The Call Of The Planners

Is it just me, or do you love to buy planners and organizers? Do you stand in front of the shelf with the calendars and planners looking at them all, wondering which one would work best for you? Do you buy more than one or just stick with one?

I love to feel organized. In fact, I am actually a very organized person. And planners are very helpful in organizing. They are also great for quick journaling.

You can buy calendars and organizers all year around. But there is usually more variety to choose from around the end of the year, and the middle of the year when school is close to beginning.

Not all the Same

Not all calendars and organizers are the same. You can get empty ones where you have to fill in the dates. These are nice if you happen to get one during an off time, like the middle of March, or sometime in September. Some start from the beginning of January. Others start around June and work great for school years.

Some of them are more focused on daily activities, while others give more focus to a week at a time. There are some that are more specialized, focusing on different aspects of a person’s life, such as finances or gratitude.

I admit to using more than one at a time. I have one that I use to log my health journey. Each day I log my sleep record for the night, my weight, and my morning / evening blood pressure and heart rate. In another, I keep a record of things to do, places to go, and the major events of the day that I want to remember.

This year I have one I am using as a gratitude journal. I am using it to mark major happy points, highlights in my health journey that I want to remember, and anything I am happy or excited about. Still another I use for just my writing work and planning. Keeping it separate helps to keep that part of my life separate from my personal life.

I do have an online calendar/planner that coordinates between my laptop and my phone. It’s nice to have that one so I can take a quick glance at my phone and know which appointments are coming due. That one contains only action items to prevent too much clutter in the calendar.

How Many Is Too Many

One might think having so many planners gets to be too much or too confusing. For me, not having the separate planners would feel too confusing. There’s too much information for one planner to keep track of.  It would all be muddled. Having separate books for different topics makes it much easier to access the information I want right away.

I’ve kept yearly planners for as long as I can remember. When I was working at the glass factory, I needed one to keep track of my working days. We worked an odd rotating schedule, such that you needed a marked calendar to know in advance if you worked a certain date or not.

I’ve never been good at keeping up with a wall calendar. Anyone who knows me will tell you it’s not unusual to have seen my wall calendars about 3 months behind. But, I keep my personal planner or pocket calendar updated with the most current information and dates of the upcoming appointments.

Sometimes I think I like the planner aisle, and the pen aisle, and the office supply aisle in the stores because they are all tools to organize. In my mind, these tools will help me get my life organized as I want it to be. I’m always drawn to buying new pens, notebooks, and planners, dreaming up ways to use them to organize my life.

If only it were that easy.