How to Use Plannerisms planners Weekly pages

The Plannerisms planner's weekly pages are very flexible to use any way you like. You can even use them differently week after week. It’s easy to customize the page to fit your needs.  Here are some suggestions for use:

Use the column on the left before Monday to list your daily goals, then check them off in the day spaces as you complete them. This way you don’t have to write “Exercise” or “Take vitamins” every day.  The checkmarks are a great visual indicator of whether you are meeting your daily goals. The goals written in the column are a daily prompt to remind you of what you want to accomplish each day.

When you record your completed daily goals, you don't have to take up an entire line for each thing. You can just write a checkmark to indicate you have completed that goal for the day. It helps to color-code and correspond the check to the goals. This works well for tracking your water or fruit/ veg intake too.

Alternatively, you can write the names of your family members in the left column, then in the daily columns you can write each person’s activities for each day so you know who is where and when.

Another option is to divide the daily columns into Appointments/ Tasks/ Reminders, or Work/ Home/ Personal, or anything else you like.

In the daily columns, write in appointment times and circle or highlight them to stand out. Write in tasks to do that day.  Arrow over undone tasks to the next day. Too many arrows means you are procrastinating!

Use the bottom of the daily columns for menu planning, daily totals, or any other notes for that day.

The space below the daily columns can be used in endless ways.  Here are some ideas:

Use the space below the days for To Do lists. It helps to categorize lists. You can write a list of Things That Must Get Done This Week and another list of Non-Urgent Tasks. You can categorize your lists into Work/ Home/ School/ Family. Or, you can create lists by project. Experiment to see what works best for you.

This open space is also a great place to capture phone numbers, notes and reminders that otherwise would get scribbled on a scrap of paper and lost.

What I love about the weekly pages is they are so adaptable, I can use them any way I need to! And the flexible format easily adapts to my needs even when they change week to week.

I've had great feedback from customers on how they are using their Plannerisms planners. Customers have told me they are using their Plannerisms planners as a teacher's lesson planner, as a household maintenance and chores tracker for the whole family, as a goals workbook, in conjunction with their Filofax, and more!  Click here to see different ways people use this flexible format!

2013 Plannerisms Planners Are Here!!

Please note this is an old post and the 2013 Plannerisms planners are no longer available.

They're here! Check out the photos below of my new Plannerisms planners!

This is an absolute dream come true for me! I designed these planners as My Ideal Planner, and holding the finished product in real life is a huge thrill!

I designed these planners to be used by anyone, in any situation, for any purpose. They are great for work, home, school, personal, and any combination thereof.

So let me give you a tour through the Plannerisms planners! Click on any of the photos to enlarge!

The planners are 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches, so approximately A5 size. They are slim and light and will go everywhere with you in your bag.

The covers are soft-touch PU and are so nice to hold. The cover color options are black, pink, purple and teal. The teal photographs as more blue than it actually is, it's really more greenish than shown.  The covers have a very slight metallic effect which makes them change color slightly in the light, which looks really cool!

Here's a closer look at the label. It's called the Going Places planner, for going places in life and in the world.

If you click on the photo to enlarge you can see more details of the label. This planner has each week on two pages with the days as vertical columns, month on two pages grid calendars, and pages for goals.

Here's the inside of the front cover:

Look, it's me!!

Also on the label you can see the paper is 84.3 gsm. It is cream color and suuuuuuuper smooth! There are two ribbon placemarkers, for marking your week and month, and a pocket inside the back cover.

This is my favorite Mark Twain quote:

This quote inspires me when I'm feeling out of my comfort zone, like when I'm getting ready to move yet again or am adjusting to a new situation. It reminds me that I'll look back and be glad I had interesting experiences!

Here's the teal book without the label, love that soft smooth cover:

Here's a closer view of the embossed moon and stars logo in the bottom corner of the cover:

The meaning of the logo is: The phase of the moon shown is a waxing crescent, which symbolizes optimism and growth. The changing phases of the moon represent the passing of time. The stars are reminiscent of celestial navigation used by mariners, representing movement in your world. So together the moon and stars symbol means optimism and growth as you move through your life in time and space!

