As the first quarter of 2022 is coming to an end I thought I’d share how things are going with my planners and journals.

I’m loving my bullet journal and daily journals as they allow me to record the things I want as well as have just enough creative outlet to be enjoyable and not overwhelming especially with the multiple planners/journals I have.

My work and EDC planners however were not cutting it. By Marie Kondo’s teachings, they were not sparking joy! Let’s start with my work planner.

I had 3 main issues with my work planner – 1. not enough space sometimes; 2. difficulty in keeping things organized; and 3. it wasn’t giving me the quick view I wanted. I started looking around for a planner that had time slots in it. I found quite a few that could of worked but they were either missing something I really wanted or just had too much stuff that would ended up not being used. So I went DIY and created one on Word. To make it easier for me to put in appointments etc easily, I switched to a 20 ring binder instead of having the planner bound. This allows me to easily take out whatever sheet I need to update as well to add in little notes with additional information I may need for an appointment without cluttering the planner. I also switched to Pilot Frixion pens to make it easier to make changes or corrections.

Here’s the monthly view:

I use this mainly for a brief overview of holidays, birthdays, trials and if any of my team is on block leave. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I work in a large law firm and have 3 bosses – used to have 4 but one was assigned a new secretary. I’m only really required to keep track of the appointments of the partner as his associates work mainly on his files.

here’s my weekly view:

As you can see I went with a vertical layout with 30 min time slots from 9 am to 6 pm which are our office working hours. I also have space for deadlines, weekend work activites (like IT maintenance) and evening appointments. I also have a mini calendar at the bottom right corner.

I still use different colour ink as an additional way to keep things organized. Sorry I can’t show a filled page due to work confidentiality.

Now to my EDC planner.

My EDC planner was working because I didn’t really need it to do much except keep track of my appointments but it was just boring. I had no space for creativity in it and I didn’t want to use a bunch of stickers in it as it would just end up bulking it up. I also wasn’t loving the paper. I did look around for an alternative but getting one in the size I wanted was proving to be difficult so rather than waste time searching, I went the DIY route again.

I got myself a B6 Archer & Olive notebook. I’m already using them for my bujo and daily journal and I love the paper so it was a no-brainer to use it for this. I was debating between getting the B6 and the Travelers Notebook but I knew that the TN had more pages than I really needed and I wanted something compact so I went with the B6.

The B6 only comes with 112 pages which gave me just enough pages for a title and end page, a future log double spread, 53 weeks worth of double spreads and a double spread space for any appointments for next week.

Here are my title, future log and next year appointment spreads:

Here’s how my weekly looks when it’s empty:

I drew a grid with a space for appointments and to do lists for each day of the week. The box labeled “This Week” is where I list holidays, birthdays and anniversaries. The box labeled “Notes” is where I list whether I’m working from home or the office and other general stuff. The empty space in the bottom right hand corner is for me to add a doodle.

All the days, dates, titles and mini calendar were stamped. I used the same colour scheme I’m using in both my bujo and my daily and I’ll be using the same theme that I’m using in my daily to draw my doodles. I will add the doodles either every week or every month. There’s my little creative spark in this planner.

Here’s this week’s layout so you can see how I’m using it. No appointments this week though but they would be in the box that the days/dates are in. Don’t mind the correction tape – I had a big ink smudge there and I wanted a clean space.