVE it. 🙂
My planner style is three everything but the maximum. Using Composition Notebooks. I need a totally different page and a notebook for the maximum. Still working putting everything into one book, though. My contents page is my tracker but my pages do not equal the dates. I do have a legend key to stencil in arrows, circles, stars etc. to remind me to work the Contents list of pages “past” and the principles of hardcopy “filing” (Getting Things Done).
Then I actually make quadrant pages to do experiments because relationships to each thing helps me to “see” how it all fits. (The Twelve-Week Year). Quite a thinking process, I know, but writing out my three Morning Pages ( The Artist Way) is something that I will not give up. Ever.
I been learning by trial and error for a long time. This is something that I really needed.
I really love how you give ideas for us to try.. especially when someone is struggling with how to plan
I just want everyone to know planning doesn't have to be stressful and we can all chill and share some tips along the way
Hobo weeks was only best for my finance, the cousin was only best for weekly schedule, while the dailies was best for scribbles/notes. It's been like more than 3 yrs and I'm still trying to find my best functional layout. So I'm always between Planners then I took a huge long break and just did only pen and small notebook and that worked best for me. Scribbles and messiness was better than being "perfect & neat" planning is suppose to be messy, well for me. And all the trends of appearance to be neat esp on IG, I just totally ignored and no longer "followed". And I notice I plan more when I not on IG. Thank you for sharing, love this video
Just found this video as I'm prepping for 2024. I resonate with your style.. the horizontal weekly with a notes page on the right.
Anyway, I just had to say that I also totally related to your "this new moon wrecked my shit" note... perfect. just perfect. ;)
My style is mostly minalist. I do scientist in my weeks. I cannot stand to bulk up my planners really so artist is not my style. I will use washi or stickers sometimes but not every week or every day. I have bought travelers company journals that I can bulk up a bit and try that. But breaking a spine of a book is a big no no for the autistic person I am
I use a lot of print-on stickers because they don't really add bulk.
I've bullet journaled for about 7 years ish now, and I loved it, but I've recently bought a hobonichi techno because I discovered I'm really a daily planner. I need a spot to write a to do list, a schedule and write journal entries EVERY DAY. I also need a spot to keep track of due dates for assignments that isn't in my to-do list, and I also need monthlies to look at big picture due dates and events. I really thought about making it work in a bujo but at the end of the day I would need two notebooks to get a page count that high, and if we're talking leuchterm and moleskine then that's about 70-80 bucks anyways so I might as well bite the bullet and get the techno. I'm hoping to even add a thin A5 dot grid mini notebook in the same case as my techno for the collections, goal tracking, and specific journaling (book reviews, movie reviews, trip notes, and crochet notes) that I would be doing outside of my daily journaling. I've always wanted everything in one spot and never achieved it so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works.
Thank you, Rachelle. I really like your approach.
This is a great video! I couldn’t get into bullet journaling bc of the expectation of it being decorative! I don’t plan on doing it again, but I want to change my system for the next year, thank you!
yesss pls do a video on how to apply productivity advice to your planner😊
Thank you for the video. I have such a challenging time with planners. I love all of them is the problem. I have the Hobonichi Cousin because I wanted to have an all in one... but I hate giving up the Leuchtturm 1917 consistency where I have all Leuchtturm products for my daily work. Very challenging, and addictive!
I love having a monthly habit, mood, and medication observation tracker all on the same double spread at the beginning of each month. It makes tracking symptoms, period flow, everything really easy to view all at once. I’m trying a new thing this year though where instead of just dotting that I did a habit, if it’s something like water I’ll tally how many times I refill my bottle, or tally how many healthy meals I had that day. Or for a habit like “create something”, I have a new key of different color dots to use to show even more info of what type of thing I created that day. Even within my consistent monthly tracker I’m still trying to find ways to experiment and make it more useful.
Thanks for sharing your memory spread! I might try that next!