I am very excited and honored to give you a tour through the book! The first page is Personal Information:

 Next there are reference calendars for the current year and the future year:

Next is a two-page spread to write out your goals for the current year. It's a great spot to get out everything and mind map/ brain dump, then you can organize it more on other pages.

The best thing about all the goals pages is you don't have to use them in any prescribed way.  You don't even have to use them for goals if you don't want to. You can use them for household maintenance, homeschooling, work plans, financial tracking, health and fitness tracking or anything else you want. I've written a separate post with loads of ideas on how to use the goals pages throughout the book, click here to see.

Next there is a two page spread for Quarterly Goals all year.

Again, you can use these pages for goals, reminders, tracking or anything else. For example, on the April-May-June quadrant, I wrote a reminder to myself to have our kerosene heating oil tank filled because it's cheapest that time of year.

Next there is a two-page spread with the entire year at a glance, with the months as vertical columns. I love using these yearly planners for mapping out travel, holidays, school breaks and other major events.

Next there are several pages with international holidays, dialing codes and conversions. Then there is a two-page spread with tips on how to use the different types of pages in your Plannerisms planner, to get you started.

Next are the monthly calendars. I love the big daily squares! There's an empty column before Monday for writing in reminders, things due like insurance premiums or subscription renewals, or your Fly Lady Zones for each week.

The weeks in the monthly calendars begin on Mondays, to correspond exactly with the weekly pages and to keep the weekend days together. But if you really want to have Sunday-start weeks, you could use that column before Monday as your Sundays and change the Sunday column to your notes column.

Every month has a theme, and every week there are tips relating to that theme. Holidays are printed in the day spaces for the US, UK, Australia and Singapore.

After every month there is a two-page spread for that month's goals, monthly review, to-do lists, household or garden maintenance, financial totals, exercise, or anything else  you want to write in here.

Here's the weekly spread (and here you can also see the book stays open and mainly flat on its own without training. With a little use it will stay open even flatter). I've written a separate post with ideas and tips on different ways to use the flexible weekly format and how to adapt it to your personal needs, click here to see.

All seven days are same-size columns, so weekend days have as much space as weekdays. The daily columns are lined but not timed, so you can use them for appointments, tasks, reminders or anything else.You can write appointments at the top of the column and tasks at the bottom, divide each day into work/ home, write timed appointments all the way down, or any combination of these. You can use them differently as you need to.

Before Monday there is a column to write in your daily goals.

You can write things like exercise, vitamins, medications, journaling, working on your report or major project, or whatever else you want to accomplish every day. That way you don't have to re-write them every day in your day spaces. Then each day you accomplish your goal, you either write in the details (cardio 45 mins, strength, etc.) or just check it off on the day you did it. When you look across your week, you can easily see if you've been accomplishing your daily goals or not. It's a very nice visual indicator of whether you are working your plan or procrastinating. At the bottom of the weekly pages is space for lists, notes, and reminders. I'll do a separate post all about different ways to use this weekly format. It's very flexible and can be used in so many different ways.

The right page has a reference calendar at the bottom:

Below you can see on the right page there's space at the top for most important reminders, and space below the days for lists. I like to write my urgent lists on the left page under Monday so I see them at the beginning of the week, and lower priority lists on the right page so I can get to them later when I have time.

There are two ribbon placemarkers, one black and one color matched to the cover, for marking your week and month pages.

After all the weeks there is a two-page spread with the entire future year at a glance with the months as columns, for filling in appointments and reminders into the next year.

After that there is a two-page spread giving you space to review your year:

In the back there are a couple of notes pages, a little bit about me, and a US time zones and area codes map:

The last page is a really nice full-color world map. Inside the back cover there is a pocket that is open at the top for sticking in papers or receipts. This is really nice for longer papers to stick out the top, and to keep things visible.

It comes with an address booklet that you can move to your next year's planner. Also this pocket will fit a Moleskine Large Cahier notebook if you want more pages for notes.

