Isn’t it hilarious that, in a time when we can manage schedules, plan trips, write notes and set reminders on our phones, that paper planners are so huge?! I always used a paper planner when I worked, and loved to decorate and doodle in my agendas throughout school. I didn’t realize I missed that until I went through half a dozen planners to find my “planner peace”. (I first heard Kristina Werner use that term in a video sharing her planner set up.)

I’ll spare you the details of the boring black planner from Staples, the diary from Target and the Fitbook that preceded all of this and get right to the scrappy ones. I drooled over all of them – at one point, I was sure I wanted the Simple Stories planner, then the Webster’s Pages, and oh maybe the Heidi Swapp! But what about the Erin Condren? Just trying to choose is exhausting! I watched all the videos (Seriously, have you searched “planner” on YouTube?!), followed all the Instagrammers and then tried to find my way.

I started with big plans; I was going to use this Heidi Swapp binder for One Little Word®, the Documented Life Project and day to day planning.

That was just too much to fit into one little binder. I moved my DLP pages out and moved on to another planner solution. This lovely gold album is working well for OLW. (You can read my OLW post here. I am overdue for an update but I am behind on OLW.) I realized around this time that the way I use my planner had to dictate my choice; the scrapbook planners are geared towards adding small photos and I wasn’t doing that.

So what was I doing? I was writing my day to day stuff – appointments, school events, gym sessions, grocery lists, to do lists and gratitude lists. Those things are the focus of my planner. I didn’t really need dates, year or month at a glance pages, just space to write. Here is where this planner stuff started to get a little more fun …

I chose a notebook my mom had given me for Christmas and just started pasting in leftover paper bits, Project Life® cards, old stickers and bits of washi. It was a fun, easy, quick and completely customizable planner. (And everything you need to create it is already in your scrapbook room!)

(I didn’t take these photos with the intent to blog them, sorry about the busy background.)

This started to feel like the answer for me. When I didn’t feel like I had time to scrapbook or art journal, I had time to prep my planner. I used this for just over two months and the only reason I am taking a break is because it got huge! 🙂

Well, that and a trip to Michaels to check out the Me and My Big Ideas Happy Planner. I bought this one to try it out and see if it is the one for me. I actually love this trial and error process; I didn’t spend a lot to try the things I did and have found alternate uses for everything. I’ll keep you posted on my Happy Planner adventures.

Are you a paper planner? What system do you love?

~ C

Scrapbooker + Story teller + Historian. Are you a Scrapstorian?