Day 30

Friday, September 18th, was day 30 with my Life Planner.

Updates of how I am using it, what I've changed since last time, and how well the unofficial covers are working.

During the first month, I kept my planner on a table and used it through out the day.  Keep that in mind when you look at the condition of the pages and such.

To start, the Harry Potter Subway Art covers are working just as good as they did on day one--which it great!  I moved my fun paper clips to a new large pencil bag and pulled out the HP Subway Art dashboard and set it aside for now.  I might find a use for it later, I moved it around a lot before I took it out, but for now, it sits with my HP books on a shelf.

Remember, you can buy these covers at Small Box of Treasures on Etsy, $20 for the three piece set and $15 for just the covers.  Check out everything else in the shop because they are so stinkin' cute!

So, one of the first things I did was write down Tom's schedule for school and work on card stock and put it in my planner.  I used washi tape to decorate it (Blue and Yellow, school colors!) and used two Clips to attach it to my planner.  Tip: when applying two Clips to one card, stick the first Clip to the card, put it in, put in the second where you want it, then take off the sticky and apply it.  I didn't measure it out that way so now that card is slightly lumpy.

I know my color coding, I've been using it for more than a year, so I put it to the front of my planner.  It is now out of the way and will be easy to use again later.

September month, showing that Day 30 is finished.  I always just X out days past, I found one line wasn't enough for me.

Recently we were shopping for a new vehicle; I started to use the Clips for business cards and would put them were I had notes for when I needed to make calls.  This made things so much easier.

Another auto salesman's card.  You can also see the cute little card that says "Our 6th Anniversary Plans."  I bought journaling cards from Walmart,

similar to these, and I have started to use them in my planner.  Five bucks for a big stack of fun card to use, YES PLEASE!

I moved the bookmark to mark the month I am on and you can see another card that I now use as my "This Week" marker.  It says, "Hello Life" and has lines to write a cute note to yourself.  You may notice that "focus" is misspelled.  That is on purpose.  It's to remind myself that even though I am striving to have patience and be focused, I will mess up and that's okay, as long as I work to be better continually.

This was the first full week of use.  You can see that I use flag stickers to point out fun things.  I also used check off flags to point out important things.  I don't like to use things like this for fun but to point out important things.  This helps me to remember what needs to be done.  My planner is for keeping mine and my family's lives organized, not for me to uselessly use up stickers and washi tape.

 PS-

One day, I was moving around my bookmark and then it started to feel lumpy at the bottom, as if it had melted.  I got a little panicked ("How did I melt it?!") but then I realized that there is a protective film on it.  Just FYI to those that buy one.  Just so you won't think that your bookmark is melting like I did.  

(It does get hot in South Texas, it wasn't as far fetched an idea as you might think.)

PPS-I have a larger bag now so I will be carrying my planner with me.  Stay tuned to see the difference from Month One of Use on a Desk--compared to--Month Two of Use in a Diaper Bag, Desk, Lap, and Everywhere Else.  Excited to see it!

Day 1 With My Erin Condren Life Planner

I received many things for my planner from my family for my birthday.

My New Planning Supplies

You can see in this picture, that there are a lot of planning supplies that I was given.  There are two "Crown" pens, one is holding the washi tapes.  I don't know where most of this stuff came from but I love it all!

The coil clips from Erin Condren were also knew to my planning supplies.

I plan to also make DIY ones later but I wanted the official ones first.

These Are the Planning Supplies I Already Had

Smash Book scissors.  I've had these for a few years and I love them so much!  I have been carrying them in the diaper bag to have something safer than a pocket knife to cut things.  I might have to get another pair so I can keep one in the diaper bag and one with all my planner things.

Yoobi 8 Color Pen from Target.  I discovered this by accident.  I was just looking around the office supplies in Target, like I always do (huh, maybe not so accident), and I saw this pen.  Usually pens that have this many colors are a little pricy but this one wasn't!  

I already have some washi tape but it is all in storage so I am not able show it let alone use it.  :(

After putting on the new cover to my planner, 

I went to work!  Since it's only been one day, not much had really been done.

I moved my fancy  paper clips to my dashboard...

and made the legend for my color coding.

I use the, aforementioned, Yoobi multi colored pen in my planner to easily find who's doing what.

Black-everyday and me

Blue-birthday parties and anniversaries

Red-birthdays and marking my period days

Orange-church related actives

Green-Tom's stuff (green is his favorite color)

Purple-Evelyn's stuff

Pink-Raven's stuff

I used one of the three sample comment cards and the sample coil clip to make it.  That way I can move it from one month to the next.  This will be the second year I use this system and it's worked out nicely.

You see that little tab at the top of the page?

It says "This Month."  I use it to quickly go to the current month.