That is so awesome, and I love that you keep it all on one spread. For me, if it's not on the spread, it's usually not getting checked 👀 super valuable!
Interesting video! I agree, you need to try each style / productivity idea for a few weeks, more important if your day to day routines are not very stablished, to know if they work for you or not. As a planner user (for years) I'm always trying new styles and productivity tips.. because you know what could be working for you nowadays, but maybe there's something you didn't think of before and could be useful for you, and you also change with the years.
I totally agree with this Sara!! Thanks for commenting.
I wish I saw this video before setting up my 2023 bullet journal!
I found this video helpful. As someone just starting to add tracker and planner elements to their journal, thinking about how I would be using it really shapes what layout to choose like you said. Thanks!
This video has been SUPER helpful! I've been struggling with productivity for YEARS (and I know that my value/worth is not dependent on my productivity, but I want to be more productive than I am) and functionality has been a huge barrier. I'm absolutely going to try some of your tips. I wanted to take the quiz (I have only JUST discovered your channel!) but it is not currently available. I have signed up to be notified when/if it does come back online, though! From watching your first Planner Matrix video, I can guess that I am somewhere between Maximalist and Scientist (leaning more toward Maximalist). But this current video is really making me think about the functionality that I'm lacking and how to find it, so my first step will be to follow your advice and think about the things that I CANNOT do without in a planner! Thanks for sharing, and I'm definitely going to check out the rest of your channel!
Thank you so much Danielle!! Yes, I'll send an email around when the quiz is back up :)
Very helpful video! Thank you for sharing your planning wisdom!
I would love to see a video on how to use productivity book tips in your planner. I am a fairly new subscriber and I love your content because its different and practical. Great job!
Thanks so much Natasha!! I feel a series coming on re: productivity books in my planner… 👀
@@RachelleinTheory really excited to see this!
I got maximist. I like to have things functional but pretty. I also love to bujo and junk journal in my spreads. I have different planners for each!
Would love to see how to apply productivity books to a planner! The idea of this video and series is so good, and made me think of new things to consider when I'm using my planner. I've done a lot of experimenting myself (although I still very much like to stick to blank notebook for bullet journaling) and it's good to know that there's still other things to think about.
I appreciate this series and your approach. Thank you! Looking forward to more in this series
Came across your video and its so apt! Hope that the quiz was still up though!
It took me many years and planners to found out what I love in a journal. My favorite is the hobonichi eels I adore that planner
I wish I had see this video long time ago lol
Weeks
Back in 2015 and 2016 I used the Moleskine Horizontal planner. It was just a horizontal weekly on 2 pages. It worked well for me. For 2017, I couldn't get a hold of it (it is not common) and tried bullet journaling. I like pocket sized, so I was in the pocket Leuchtturm 1917 until 2022.
My style of bullet journaling evolved, ebbed and flowed with my life changes. When I was super busy with schooling, it was a bujo style running to-do list each week. When I traveled it became a scrapbook for the trip. When I wasn't as busy, it was just a journal. I loved the flexibility. However, it was starting to get old for me.
In the past 2 years, I have really enjoyed my google calendar. I like the monthly at a glance layout. All of that led me to get the hobonichi Day-Free planner A6. I like the monthly layout and the horizontal monthly layouts for habit tracking. Then all the note pages for my weird hybrid commonplace/journal/to-do list/art journaling method.
The Hobonichi Day Free sounds awesome, a lot of people have recommended it to me and I think I'd like it! I'm also considering pocket bujos... even though it's only 14 days into 2023... hazard of being a part of the planner community I guess 😂 Do you ever feel like that size is too small?
@@RachelleinTheory During the 7 years i was in a moleskine/Leuchtturm style of pocket, I only started to feel like it was too small near the end. I still wanted to stay small, that is why I went for the smaller A6 hobonichi, but the hobonichi was a bit wider. I like that I can take it with me so easy.
