school me on planners, please

OP, I have never really understood the planner craze. I used planner in school back before everything was online and in the cloud, and I remember decorating them -- doodling, really, to pass the time. But as soon as online calendars and to-do list programs and apps became available, I went digital. I think I have about a dozen different calendars in my Google Calendar, some for home and some for business, all rigged to send me reminders and notices so I never miss anything. I think the hand-made planners are cute as heck, but the excessive timesink of it all and the lack of automatic reminders just makes them a no-go for me. That's time I could be making cards or mixed media or whatnot.

this is the issue for me. i almost always forget to take my phone with and if i do, i rarely have the sound on which i know if a bit ridiculous but i hate being interrupted by a ring or a notification when i am in a store or having a conversation with someone. i find that the act of writing something helps me to remember it as well so, even if i don't take my planner along, i remember what i have written. gadgets don't have the same effect on my memory/brain.

I don't get the planner craze either, but to each her own. {shrug}

I did do the planner thing back in the early 1990's but only for about 5 minutes! I hated lugging that huge binder thing around, and all the colored pens and highlighters. Mine had a wallet built in with it and I was always afraid I would leave it somewhere. Then in late 90's I got a Palm Pilot and used that for a few years (I even played games and read books on it before i got my Kindle!)

Currently I use my phone for appointments, birthdays, work meetings, etc. And I have a $1 store paper calendar booklet that I use at home for tracking health things.

Nor do they run out of battery....

crazyrn, I hope you love your PP. Let us know what you think when you get it.

originalvanillabean, love it "paper planners don't have connectivity issues." So perfectly said!

kellyv, yes exactly--gadgets don't have the same effect on my brain as paper planners do.

There are advantages and disadvantages to paper planners. I am only going to state the advantages for the sake of time and this is a hobby:
It is fun. I journal in mine right now. I write down feelings, what I did that day, what I bought, who or what I saw, what I ate - if I happened to go somewhere fun. It's a lot of fun. You don't have to journal. That is only one option. I was a major diary keeper when I was in Japan. I had like 10 diaries over the years. I wish I knew where some of them went. That would be fun to read.

You can embellish your pages to your liking. I buy printable stickers from Etsy and use them. You can either print them on sticker paper or regular paper (I like heavier paper) and cut them out. It takes all of two seconds.

I have a nice marker collection which feeds my need for colour. I have pretty Staedler markers from Amazon, coloured pens and gel pens from Michaels. I have some gel pens from Staples. I hate them. I will look and see what they are called. They are garbage.

You can print your own inserts or you can use the ones that come in the planner OR you can make your own. All you need to know is how to make a table or some desktop publishing skills (I don't know how to do that) but I make a MEAN table in Word/Pages for Mac people.

It's fun. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun. I have a good time making my planner. I have planners for different facets of my life. I have one for health and fitness. I have one for "going" out. I have one for every day stuff. Then I have a couple because I liked the colour of them.

If I don't have my planner with me I can make notes in my phone and transpose them into the planner. Is that double the work? Not really.

You can get fancy Kate Spade planners or Louis Vuitton ones. You can get leather ones, vinyl ones, pretty ones, black ones. The sky's the limit. You can pay as little as $20 for your planner (that is the cheapest I can get one here) or you can pay upwards of $1000.

You will hear names like Erin Condren, Plum Planners, etc. Those are BOUND for you already. They come with coils and you can either keep them in the coils or cut them out. It's up to you.

I will add to this when I think of something else. It's fun. That's the bottom line. If it weren't fun people wouldn't do it. There are groups all over the internet who are into plannering. That is a word I have heard tossed around. I know people in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, US, Mexico, Canada, Israel, and that is what I *know* of. There are people elsewhere I am sure plannering away.

It is fun. Keep it fun. When it stops being fun, don't do it anymore. For now I love it!

When I first saw the planner trend I was so puzzled. I have always used a paper planner but even color-coding pens was impractical for me, so the thought of ornamental stamping, washi, ephemera, etc, seemed totally unreal. To be honest, it seemed like the worst kind of Instagram stuff: beautiful but fake. But I knew that was judgmental and that I must be missing something so I just kept my mouth shut and kept looking and thinking.

I realized two things: first, while my planners are not prettified I do take a lot of care in how they look. I always use black pen, I write things in very particular places and formats, etc. When I've had a planner that came with stickers I always liked using them. In years gone by I know I've looked at my planner pages with satisfaction over a week that was busy but written out in a very orderly way. So I could empathize with the planner people that way.

Second, I realized that I have always kept my old planners, not just for my own reference but for the story they tell about my life and the way I used my time. I have generally made an effort to cross things out that didn't happen or to add things in after the fact if they were spontaneous. I'm an historian, so I'm familiar with the way a famous person's diary (planner) can be used to understand their life and while I doubt I'll ever be famous I tend to be aware of the kind of evidence I'm leaving behind.

Finally: it all clicked. I only started scrapbooking about a year ago. How did I document my life before that? Through my planners! So I think the planner craze is on the one hand about using pretty supplies in a place that you can see and appreciate them every day, but also about a way to document without photos or journaling. I can see where that taps in to a lot of people's desires. Plus the pure papercrafting challenge of a new kind of layout of course

I doubt I will join the planner trend, like, ever, but that's how I came around to understanding it. And I do really appreciate how much easier it is now to get little tiny colorful stickers to mark appointments in my book! Long live the planner girls!

I think it would be fun to buy a very basic one, use it for memory keeping and leave it at home. My current planner has sections for up to 5 people. I like the separation.

I received my PP!! I won't start using it until next month but I have looked through it a few times. I will start by saying, I'm not very good with change. LOL That being said there are a few pros and cons.

I don't like that the year at a glance is for 2015 and 2016. I wish it was for 2016 and 2017 since I don't really need to know what the dates were the year before. That might have been my fault since my planner is from december 2015-January 2017. I don't like that the month at a glance is on the page after the tab. I like to flip to the month with one turn, not flip and have to turn a page. The cover stinks. I really like EC covers. And it's a little bit thicker than my EC planner. 

I do, obviously,  like the cost compared to EC. The pages are a nice quality and I love the hourly breakdown of the days. I'm hoping I'll use it more than my EC planner!