I put short versions of our plans on the month at a glance pages.

I usually use another tab for "This Week" but this planner comes with a clear book marker that can be changed around.  That is what I will use as my "This Week" marker.

I also used my little dot stickers to mark pay days.  You can also see here that I marked my 6th marriage anniversary!

I filled out my first Goal at the beginning of the planner.

This is the back cover.  I didn't get a close up before.

I marked out all the days that have past...

in the month...

and the weeks.

I did this weeks planning and once we get Evelyn's school schedule (holidays and special school days) I'll be able to fill out more planned days.

This is day one with my Life Planner!

Stay tuned for my post on 90 days of using my Life Planner!

(That should be on November 18, 2015, near a week before Thanksgiving!)

Don't worry, I'll have more between now and then.

Why I Chose the Erin Condren Life Planner

I started planning, using a planner, when I was in 5th grade.  My parents started me on one because I couldn't always remember when I had homework, and even worse, what my homework was.

I have used a pocket sized and a Day One by FranklinCovey.  I've used a binder size and a simple 5x7 size.  I have always used the horizontal format until my sister in law showed me an awesome planner called "Mothers Who Know."  I love this planner!  If you are LDS (Mormon),  which I am, then this is so nice to have.  It has those little extras (FHE plans, visiting teaching info and more) that are so convenient but yet I only used them the first few months then it became wasted space.

Last year, in 2014, I was going to order my Mothers Who Know planner.  I usually don't use the same planner each year, so I looked up different planner reviews to see if anything else caught my eye.  I saw many different kinds; big, little, and odd, but the Erin Condren Life Planner really stuck with me because of the changeable covers.  I looked at all the different covers that were available and they all looked so pretty!  Then I looked inside, well as much inside as the website allowed, and I liked it.  It was very similar to what I planned on reordering which made me believe that I would enjoy using it.  I use academic planners, meaning that my year starts in August.  Erin's didn't allow for that, so...I reordered my "Mothers Who Know" planner without another thought.  I used the extras even less in this planner the second time around!

When June 2015 was coming, I looked at planners again, mainly the Erin Condren Life Planner.  This time you can chose your format; horizontal or vertical.  I was so excited!

As I had said, my year starts in August.  This is when the school year starts.  Even when I was no longer in school and before Evelyn or Tom was back in school, I preferred using an academic planner.  Erin Condren also gives you the option of adding in the remaining months of the year, making it my academic planner.

Even though I liked all of those things, there was still one thing I lacked; the money to pay for it.  So I looked on.  I bought a planner at Target.  Mint with gold embossed lettering and was a horizontal format.  Back to the old format that I so missed.  Or so I thought.  Though that planner was quite flattering, and under $20, it didn't function the way I wanted it to.  The format was all wrong.

I am a lister and I didn't realize how much easier a vertical format made my listing.  I have gotten better at my own "short hand," so having a clean long place to list was ideal as I had discovered.

The search was on for a new planner yet again (much by the way of Pinterest) and then...

I fell in love.

With this.

Harry Potter Subway Art Cover Set for your Erin Condren Life Planner

I am not a Potter Head.  Honestly, I am not.  Well, to those who truly are, I truly am not, but to those who have only seen the movies, I really seem to be.  A cousin of mine stared at me blankly when I spoke to her, assuming she'd read the books.  That was when I realized that I really seem like a geek to some people.  That just means I'm "in" right now.  Yay!  I haven't bought anything that screams Harry Potter since before the movies came out (the first movie came out in '01...I was in eight grade).  I was a little sad that Gryffindor was the only house, no Hufflepuff (I am a Hufflepuff indeed).  When I saw this cover; I knew this was the somewhat subtle Potter fandom that I wanted.  

Needed.

Okay, now I'm sounding like a fangirl.

I had looked at the Erin Condren planners for about a year by that time.

Decisions needed to be made.

I took the plunge.

Into a deep well of planner bliss!

Well, so far it looks that way looking from my jumping point, but that will be a later post.

Why I chose an Erin Condren Life Planner

1 They give you options on your planner format; horizontal or vertical

2 You can add the remaining months of the year (for just an extra $5)

3 You can personalize it or get it ready to ship

4 The covers are interchangeable!

5 The inside didn't look like it was "trying too hard" (What I mean is that it didn't look like its purpose was to be sold a lot but to be loved a lot.  This was based on looking online.)

6 It didn't seem like I would waste pages that were in the planner; I would be able to use all of it regularly

7  I would also want to use this (based on what was seen online)

8 I really wanted the Harry Potter subway art cover

*This post was written before even receiving my Life Planner.  This is just why I chose to even purchase one.  Posts on receiving my planner and use of it will follow.