January 2017 Planner Situation

**Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with The Happy Planner and have not been compensated with free product for this post. These items have been purchased by me and this is my personal opinion on these items.**

Seeing that January is almost over, it might be a little late to post the 2017 planner situation. BUT it's never too late for planners in my book!

I've changed up things a lot since last year. There are just too many things to try out and sometimes when life changes, you have to change too. And as long as it works, that's what matters.

Back in 2015, I was SUPER into bullet journaling. You can check that out here.

Then beginning in 2016, it modified to this.

And later last year, I discovered the ring binders from Michael's Recollections line and things changed again to this.

As you can tell, there's always planners happening in my life in some way, shape, or form.

2017 has brought changes again.

The opening picture shows my two main planners - the large Happy Planner and the classic Happy Planner are my baes this year.

The classic is my personal planner. I keep up with my to-dos, events, appointments, and play around with decorating in it.

I'll let you have a peek inside.

I posted these pics in the last post about goals, but here they are again because they live right inside the front cover.

I like them right there so they're the first thing I see in the morning. Nothing like a good goal reminder each day. 

Now to see some spreads.

Here's how I've been having fun. 

Here's a half-week look.

Here's last week - AKA: When my FitBit gave up the ghost. RIP, Charge. You served me well. *sob* 

Here's a peek at the monthly spread for February. I'm still filling it out as things come up, so it's a work in progress.

And a "before the pen" shot. Y'ALL. I can't even express how hard it is for me to NOT write on a week to take one of these blank shots. This is where my obscene stash of page flags and post-it notes comes in handy. This was so monumental, I had to document it on Instagram.

Before you go all Sweet Brown on me and say, "Whoa. All those stickers?? Seriously?"

via GIPHY

That's perfectly fine. You don't HAVE to decorate your planner. It's not mandatory. I personally do it to relax. I love stickers, color, and little things that express my personality as well as inspire me to do all the adulting I've written down. Here's what a virgin weekly spread looks like.

It's still cute. There are more minimal versions of The Happy Planner out there, but y'all, I gots ta have some color in my life. GOTS TA!


Now I don't make my work planner all cute. It's strictly for getting stuff done.

I've looked and looked for examples of how The Happy Planner can be used as a work planner, but I came up empty-handed. Or empty-search engined might actually be a better way to word that.

SOOOOOOO

I thought I would show you how I use the same style of layout to work for my entrepreneur life.

Here's a monthly view. I'll be adding my monthly goals along the left sidebar so they're easy to find and glance at when I need to kick my booty in gear. The things that are concrete are already added. Impromptu events, conference calls, product release dates, etc. will be added as they come up.

This is how I've modified the weekly view.

If you're new to the planner realm and wondering why the days are split up into 3 separate sections, that's for Morning, Afternoon, Evening. Some companies actually label them as such, but I just washi taped over it. I like skipping that step. DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!! YOU'RE NOT MY MOM!!

So on my weekly layout, I use the top section for daily to-dos. Basically, my daily action items. That can be posting on FB or IG, writing a blog post, recording a video, sending out a newsletter about new product info, emailing... all that good stuff. I sectioned the bottom of that area off to track new social media followers for each day.

The middle section is devoted to calls. Conference calls, following up with customers, calls with my leader or team. Then any new team members we add goes by the purple arrow. The green exclamation points are to track daily sales and website traffic.

That bottom section is for keeping track of who I contacted that day.

Simple, but takes care of so much on two pages. I like simple.

NOW I know you're wondering, "Did you just turn your back on bullet journaling?"

Nope. I just do it in a different way.

"Enlighten me!"


via GIPHY


As my kids would say when they were smaller, "Prepare to be DA-MAZED!"

I no longer bullet journal on a daily basis. I save that for the unholy busy days where I need my own clone army. That's when I pull out the fantasmaglorious Happy Planner insert pages.

VOILA!

Here's where it gets a little weird. I like to use the insert sheets for the Mini HP instead of the Classic size.

WHY?

Because I like to see my weekly page behind the list. Yeah, I'm a weirdo. You guys HAVE read this blog before, right??

