I’ve always used a paper calendar. In high school and college, I used different styles of Day Timers. After children, I used BusyBodyBook and MomAgenda. Last year, I switched to Erin Condren and discovered planner people.

While I use my planner aka vagenda as a calendar to keep track of future activities and appointments, it has always been something that I modified with pockets, tabs, glue and cartoons. Yes, I add cartoons. I discovered in high school that there is a cartoon for everything. Instead of studying, I would find the perfect cartoon for chapters in textbooks and glue them into the book. I also spray painted the covers. I was never seen at book buy back at the end of a semester.

So, after years of carrying a heavily modded planner, discovering other people who were personalizing their planners was a delightful surprise. Planner people plan forward and journal backward. They scrapbook their lives and carry it in their purse. Each and every planner person has their own way of using their planner.

My monthly layout is color coded inks for different family members’ schedules. It coordinates with the large marker board by our front door. I also keep a current picture of the marker board calendar on my phone. Weekly layouts in my planner aren’t strictly functional like the monthly. Weekly begins as a scrapbook style layout. It ends completely journaled with thoughts and conversations. I’m not going to post after pictures. Instead, I’m going to start occasionally posting the before pictures. For example, here’s what the last week of 2016 looked like before the pen.

Other people knit when they watch movies or television. I like to play with digital paper and clip art to put down the canvas that will become my week in time.

I am one of the planner people. It makes me happy.