The Best Way to Prepare for a Great & Organized New Year

I'm a sucker for planners. This time of year is really exciting for me because I get really excited when it comes time to buy a new planner. I've always stuck to the desk planners, but then I came across a few DIY ladies on Pinterest and I had to have my own Filofax. Particularly I love A Bowl Full of Lemons' planner, which she pressents so beautifully! If you haven't seen her blog, please check it out. I want her life! I aspire to be as organized as she is! As of right now, I live in a tiny single wide mobile home with my two kids, two dogs, and husband. It's impossible to be organized! But one day, I will have as organized a life as she has!

(image courtesy giphy.com)

I'm big on organization, mostly because I'm lazy. Everything has to be in its place and easy to get, because I'm too lazy to look for it. Seriously, if something is not in its place, I either turn She-Hulk or I just give up all together. I have to have my day and my month planned because I'm too lazy to think day to day "What do I need to do?"

(image courtesy giphy.com)

I'm constantly telling my students to have a planner, especially those who are in Newspaper. It's so easy to forget a photo shoot. It's easy to forget when Ads are due. Do they listen to me? Hardly. However, I do believe it's partially because they don't like their planners. You have to really love your planner. You have to enjoy looking at the pages and writing things in. For me, I love colorful, bright, vibrant, funny, and pretty! I love pretty paper. When it's 50% off time at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbooking section, everybody stay clear! I love making lists. To-Do Lists. Favorite Lists. Top 10 Lists. The List can go on!

So, I've been excited to share my own Filofax. I brag about it way too much, but it's because it's my own. Most everything in my planner is customized. My filofax is a standard A5 size. It came with inserts and calendars, but I prefer making my own. You can buy a Filofax through the website, or I actually bought mine through Amazon. It wasn't much cheaper, but we're Prime members which means shipping is free!

I plan everything in here. Class lessons. Blogs. Vacations. Calendars. Budgets. I carry it with me mostly everywhere, because I keep everything in there. That said, because I carry it everywhere, and as mentioned before, we live in a small place, I carry my supplies with me. And do so fashionably with that cute makeup bag! ;)

Good quality and fun and bright supplies make me want to use the planner. No they're not as cheap as the standards, but I use my stuff! I wouldn't use my stuff if they were standard paper clips and post it notes. This is literally my make up bag. If you notice the only make up I actually carry is my chapstick! I love those mustache post its! I'm a big fan of fun post its. I literally highlight everything, which people tell me defeats the purpose, but it's color coded! It doesn't matter if it doesn't work for you! It works for me!

I designed my own cover. Hobby Lobby is always having some great half off sales on pretty cardstock paper. I cut the paper down to size, set my printing to A5 and just added my contact information down at the bottom. To make sure it didn't print over the "Do what you love, Love what you do" logo, I scanned the paper and designed over it.

I hope I never lose it, but if I did, hopefully the person who finds it is awesome enough to get in touch with me.

The Filofax comes with it's own little supplies pouch. I usually just carry some extra post its, stickers, and some more pretty paper. I can't get enough pretty paper. Smashbook and Project Life sell some pretty great scrapbooking supplies that can easily be incorporated in your planner.

I made my own dividers and designed my own covers for each month. I'm a fan of Shel Silverstein! Can you tell? He's too funny! I made these covers for each month to write out my goals. These are from this year, so I'm working on my 2016 Planner.

I designed my own inserts, which can easily be done on Microsoft Word. But I actually work off of Adobe InDesign. It's definitely pricey, but I believe they have a membership program now. So as opposed to paying full price at the time of purchase, you can pay a monthly fee. Which I imagine is pretty great because you can always get the updates! Anyways, I used regular copy paper as opposed to cardstock but because it was getting pretty full, I lined the hole punched edges with washi tape, just to make it a little more sturdy.

The other difficult thing about A5 paper is hardly anybody sells it! I actually cut down regular copy paper, but only one page fits. If you just use a half a sheet of paper for your pages, that works fine too and it will save you money. I found this website that sells a wide variety of different size papers. Shipping is a bit pricey, however.

I also carry my budget in here, but that's definitely for a future post! But just to share how pretty it is:

I actually made a customized filofax for my best friend and gave it to her for her birthday. And for me personally, they help me get my life organized and straightened. There's just way too much to think about, so I write my thoughts and appointments and things I need to take care of and just let my planner do the remembering.

This is what my planner looks like halfway through March along with the weekly:

I hope this inspires you all to customize your own planners, whether it be adding your own paper, putting in some washi tape, or color coding! All I can say is: My life is much more organized with it.