So here are the inserts. They're all pre-punched so you can just pop them right on the rings when you're ready. There's regular lined paper. It's lined on both sides. I like these for longer lists. This is also what I have my goals written on in the picture up there. **Points back up**

 These little dudes are the coolest little inserts. These are sectioned out for hourly things and a checklist with pre-made boxes to check. I'm a sucker for check boxes. The Brain Dump side is what the back looks like. Super cute.

These also come in the Classic size. The hourly/checklist ones are slightly different, I believe.

And here's what it looks like using Mini paper with a Classic.

I love how easy it is to pull it out and add it back in. I've never liked disc-bound planners until this year. I guess I've matured. Good grief. Don't let that get around. *shudders*

So that is what is going on in my planner world. If you made it to the end of this post, you get a sticker. You don't have to put it in your planner if you don't want to.

Do You Set Yearly Goals?

I fully intended to have this post out two weeks ago, but we wound up partying with various plagues. One kid decided to get turnt up with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. So at this point, it looks like we're done with germ raves for the time being. Thank you, tiny 8 lbs. 6 oz. Baby Jesus!

I prefer to call them goals rather than resolutions. Goals just seem more doable. Resolutions are notoriously kicked under the rug and given up on, but goals... that word just sounds more approachable.

I love setting goals. Yeah, I'm weird. But seriously, who doesn't like a road map of their year, month, or week? I like plans. Planners and plans go hand in hand. Heh. Corny, but true.

So I'm one of those people who wrote goals and set a word for the year. Why? Because ALL THE GOALS AND GOALY THINGS!!

My word for 2016 was "Fearless." I really liked and NEEDED that word. It wasn't a cushy, snuggly, comfort word, it was one that would peek around the corner at me and give me hard stares and snarky comebacks when I tried to second guess myself. Which is like ALL THE TIME on some things. "Fearless" encouraged me to be myself and not worry about people thinking I'm weird and over the top. I mean, I AM, but "Fearless" gave me the guts to not worry about it, accept myself for me, and not over analyze. "Fearless" pushed me forward to do things I wouldn't normally do, like showcase my dorkiness via video on my Facebook page, talk about things I normally wouldn't talk about, and push myself in my business.

"Fearless" wasn't a meek mistress. No, she was the no-nonsense voice mocking me, "You're seriously scared of THAT?! LAAAAAAME!" That scoff earned her the stink-eye a few times, but even though I was muttering curses under my breath, I would drag myself out of my comfort zone and do it. I feel much more confident in many areas because of "Fearless."

I went through 6 or 7-word choices before I finally settled on "Grow" for 2017. It seemed so demure compared to "Fearless," so...Meh until I really thought it all out. "Grow" is a pretty powerful little word to have only 4-letters and it's a 4-letter word you can actually use in polite company. Winning!!

Here's how I plan to "Grow":

"Grow" is going to be my fertilizer for my other goals.

Something about that doesn't sound quite right, BUUUUT I'm going with it anyway.

Personal growth is a big one for me this year. I'm really wanting to read more, learn a new skill, work on my appearance at home, keep my kitchen clean, and work on self-care. Here's a peek at my personal goals for this year. Yep, it's in my planner, along with my reading list.

The whole "work on appearance at home" has been pretty laughable so far. That's definitely one I need to focus on. I blame the revolving door of cooties. You don't really care how you look when you're BFFs with the toilet or tending sick off-spring. Honestly, when I wear "real" clothes, I feel more competent, more confident, motivated, and I know J would like to see a wife that actually resembles the person he asked to marry him 17 years ago. Gotta keep that marriage spark a-flamin', you know. *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

I've also put learning to knit on the back burner too, but that's going to change. I've got my needles, yarn, and tutorial videos all ready for me to sit down and do it. BOOM! Needles ahoy!!

I've also been not so hot about blogging (DUH!!!!!) and trying new recipes. I need to go through the 50 bajillion recipes I've pinned and pull out some things to try out. I'm also considering getting an Instapot in the hopes that it will help pull me out of the cooking rut.

Now I HAVE done great with using what I have in my planner stash and not buying more. That's probably because the majority of the Michael's planner aisle made it's way to my house over the last few weeks of 2016. I still count it a win.

That's where I am with goals for the time being. Anybody else have goals or One Word for 2017? I'd love to hear them.