While I was in a pocket bujo, I only had one hardcover version, the rest were softcover because I stuff so much other stuff into them they expand so much...
There was a wonderful Moleskine layout that I used for one year and I could never find that layout again. I thought maybe I accidentally picked up some special edition. Your comment makes me think they just update their style more often than I would expect!
Love this Rachel. Watched many many channels as I begin my first bujo. Have used Levenger for years but ready to change. Thank you!
I don't know about everyone else but I have things I hate in planners and things I love in planners. I already know I am a vertical weekly girl. I would love a Sunday start but I can't find an off the shelf one. I dislike disc bound planners and book bound planners. I prefer spiral bound but can deal with the wire c bound. I like a slightly off white paper that is thick enough to use markers without too much bleed through. I prefer a 7 vertical columns and a notes column. I sometimes use trackers and sometimes don't. I add them when starting new habits, once they become routine I no longer need it. I am a person who needs the pretty stickers and color to stick with a planner... that is the part of it I like. I have used the Conquest Harry Potter planner for years but this year I started working in it and decided I hate the red ink so I bought an inexpensive basic planner. It doesn't have exactly what I want but I'm irreverent of lines and boxes and can customize it to be what I want. I know all these things. I'm currently trying to find my goals and long range planning style. I bought a dot grid notebook. So far it is a mix of junk journal, reference book and goal planning, I'm just not sure what works for me, I have never really goal planned before. So yeah, I know my planner style but not my goal planning style. I did print out the makse life life compass and goal work sheets to see if I like them but so far are ambivalent about it. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
True! 'So many layouts appear to be functional, but functionality itself is sui generis.
I'm intrigued by that hobonochi Cousin I haven't really looked into them, I've been bullet journalling for years rather than planners so this gives fresh ideas for set ups! P.s I love that you play Dnd and have it scheduled and proceeded to be momentarily distracted when you were doing your journal flip through
I absolutely got sucked into buying Happy Planner and went a little too hard on purchasing. Luckily a good portion of what I bought was on clearance but it was still a lot. I've tried all kinds of things but at this point, I think I'm going to stick to a commonplace/bullet journal method rather than a pre-printed planner. I'm dedicating myself to using what I have for the rest of the year because I already bought a planner for this year, but I'll be giving a lot of the rest away and moving to a smaller and simpler planning style next year.
Awww. We have the same orange Fox journal from Notebook Therapy. My idea was to use it in a seasonal/ 12 week plan for fall. But it was so cute and so pretty I feel guilty for using it 🤣
I have a mini HP and a classic HP that I flip between. I know that for work, I need a lot of list space and a little scheduling space, so a dashboard layout works relatively well. At home, i'm on and off with my planner, so this month, I'm trying time blocking to try and keep myself in it. I've got one page for calendar, one broken up into quarters for tasks each week, and then time blocking to both see where my time goes and where I want it to go.
Pen only doesn’t work for my adhd nor does beautiful aesthetic sticker layouts. I have found messy and random help keep me going back to look at it but I’m not past the 6pm the mark to really know if it will stick - so far looking at it daily is a win!
I'm exactly the same way 🙂
Someone else commented this as well and it's SUCH a good example of when deco becomes functional!
Thank you for all the great input as I’ve been struggling to purchasing a calendar/ planner that works for me.
I like quotes, stickers, music of the day & lil moments learned for the day..
Any tips on a calendar/journal?
The quiz was fun to take. Thank you for putting it together, Rachelle. Maximalist, as expected.
I'm a minimalist in my work planner. Color coding plus I use a bit of small washi to mark things that last more than one day like business vacation. Everything is used purely functional.
My EDC, personal planner, my financial planner and my journal are sticker, washi, colors, 1001 pens and styles galore. 😄
Except for my journal all planners need to be functional.
I actually use stickers to make my financal planner calendar cute and at the same time functional (bills due never looked better). 😄
I love it!!
