Hi everyone, it’s Ardyth and I’m here to talk about being a planner newbie!
Like many people, I struggle to keep my life organized – family events and appointments, cardmaking and video making deadlines, all the stuff that we all need to keep track of every day.
I love my electronic calendar with its alarms and email reminders, but I also craved something visual that I could easily make notes in, especially when I was sitting down to plan my work each week.
I bought the Catherine Pooler Canvo which is a bullet journal rather than a planner, which means that the pages have tiny dots for lining things up, or you can ignore them and go completely free-form. These pages give the opportunity for the ultimate in customization – you can use this journal however you want! Here are some examples of things I’ve seen other than calendars:-habit tracking-mood tracking-meal planning-tracking spending or saving
The important thing is that you can personalize it in a way that works for you – so that you will actually use it! I used some big Altenew die cut letters and alcohol inks on Yupo to personalize the front of my Canvo.
It is a nice size and has lovely thick paper, so if you do choose to stamp and colour, it won’t bleed through. The pages are pre-numbered so you can easily create an index and find things.
Catherine has a line of stamps and stencils as well as mini ink pads developed specifically for the Canvo but you can use what you have already, or find a planner line that works for you. there’s lots out there. Ellen Hutson carries the full Catherine Pooler Canvo line, and many other planner goodies!
I knew I wanted to use it primarily as a calendar and planner. I started by creating a monthly layout and a weekly lay out and I did all of January and February.
As you can see, I never used the January monthly layout – I’m too lazy to write things down in two places and I find it easy enough to flip through the weeks to get a sense of what’s coming up.
So from now on, I won’t bother with that, I will just do a weekly layout. I’m still in search of my ‘perfect’ weekly layout – I would love it on one page, as long as it has enough space for all my notes. So I’m exploring options. I don’t worry about whether anything is perfect – I can change it again next week.
Although I use my planner primarily as a functional tool, that doesn’t mean it can’t also be pretty. I have blended ink on the top borders of the pages so I can easily see where my month changes from January to February to March. I’ve used happy rainbow colours to stamp the days, and keep it feeling happy and colorful.
One of my favourite pages in my Canvo is my Cheat Sheet.
I saw this online somewhere, and I find it so useful – I’ve written down how many dots and lines are on each page, and the counts of my favourite layouts so I’m not counting all the time, as well as the colours and fonts I use on videos and blog posts.
I’ve also designated some pages for my wishlist – as you can see Creativation left me with a rather long list!
There are a ton of resources out there – ideas for layouts, things to track. I definitely recommend starting a Pinterest board to keep track of ideas you see out there and think about how to use them in a way that makes the most sense for you!
As I start to dabble in this new-to-me world, I have realized two main things:
- I need to take my time and make the planner work for me – tweaking layouts and adjusting as I learn – everyone will use it differently, and that’s the best part!
- Not to worry about it being absolutely perfect – I can just turn the page and start over and it’s FUN!
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