Design Team group challenge - Rainbow week

I always like a Design Team group challenge and I was excited to hear that we were all tasked with doing a Rainbow Week. We have different planners and styles so the resulting layouts should be really interesting.

I decided to return to my Erin Condren vertical LifePlanner for this challenge and the end result was a bright, well-ordered and very “clean-looking” spread. I brightened up the top and bottom of the pages with rainbow washi strips and added the bright rainbow date covers. I thought it would look quite stylish to have each day with stickers the same colour as the date covers so there are co-ordinating “to-do” headers and checklists.

Monthly review and new 'monthly dashboards'

One of my biggest planner fails is stickerating a section of my planner and never going back and updating it. Mainly the monthly pages! Oops! I’ll buy a new monthly kit, set it all up for the month so any appointments, birthdays, recycling/bin collections and any other regular events for the month. These don’t tend to be my neatest, tidiest pages as they’re my planning my planner pages. Then completely forget to go back and update it over the month. So what can I do to not forget to do this? It certainly feels like a waste of stickers and my time if it gets neglected.

My changing perspective on habit tracking

Habit tracking was once a phrase that made me cringe. Entering the planner word through the bullet journal, they were all elaborately hand drawn spreads that seemed to be a symbol of the perfect life. They never seemed real. I drew a few out but never filled them in and then felt bad about not doing it. This has changed hugely with habit tracking becoming an important part of my planner set up.

EllieBeth Summer Challenge Week

This week the whole Design Team are joining together to complete the EllieBeth Summer Challenge Week. We've all chosen an EBDUK Summer Collection.  For me it's the 'Believe Toucan' collection  I use an Erin Condren Vertical for my everyday planner and that will provide my main focus for the week. In addition to this  I'm also trying out a petite planner from Erin Condren.  I've used the core kit, mixed boxes and days and dates.

My Favourite functional stickers

Before I joined the wonderful planner community early in 2018, I had always kept a “home diary” in the kitchen, and jotted things down so that my husband and I would have a rough idea of what we were supposed to be doing, and when. These diaries were usually A5 and in all honesty rather dull, messy and uninspiring. In fact, it was rare that I kept one going for more than a few months because I lost interest.

When Life gives you lemons.... New 2019/2020 EC planner and Hobonichi Avec

I thought that my first week in my new 2019/2020 EC would set up like any other week .....besides the squealing over the smell of new paper, new stickies, new layouts....you get the drift. But actually although the changes this year appear subtle they made me think about some of the things I normally do.

Planning self care in a busy life

This isn't the blog I was intending to write this weekend. I was going to go through an update of where my planning is now, half way through the year. However, fuelled by inspiration from all the wonderful posts and pictures from the EBDUK Annual Event I'm finally taking some time to set up a self care journal.

EBDUK DT favourite layouts

When asked this question my initial reaction was to race to all my stored planners of old and leaf through them to find my favourite layout.....and I did....but what came to mind as I leafed through the beautiful finished weeks was that my favourite layout is the one you see here. A crisp, new, pristine week. It's so full of possibilities and hope. A new slate for me to start again and put behind me the things that didn't work. 

Using my Hobonichi Techo for work.

I’ve been using an A6 Hobonichi for my day to day personal stuff and didn’t really want to add work matters to it, although I do put my freelance HR work meetings into it. I acquired another A6 (yay for destashes) and started using that for work. It means I can bring it home with me and jot any “day job” tasks or bright ideas in it immediately. I like to set the work Hobo up a week in advance and that means adding stickers of course. Just because it’s for work doesn’t mean it can’t look pretty!

The EllieBeth Designs' Gratitude Challenge

Each month, I set up my monthly spread in my Passion Planner for the EllieBeth Designs' Gratitude Challenge. Its become a crucial part of my planning routine and I've managed to create a balance between tracking, recording events and appointments as well as recording the daily gratitude that works for me. In this post I share the evolution of my gratitude challenge spreads and talk you through my process of preparing for the June Challenge.

Watch my video to see how it all comes together:

Planning on holiday! (Or not as it may seem…)

So I recently went away on holiday. I stuck to my usual routine of planning the coming weeks in advance as I knew I would be busy and hate getting behind on my stickerating. So I stuck down my usual Washi Tape, Date headers and Half Boxes for Gratitude. I even watercoloured the pages. But then it occurred to me, what am I actually going to plan? Day Trips? What I’m going to eat? (Probably need bigger pages when you’re going All Inclusive) Weather?

This week and the ever repeating To-Dos

I don't know about you but I find myself writing the same tasks week after week  at the bottom of my planner (and let's be honest not doing them). I have good intentions at the beginning of the week but somehow life gets in the way, then the following week the same thing happens.