It’s always good to keep an open mind.

Even if I am pretty happy with my planner setup/inserts/layout/size (etc) – I always keep an open mind and an eye out for new and interesting ways to utilize my planner.  I am open to switching things up a bit if I come across a new idea that intrigues me.

Recently, I saw an Instagram post from plan2create that got me thinking.  Julie put a weekly insert (a foldout of her own design) on one side of her personal planner and then put a daily page on the other (facing) side of her personal.  Brilliant, right?  Maybe all of you have been doing this already, but it really struck me as so functional.  In one glance, I could see my schedule for the week and also the nitty gritty of my current day… like to-do lists and errands and meal plan?  It just made lots of sense.

So I rushed over to Julie’s etsy shop and downloaded her weekly printable so I could try this out.

I don’t have my camera set up for videos yet, so today’s post is sort of a photo montage of my process.  First I printed out the inserts on 32 lb paper.  I print on regular letter-sized paper and then Julie has added these registration marks in the corners so that you know where to trim it out to the perfect size for a personal planner. So handy!

I use a bone folder to score and fold the insert so that it lays nicely in my planner.

Now I’m ready to decorate! I started by finding some stickers that I love and then pulled  out some coordinating ink colors.  I looked through my stash and paid attention to stickers that are narrow like these banners from The Reset Girl – the perfect size to fit in these skinny columns!

I found some coordinating washi from my stash and laid that down to start the page.  The first thing I documented is my daily workout.  I used a cute heart stamp from this studioL2E set (again, finding appropriate sized stamps for these narrow columns).

I also looked for stamps that work well in this size structure – I was so excited to find that the smaller event rectangles in the Hi-Light It set from StudioL2E fit perfectly!  I stamped the solid one in this pretty green to mark the kids’ tennis lessons each morning.

Another thing to remember is to adapt your products (especially stickers) to suit your needs.  The Reset Girl stickers came with notched out squares that are meant for monthly boxes, but I just cut off one end to make them fit into my columns.  Perfect to note events that will take up a larger chunk of the day!

You can also trim checklist stickers to fit.  Since I will be using daily pages for most of my to-dos, I wanted to limit the checklists in my weekly columns to just my “top three” goals – things that I could write in advance as goals for the upcoming days.  So I just chopped some checklists in half to give me 3 bullet points per day.  I set the checklists apart with a bit more washi and extended a header sticker through multiple days using a simple horizontal line.

Once my schedule and Top Three lists are all added, I like to pop in a few decorative touches if I have the space.  I think this really adds some fun and personality to my layouts.  For example, I have two important birthdays coming up this Sunday, so I stamped and watercolored a cute double decker ice cream cone to make that stand out.  (I used my new Derwent Inktense Pencils to color it and I am IN LOVE with these pencils!)

Here’s a look at the whole page, after stamping in the dates and adding a few more decorative stickers.

Now that the weekly layout is complete, I made myself a coordinating Monday page for the specifics of today – how AWESOME is it to be able to look ahead at your whole week, but also have a whole page of extra real estate for the details of your current day??  Now each day I can swap out that left hand side with a fresh daily page and always have my week-at-a-glance to refer to on the right.  Excellent!

As an added bonus, when you fold in the flap of the weekly side, you have even more extra space for any other lists or notes you might need!  I have some ongoing house projects that I’m keeping track of, some must-do tasks this week that haven’t landed on a specific day yet, and a tracker for my daughter’s bath time. So cute and so functional!

I am really excited to use this system this week – I think I’m going to love it.  I have the fun of changing out my daily page each day – which I can make as pretty or as simple as I want and then just pull it out and toss it when the day is over.  And I love the idea of seeing the week to come so I remember what we have going on.

Don’t be afraid to shake things up in your planners too – try something new and it might just work perfectly for you!

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post – I’ll try to get the video camera up and running soon so you can do more watching and less reading!

Happy planning!  xoxo,

Tricia