Bell Jar

I’m always attracted to all kinds of stationery, writing utensils and various paper crafts…so it’s no surprise that I refuse to give up my Franklin Covey planner that I’ve had for the past decade.  It’s been a yearly ritual for me to purchase the following year’s planner pages and enter all important dates and events before the new year starts.  I lug this thing around with me all the time and I am completely lost without it.

AK has constantly pushed me to go digital and to join the rest of the 21st century…especially since I love my iPhone so much and could easily transition to iCal (which I understand would make my life so much more efficient).  But there’s something about handwriting things in my planner with color-specific pens that gives me a great sense of calmness and satisfaction.  The only drawback is that I’ve always hated the Franklin Covey designs because of various reasons…some are too corporate and stuffy, some are not in my preferred format (vertical weekly), and others have cheesy motivational quotes that annoy me more than inspire me.

So this year I finally designed my own pages, formatted all the months/dates, printed out all the pages for the entire year, trimmed and hole-punched each page, and finally entered all of my important dates and events for the year.  I even recycled my old monthly tabs and designed coordinating graphics.  Needless to say, it was a bit more work than I anticipated but I’m pretty happy with the end result.

Here are some sample pages showing a week’s view and the coordinating graphic for the monthly tab page.  And following are photos of the pages in action after being placed in my good ol’ trusty Franklin Covey zip-around planner…I’ve already noticed some things that I’d like to change/improve/experiment with (like printing on different kinds of paper), but this is a good start and I can’t wait until I get to do the next one for next year!