I just ordered myself a new day planner (I decided to go with another Lilly Pulitzer large agenda – the hard cover was the winning feature), and I thought it might be a good time to do a little post on how I use it. I’ve used a Lilly Pulitzer large agenda for 2 years in a row (so far), and I really like it. I carry it with me every day and the hard cover does a good job at making sure the whole thing doesn’t get totally destroyed. It’s rather chunky, so if you’re looking for something sleek and slimline, this will not be the agenda for you. The calendar runs along the US school year, which means it spans from August through to December of the following year. I don’t mind this, because I often plan things like holidays quite far in advance. Also, I find that around June/July is when I’m feeling refreshed and have more time to focus on working on a new agenda. I order my planners from Glitzy Glam, they’re $28, and shipping to perth costs $25, which is still cheaper than the Erin Condren life planner I was thinking about buying – and that’s before shipping.
The agenda comes in a few different cover designs each year. The one I’ve been using (and pictured above) has crabs and lobsters all over it, which I thought was pretty cute. This year I order the Loopy Lilly design, because I love the navy and pink together. Also, elephants. The agenda comes with two pockets at the front, which I use to story party invitations, bills/recipes that I’ve printed off while I’m at work and have yet to transfer out, my gym schedule, and a whole bunch of stickers. The agenda comes with one sheet of stickers that I use alongside the Martha Stewart home office reusable stickers (mine have more colour options because my Aunt kindly sent them to me from the US), and a variety of star stickers throughout the planner. There are full year calendar pages that I use to track when I’ve booked leave off of work, to ensure that I’m spacing out my time off throughout the year. I tend to use the month-at-a-glance page more than any other section of the planner. I colour code everything, which makes it easy for me to glance at the page and see what my plans are (eg: pink is social events, yellow is work related, blue is for exercise/gym stuff, etc), and I circle off each day as the weeks progress. I use the stars that I mentioned earlier to track my workouts, as part of the ‘gold star challenge’ that I partake in. This is a good way for me to glance at the month as a whole and see how I did, excercise-wise. The reusable Martha Stewart stickers are used to track things that I need to do monthly/once every couple of months. Once I’ve completed whatever the sticker says, I move it to the next month or further along in the year. For example, I try to deep clean the fridge once a month. Once I’ve gotten around to doing it, I’ll move the sticker to the to-do list on July’s month-at-a-glance page. Or, my other half gets paid once a month – so once he’s transferred his contribution to the mortgage/bills/food for the month, I move the ‘rent’ sticker across. This is a great way to keep track of things that otherwise might fall by the wayside. I find it particularly helpful when it comes to things like tracking when the cat needs her de-worming tablet, because this is something that happens every three months and it’s easy to forget. The week-at-a-glance is really just an extra section for me to re-iterate what my plans are and I don’t use it very much.
So that’s my day planner. I’d love to see what you’re using and how you’re using it, so if you follow up with a post like this, please let me know. I also have a whole other method of tracking my to-do list for the week and for life in general, so if you’re interested in seeing a post about that be sure to let me know!
the belle lumiere 