17. Planning. Simplified.

With both kids off at camp today, I had a few moments to myself to sit down and start planning with my new pink (!) Simplified Planner.

Let me first say that I LOVE this planner.  I didn’t know it was possible to love a planner so much, if at all, until I started using this one today.

So what is it about this planner that is so great?  Well, in the “How to Use Your Simplified Planner”, the planner’s creator, Emily Ley, states, in a variety of ways, that we should be making time for what matters.

And then, before the actual calendar pages start, there’s entire page dedicated to a personal 2016/2017 “Bucket List”.  It was this page that I was working on this afternoon.  I’ve talked before about how I don’t do particularly well with goals.  But making goals in the context of the next year AND what is most important to me, suddenly seemed so much more logical . . . No longer was I simply making a glorified to-do list under the heading “Goals”; I was instead making actual, achievable goals that will further how I want to feel, and how I want our lives (as a family) to feel.

Now, for the calendar part of the planner.  I chose the weekly planner, not the daily one.  This is because I prefer seeing an entire week over a 2-page spread.  And because I plan to use this purely for my “me” time, so it won’t be loaded with family commitments etc.  For each day of the work week, there is a ruled section to write whatever you want, as well as a list section with 7 spots, and a box for meal planning.  I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to use each section, and may even end up using the meal planning box to plan/record workouts.  But regardless of how I end up using it, I love the flexibility it allows, and how well laid out it is.

For the weekends, there is just 1 1/2 ruled sections as well as a checklist to help prepare of the week ahead.

Perhaps I love this planner so much because it puts into a concrete form all the things I’ve been trying to achieve on my own (routines regarding meals, tasks, activities).  Or it’s the fact that it feels so amazing – if you’re a paper person like me . . .this is simply gorgeous.  But of course, it could be the fact that the entire planner is laid out in rainbow colours.

While you can order this from Emily Ley directly, it is far more economical from an exchange rate perspective, to order it from Indigo, which is what I did.

And on that note, I’m off to plan some more of my week!