Monday, January 4, 2016

My Planner Layout! Jan 4-10

Hi you guys! Check it out, ANOTHER post! I know the year is young, but hopefully I'll be able to keep up with these posts. Today's post is going to be a peek into my brand new Erin Condren Life Planner! I love lists and planning and organization so using a planner as a form of stress relief is perfect for me. And as you know from my New Years Goals post, this is one of my biggest goals of the new year. So I thought it would be fun to show you my planner and how I decorate it and what my days look like. Keep in mind that my post in the beginning of the week will look quite bare as I plan each day the night before but I will try to remember to show you what the layout looks like at the end of the week.


So for those of you that don't know what the Erin Condren planner looks like, I took a picture of next week's empty spread because I forgot to do it for this week before I decorated. It is a vertical planner so each column is a day of the week. There are three rows and can be divided up and organized however you like it. I've seen it done hundreds of different ways but I'm not a fan of clutter so mine will most likely be very clean and minimal. There is also a side bar on the left side for miscellaneous things and a bottom bar that can also be used in many ways.


The Erin Condren planner has different color combinations pre-selected for each month. You don't have to follow them but for this week I decided to use the monthly colors which is that tealish blue color and tangerine. This is what my overall spread looks like. As you can see it is very clean but still colorful and decorative. 

I took separate pictures of each page so you can see what it looks like up close.



So this is what the first half of my week looks like. I'll explain how I split it up because it is hard to tell in the beginning of the week.

The top row is where I record my work hours, the blog posts that I want to put up that week and where I am going to track my reading. There will also inevitably be space to add more in. I only have "to do" lists for days that I have off because the likelihood of me getting much done on days that I have to work  isn't as high, haha. There is space to add small "To Do" lists up there if I need to though.

The middle row contains "To Do" lists on my days off (I try to be very productive on my days off) and decorations on my work days. This is working for me right now but if I find that I end up needing those "To Do" lists every day I'll make that change.

The bottom row is my health/fitness section where I have my daily meals and my workouts. I am filling in the days I plan to workout at the beginning of the week and will fill in what I actually do after I go. In addition, I can always add days if I feel like going for bonus workouts :) I still haven't decided on a workout schedule so this week looks sparse but I'm going to see how I can best fit the gym into my work schedule and plan my future workouts better based on that. As you can tell I didn't plan my meals for today in advance but I am not as concerned about planning for my days off as I am for my work days. 

In addition, in today's bottom bar you'll notice that I was going to go buy some stuff from Michael's but after consideration I decided to hold off and save the money for now. I have the canceled sticker going across and I'll assure you it DRIVES ME NUTS that most canceled stickers you find on Etsy are spelled incorrectly and that the one that I had is spelled incorrectly but I used it anyway.

Finally, for my side bar I have a bullet list of "Tiny Tasks" which will probably actually just be a list of things I want to remember such as books I want to find or meals I want to make for the next week. Under that I have daily habit lists. Two of them are for tracking my sleep in two different ways: How long it takes for me to fall asleep and how much sleep I get. I'm hoping that the fall asleep time gets earlier and the hours of sleep gets longer as the year progresses but we will have to see. In addition, I'm awful at remembering to take my vitamins and medication so I have a visual reminder for that as well.


Here is the second half of my week! It is pretty bare right now but you'll see the difference at the end of the week when I take more pictures. 

I apologize for the quality of these pictures but I took them with my phone and as much as I tried to fix the color it still looks pretty terrible. I'll try to take better pictures from now on but hopefully you get the idea!

I am not affiliated with Erin Condren at all, this is my first planner and I found out about it on Youtube and it just seemed like a nice way to relax each week. These planners are a bit pricey but in my opinion it is worth the investment. I got $10 off of my first purchase by using someone's referral code (every person gets a referral code when they sign up) so if you are interested in purchasing one for yourself, let me know and I can give you a referral code so you can get $10 off as well!

I hope that you liked this post! I know it is weird to post about your planner but I'm enjoying it and wanted to share! I'll share some of my favorite sticker shops and ways to save money on your stickers down the road.

I hope that you are all having a great 2016 so far! As you can see in the pictures above I have a What I Ate post planned for later this week so stay tuned for that!

*Edited to Add: I am already wishing I had "To Do" lists on the other days so that is definitely going to change next week! The more I think about it the more I realize I'm not as lazy as I think I am, ha!

6 comments:

  1. Omg, I'm such a planning nerd. And I love this!! Does it come with the stickers? Do you purchase those separately? Now I kinda want one!

    Also, I love that you scheduled time for Serial!! Isn't it the best?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yay! I'm so glad you like it and are geeking out with me :) The Erin Condren does come with some stickers but I did purchase most of mine from Etsy. I purchased some as is and I also purchased some printable downloads because they are much more affordable to do that way. I can definitely do a post with some of my favorite shops if you are interested!

      Haha yes! It was more of a reminder for myself even though the likelihood of me forgetting is slim ;) I LOVE it, I think this season is really good. I know a lot of people aren't as into it but I think it is fascinating.

      Delete
  2. I am in love with this planner!! What a cool investment, and I know you'll get lots of use out of it. I enjoy being organized, but I hope I can learn to have better follow through when it comes to sticking with plans and budgets! You'll have to give me advice :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Ingrid! I am kind of in love with it too ;) I am really glad I got it and I love looking at it each night to plan the next day! I am especially excited to plan my next week's spread tomorrow. You can get a planner at Michael's at a pretty big discount if you wait for a 40% coupon to come out… which they do fairly regularly. They sell Happy Planners I think and they also seem great and if you get it for 40% off it shouldn't be a huge investment!

      I'm still working on fine tuning my budget but I'll share tips when I feel confident in my own budget plan ;)

      Delete
  3. Didnt know you loved stickers so much. Are you into scarpbooking as well?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've always had intentions of scrapbooking but never did. I wasn't into stickers until I decided to decorate my planner ;)

      Delete