The book is a wonderful sensory experience with the gorgeously smooth paper and the soft-touch cover. The cover is flexible:

But not floppy:

I did a pen test on one of the Notes pages in the back of mine (the purple one of course since purple is my favorite color!). I don't have fountain pens, so I chose my fatter tips and wettest inks. You can see the tips of the pens corresponding to their names below:

You can see on the reverse of the page that there is some show through to the other side with the wettest inks. At 84.3 gsm this paper isn't really designed for broad nib fountain pens (need at least 90 gsm for that) but I think it would work well with thinner nibs and not too sloppy inks. Any type of roller ball or other liquid ink pen works great, and I'll tell ya the paper is so smooth and gorgeous it's a joy to write on!

Here are the cover colors again: aqua, purple, black and pink.

Many huge thanks to everyone who waited until these were available to order your 2013 planner!  Let me know how you like them!!

Click here to see my videos on the Plannerisms planner features, and how to use the Plannerisms planner for goal setting and tracking.

Click here for my detailed post on using the Plannerisms planner as a Goals Workbook.

Collins Classic Manager Week diary

I am very excited to show you the Collins Classic Manager Week diary! Many thanks to Collins for giving me this GORGEOUS diary as a sample!  I love it!

This diary is very classy-looking with a leather-like smooth cover that is slightly padded, so it feels nice in your hands. The gold corners and gilded page edges look so elegant! The book is full of luxurious details that add to the overall beauty of this diary.

The smart appearance of this diary is eye-catching but what really hooked me was the paper. Seriously. The diary itself is beautiful, and classy-looking, and nice to hold. But once I touched the paper that was it. I'm officially hooked. The paper is super-smooth, acid-free and an ivory color that is very pleasant to look at (not grayed or too dark).

There are LOADS of excellent and useful features in this diary!  The first page is Personal Information, then after that are 3-year reference calendars with the current year highlighted:
(Click on any of the photos to enlarge)

After that there are several pages packed with reference info (which I use and really appreciate having in my planner!).  There are pages with International Holidays for many countries around the world. There are detailed pages with international dialing information (including codes both into and out the of countries, and accurate time zone information):

There is a world time zone map with the exact time zone for lots of cities, and an excellent pageful of phone numbers and websites for travel information in the UK.

There is a two-page spread of useful conversions of all kinds:

Next there is a two-page spread with the entire year at a glance for long-range planning. I love annual planners like this, they really help me plan travel, deadlines etc.

Then comes the weekly section with the week on two pages and days as columns. Click to enlarge the photo to see all the excellent features of this page!  The days are timed from 8 am to 8 pm with a couple of lines for after 8pm.  Under the days are lines for Notes where you can write notes and tasks for that particular day, or to use for categorized lists.  There is a real ribbon placemarker which is another one of those luxurious touches that makes this book so nice!

Along the side of the pages are cut-in TABS to take you straight to the first week of each month so you can easily find future weeks. We all know how much I love monthly tabs!!  Also you can see the monthly calendars on the page with the current month highlighted.

After all the weekly pages there is a planner for the entire future year on a 2-page spread:

And then there are more useful pages! There is a Staff Leave planner which is very useful for managers. There is a Financial Planner to help you see your income and categorized expenditures in a way that lets you compare them month to month:

There are several pages for Personal information, and a page for Most Used Numbers. Then come the maps!!!

I LOVE maps in planners, and I have to say these are the most beautiful and most detailed maps I've ever seen in a planner. They look like they are from a really good atlas.

These are only some of the maps! 

Look at the level of detail!  Sometimes I flip through this book just to caress the paper and look at the maps, it is just that nice!

There is an excellent world map, and maps of the UK rail network and London Underground too.

The Manager size measures 260 by 148 mm (approx. 10 1/2 by 7 3/4 inches) so if you're carrying a laptop or iPad it will fit easily in your bag. And, it looks especially good sitting on your desk or in a meeting!

The Classic line of planners has an extensive range of sizes and formats available. Click here to see the entire range of Collins Classic planners in daily and weekly formats and all sizes.

Huge thanks again to the kind folks at Collins for giving me this gorgeous diary!