On a side note... Your nails are FIRE!! ❤🔥
THANKS I LOVE THEM
I’m loving this series. It’s so helpful and comprehensive.
YAY more to come
So glad I found your channel! :) Super informative and important Qs to think abt!
I want to see a video on the different productivity books/styles! I use a variation on GTD for my work planning, and aspects of BuJo in my personal planner. It's been so helpful! I'd love to learn more!
I'm curious, what is the variation you use on GTD? Def interested in doing this!
@@RachelleinTheory mostly I'm just not very good at GTD haha My work is pretty flexible but I deal with a lot of unexpected stuff cropping up all the time, so planning and scheduling can be hard. I use the website/app "Get It Done", and supplement that with lots of sticky note lists around my office that focus on the most urgent things and things I need to follow up on with people and what not.
So glad I stumbled upon your channel recently! Fell down the "buying too many planners for 2023" rabbit hole and now totally stuck on what I want to go with. I have bullet journaled for years with varying degrees of functionality and decoration because I'm so picky with my planner layout and find that sometimes I need to change it up based on my mood or how much I have going on. Last year I used just a regularly weekly planner that I randomly bought at target that worked nice, but haven't been able to find the same one for this year! Hoping to find some clarity on what planner stack I want to go with for 2023!
Yay I'm so glad you found the channel too!! It sounds like you are embracing the work in progress nature of finding/building your dream planner and that is what counts ♥️ Keep us informed in the comments of future vids!!
So this is just for the little notebooks you have to create for yourself... I was hoping for more info on pre-made planners. But good info on the others.
I’m a very functional planner. I’m very busy between a full-time job in leadership in a large corporation, a family and my channel plus hobbies and friends and life. But I’m a decorative planner too because it makes me happy and inspires me to use my planner. And it prevents me from getting bored. But I’m not a heavily decorative planner. My planner has to be functional first and it can’t be so cluttered or busy that I can’t see what I need to focus on. One of the reason I can’t use a Cousin is because of all the color already in the page it makes my brain hurt and it clutters it before the pen even and distracts me even in a pen only spread. Finding a clean slate planner is really important for me to be successful in my planners.
I also think it’s important to remember that the layout of a planner isn’t set. You can modify the layout and use it in different ways. The lines and sections are guides but you don’t have to stick to them and you can modify it to fit your style or needs that week or that month. Because life changes and sometimes you might need something different.
Size of your planner and what you need there - how portable it needs to be, if it’s comfortable size wise to write in, how big your handwriting is and how busy you are all play a roll.
Adding to this… I reset the numbers on the weekly layout by using a Tombow correction tape and adding in only my work hours. I get from 8 am to 7 pm in one column and can track meetings and see open blocks for project planning and focus time and (most importantly) I can see at glance when the day is getting too loaded. The HC layouts are guides and seeing this was a breakthrough for me.
Have you tried just tracking by week? I primarily use a weekly plus memo format, so I use weekly, not monthly trackers. I find I get satisfaction from seeing a consistant week and don’t forget tracking like when I try a monthly or yearly tracker.
I believe in the video I actually flip through week after week of attempting weekly trackers and finding them unsuccessful 😂
I saw someone turn the cousin sideways on the weekly section to use it as a horizontal planner. I think I will try that!
Thank you - this was incredibly helpful!
Thank you for the USEFUL information! 🌻
When I buy a planner, I get a spiral bound one with horizontal weekly and create other spreads I can punch and slit the holes to insert the pages. Printing an old half sheet sized diyfish planner for half size binder is saving me this round where I can adjust the weekly spreads to make them function and putting in extra note pages where I can sketch in a daily if need be. The only decorative elements are lettering for headers and a light grey highlighter for the headers. Otherwise, I get sidetracked by it.
You’re the best planner TH-camr in my opinion 💕
🥺 thanks!!!!
It's nearly April and I'm still going "uhmmm" and "hnnngg want" at Hobo Weeks ( the spring release).
