Choosing the right Life/Organising Planner/Diary
Hello There! Long time no see. I wanted to come back to blogging but never had any ideas as to what to write about. Then I realised that I'm becoming addicted to planners. I have looked for a perfect planner for a couple of months now and I think I may have found one that will work for me. Well, I hope it will because I have ordered it today!
I'm not really sure what I was looking for. I saw videos on planners and really liked the idea of people filling in their planner and decorating with pretty stickers. I wanted enough space to write in the hours I'm working each day, my to do list, maybe even a meal planner and everything else that I need to jot down for a particular day. All my planners so far have just had a page per day and there was A LOT of space to write things in BUT everything looked really sad, black and white and kind of disorganised. Everything was in the same column, my to do list, appointments etc, it was all on one page wherever I could fit it if that makes sense.
I have became very reliant on my diary/planner so I had to try and find one that could organise my life for me. The one I found has lovely template type of things (lol) which will hopefully help me stay on top of things! With work, study, two children, a pug on the way and getting back to blogging/vlogging there is a lot to try and keep on top of.
I will give you a run down of some of the planners I have looked at and why I haven't chose them. Maybe the ones that didn't work for me work for you!
Filofax
£32
This is the one I really, really wanted! I feel like even though I have researched it loads there's still so much I could find that would go with this! Basically it's like an organiser and it's a ring binder so you can easily organise it just the way you want it! You can buy page refills on the filofax website or you can print out your own. I think what has put me off this planner was two thing. The first one was definitely the price. They can range anywhere from £7 right up £125, which is ridiculous price for an organiser unless you can afford to spend that much. Saying that, I'm assuming the organiser for £125 is made with real leather an it would probably last you a very long time. Anyway, the planner I wanted from filofax was around £30. It was like the one above but it was just black, it was the personal size. I was going to go for A5 but decided against it. I think the other reason I went against it is BECAUSE it is so versatile. I have seen so many people going crazy over planners and I wanted to try out this craze too but I don't really have real experience in setting up a planner and there are far too many possibilities with the filofax planners. I like to have a structure.. like the planner that I have ordered, it's kindof like a big planner template, everything has it's own space.. does that make sense? I guess once I really get into the swing of planning and organising my planner I will definitely look into getting a filofax one day as it is very varsatile and you could do so much with it!
Busy Life Diary by BusyB
£9.99
I like this one. It's only £9.99 so it's not that expensive, it has quite a cute little cover and if I didn't find the planner I bought first, I may have possibly went for this one. You can roughly see from the pictures what it comes with. It's got pretty much all you need to stay on top of all your appointments, etc. It's got a separate to do list which is a big plus. I think the idea of this diary is that you can keep your personal and work stuff separate by writing it on the right or left. Like I said i porbably would've went for this one if I didnt find the one I have ordered first as it's got pretty much everything I need except the one I ordered has a little more and I feel will keep me even more organised. It comes with cure sticker notes, which is always a plus! :)
I can't remember what other planners I have looked at. I know I looked at at few and if I remember which ones I'll update this page. Now I can show you what planner I have chose!
Family Life Book Diary by Organised Mum
£14.49
This is the best planner I have came across so far. The best planner for my needs I mean. As you can see from the picture it comes with a lot of different sections to help you stay on top of pretty much everything! (I have ordered their budget organiser too).
It comes with an address section where you can keep all the addresses (obviously!). The planner itself has 7 sections! When I first saw it I thought to myself 'those boxes are not big at all, that would never fit everything I need to fit in!' BUT then I thought about it.. There are seven sections so you can have a section for each family member, work, etc. There is also a separate to do list section so I feel like there is enough space. I'm going to have a section for myself, one for Graeme and a section for William and one for Brendan. That's four sections. I will also have a section for work to write down what time I'm working each day, etc, so that's 5 sections. There's seven sections which means I have 2 sections free if I ever run out of space and as busy as I am I don't have like ten meeting or appointments in any one day so I think we should be fine.
There is an Income & Outgoings section which I think is really handy because I always write those things down, misplace it, write it again, misplace and so on.
There is a to do list on the side of the weekly planner but there is also a section where you can write your to do list and pull it out or whatever, which is exactly what I need!
You can also work out your budget as there is a section for that too!
Ooh, and not to mention it comes with a lot of cute stickers so I can get the hang of using stickers in a planner.
All in all I think this is a great planner! I feel like I have always tried to adapt to other people routines to stay organised. By that I mean, I used to look at people's cleaning schedules etc and tried to organise my life by other people's schedules which clearly didn't work for me. I feel that the first step to being organised is finding a good planner that will work for you. I will now be able to see when we can have a day out, when to deep clean, what time to study at and so on, and this way I will have a routine of my own. I kind of have anyway but this is a lot more organised. I also forgot to mention that there is a section for meal ideas in the weekly section too which is really handy! I'm sure that there is actually a lot more sections in there that aren't shown on the pictures. You can get this planner on the organised mum website, John Lewis and Amazon. I got mine from Amazon and I can not wait until it arrives. I feel very lost without a planner, This planner starts around August I think, so it started August 2015 and finishes December 2016.
That's that for this post, I know it's a lot! Let's finish off this post by saying.. I'M GETTING A PUG AND I'M SO FRICKING EXCITED!
Organising Motivation me to You,
Love, Daria xoxo
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