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Saturday, August 4, 2012

Planner-writing intimidation

Writing in a new planner for the first time can be very intimidating! Those fresh unwritten-in pages hold endless potential. But once you write in it, the planner is YOURS, and contains all the messiness that is your life.

For those of you who might feel bad about "messing up" a new planner, keep in mind this is the point of the planner!  This is what it was made for.  Life is messy, literally and figuratively.

My motto is, "It's not perfect, because it's mine."  Anything of mine quickly becomes scuffed, stained, and used-looking. My life is messy. I am messy. Nothing stays pristine around me for long.

And that's fine with me.

But I have to admit, even later in the year after the planner is already written in, I sometimes hesitate to write in my planner. Once it's on the page, it's permanent! And, sometimes I'm afraid of filling up a page in case something important needs to be written in later. (I guess I could just use a sticky note on the page for anything additional).

I think a feeling of intimidation at writing in a new planner or notebook is very common. Do you hesitate to write those first words in a new planner or notebook?

9 comments:

  1. I hear this a lot when people buy expensive journals and agonise about what to write in it for fear of 'spoiling' it. I call it 'journalling stage fright'.

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  2. I'm with you - I hate the first splotch of ink on a brand new planner. Usually solved by taking a deep breath and just forging on! A planner is meant to be written on, messed up and well-loved.. all the things you can't do without the first ink mark.

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  3. I am having the HARDEST time writing in my Lilly Pulitzer! Honestly, this hasn't really happened to me with a planner before--usually I'm gung ho to write stuff down and make the planner mine--dunno the difference this time...

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    1. It is so pretty and designer-ey, I know I would be intimidated writing in it. But you have such pretty handwriting, it would look good written in by you!

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  4. Believe it or not, I had this trouble with my first Moleskine. I normally don't pay that much for a notebook and didn't want to "waste" it. LOL I decided to write in page numbers and create an index to encourage me to write on those virgin pages. It worked.

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  5. It's that first mistake that gets me. The first time I have to scribble over something in a fresh Journal. Arrrrgh. But I don't hate it enough to start using pencil ;)

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  6. Like indigogarden, indexing helps me start on a journal. For a planner I fill in things like contact info and birthdays/anniversaries and that usually gets me started. Instead of scribbling out, I sometimes make a design on top of a mistake and since I doodle in my planner anyway it isn't so noticable.

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  7. "Things" ... all "things" are created to be used in some way or another. Not using a "thing" makes it "useless", irrelevant, non-impactful. I don't believe messy-ness is the issue. By the way, messy-ness can only exist as a comparative discussion. So-called messy-ness is the physical picture of character. Character derived from doing. I think what generates intimidation or anxiety about writing down anything is the "record-ness" of what's written, and the disclosure and accountability inherent in all records.

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  8. Never had this problem with a planner...a notebook on the other hand... My goodness I can get really worried about what I put into my newest cute little journal that I'll wanna keep on my shelf for the next 20 years. When I think about why I'm nervous, it's probably because I always cringe at old diaries...the person I WAS is typically very uncool and ineloquent LOL
    So thinking about it, especially for my lovely quotes notebook, I guess the fear is 'Is this really a quote/passage that I want to remember or be known for wanting to remember 10 years down the track'...and actually thinking this through for this post...its absolutely obscene!! If I like a quote today then that's an accurate capture of my mind at that moment...why be ashamed? The good thing about quotes, for me, is that it's impersonal enough not to give away my secrets to others yet holds a strong memory for me (not that I have secrets as such, but I am private). I guess I owe you thanks for posting this topic - I think I just broke my fear of blank pages ^_^

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