I started plannering/journaling in Hobo Weeks in 20...20. Yes. Because it began in December and after the one month I realized I need more... braindumping and journaling space, but the slimness of the planner just didn't make me want to write on the note pages. So I got a Cousin in January. Used it consistently for like 3 months, fell off for 4 months and then began to again use it because I got a desk job and had some "idle time" while waiting for responses. (I used the empty daily pages to write down story ideas and world building)
2021 I tried... Cousin again, but Avec. It worked better and it was a big relief in a way to start the second book. Just to leave some bad thoughts behind and so on. I also experimented on making the weekly layouts into horizontal ones with printing out stickers and covering up the dates for the last part of the year. I loved it. It was like an A5 Hobo Weeks dream.
In 2022 I got Hobo Day-Free, because I wanted to try the Bujo style. I wasin real life anxiety slump and being creative was a way for me to keep on living instead of some other options.
It worked out kind of. I didn't like the way I completely forgot the passing of time. Forgot to draw layouts. Forgot to... write down anything.
And now in 2023 I'm back in full Cousin, because I really missed the layouts and the dated aspect. Going strong again for month 3 so far. I might turn the weekly layout into Horizontal ones next month again because it was super fun and my current job situation is... almost non-existent so the hourly tracking doesn't matter.
Such great tips!! You're seriously such a gift to this space, Rachelle!! EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT!
you are TOO NICE TO ME
I’d love a video on applying productivity book to your planners
In college i had this giant weekly whiteboard before handing it off to a younger sister. I kind of want that again. It was also horizontal on layout iirc
Hey, if it worked for you, you should totally do it again!
Loving your videos, very relatable however the quiz link doesn't work :(
really love the two hobonichi weeks system!!! looks so functional 😍
Thank you so much! It's working so well for me!!
People like you are amazing to me.
Y is this so satisfying to watch👀🌸
An interesting concept. Thanks for sharing.
Steven Covey's: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is another Book and possible Functional System. Planner community makes a lot of reference to Franklin Planner, that is another one. Will be interesting if you could do a book match with planner integration.
I go back and forth with decorations. I have a combo method for my functionality
I have been trying to find a planner that squeezes monday to friday in one page, and gives the second page entirely to the weekend. Because my week is very wash-rinse-repeat, i can run in automatic mode.
Weekends are when i need to keep multiple balls in the air.
Maybe hobonichi weeks is the answer?
I've been making books(quite literally finding cheap notebooks with the wire bindings, taking them apart and cutting my choice of plain white copy paper, punching holes, then reconstructing the book and covers to my style and mood for each new year) for the past 6 or so years. HERE'S MY QUESTION, what the heck should I be planning in my book.? I have used these books for keeping notes from anything from church meetings, to community council, from trying to do some handlettering, to doodling when my brain needs a creative outlet, to tracking family birthdays or events. Is this planning? I draw up a monthly calendar, put big events on it. But the day to day stuff as a stay at home mom, doesn't really inspire daily or even weekly tracking. I love recreating each month and somehow by the end of the year I have a full book, I just feel like I am missing out on more benefits from my effort.
Thank you for your informative video! Question: What type of notebook is that red, smaller one?
@RachelleinTheory I had to come back to this video to let you know that I’ve been reading/listening to your book recommendations and they’ve been so helpful! Thank you 🙏 do you have any other books that you’d suggest? Any sort of self improvement I would be interested in 👍🏻
Really interesting and useful. Also, you have wonderfully expressive hands!
Thank you! 😂
@@RachelleinTheory ❤️
I wish the quiz was still up. I love quizzes
I'm so dumb. I'm in travelers with weekly with memo and monthly and itching to try a hobonichi weeks. It's dumb because it's the same layout.
Also interested in the original or techo. The idea of switching planners in the middle of the Year makes my skin crawl though
Great video. You have a good approach!