If you've been following me on Instagram - @thecraftyscribe, you'll know that I've been using an A5 planner from Personal Planner. I've found this to be invaluable as my desk diary, as the pages are clean, crisp and of high quality. There's plenty of space, with the ability to use it in a way that works for you.
Personal Planner is an on-line company, which allows you to... well, do what their name implies! You can design a planner according to your own specifications from a wide range of options. There are four sizes to choose from, and you can decide exactly the month when you want it to start. Want it to run from June 2015 - May 2016? That's cool! How about September 2015 - August 2016? That's fine, too. More traditional, and you need your planner to do a full year of 2016? That's up to you. Any 12 month period can be chosen. Plus, they deliver worldwide!
1. This is an overview of my planner. Although Personal Planner offers a number of different cover colours and designs, I made my own, using favourite photos, in an Apple Mac app called Collage Factory, and then uploaded the images to Personal Planner. If it's just a single photo you want, you can upload it directly from your computer, or if you have an Instagram account, Personal Planner offer a function to import your favourite photos to create a collage directly on their website. It can't be simpler than that! (You can also choose the colour of elastic for the the closure.)
2. The planner offers the opportunity to add a yearly view over 4 pages - either a single year or two years, e.g: 2015 or 2016 or 2015/2016 or 2016/2017. Plus, an added bonus, you can add personal dates, such as: birthdays and anniversaries, which appear on both the yearly overview and the weekly planner pages.
3. There's a front page for your contact details, and any message you want to add. I included one of my favourite quotes taken from The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann.
4. Then there's the main pages. Personal Planner only offer a weekly view, but this is where the limitation ends! Everything can be personalised from the top colour bar, to the layout (column format, as shown here, and a number of box formats) which can be lined, unlined, shaded one of a number of colours, add an hours-at-work box, exercise workout info, or like me, the weather. Then there's three sections below the daily section, which can be selected as graph, musical score, to-dos, ideas, exams, lists, dinners...
5 and 6. After the calendar pages, you can decide how you want the rest of the planner to look. I have lined and graph papers, along with a contact/address list. Yes, you can input all of your personal contacts and important numbers, and the planner will come to you with it all printed in, and ready to use. If you have quite a few contacts you want added, it can take some time to type it all in, as the database is a little fiddly to use, but once you get the hang of it, it's fine. There's also blank pages, sheet music, sudoku, maps and even colouring pages available to choose from.
If you're a teacher, you'll love the options of the specially designed sections for preschool, primary and subject 1 to 4 classes.
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| screen shot from http://www.personal-planner.co.uk |
You really do need to click onto the 'START HERE' button on the website, and play around with all the options available, to see the full extent of how you can personalise your planner. It's addictive! Oh, and did I mention that there's notebooks available too? ;)
I'm enjoying using my planner. I write everything in it from appointments, daily timetables and to-dos, ideas, record of Instagram uploads, quick reminder notes, and in the notebook section: quotes, long term goals, poems and story ideas. I occasionally play with 'pretty planning' decoration, with stickers and wash-tape, but most of the time. It's just full of my scribbles. The pages have been designed so well, that they are already lovely to look at to begin with.
Are you excited about designing your own planner with Personal Planner? Here's something to help you along the way. Personal Planner has been kind enough to offer a 15% discount code for you to use against your planner or notebook. Please go to http://www.personal-planner.co.uk and use the code: D-BMJQ-SQFJ to obtain your 15% discount. This offer expires on Sunday 3rd May 2015.
Happy Scribing!
(In my next blog post, I'll show you how I turned my Personal Planner into the inserts for my A5 red Cuban Filofax organiser.)
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