I am a firm believer that planning your life helps you to be a better your and comply with your life goals. To be honest, until two yeas ago I did not used planners to plan goals, my daily tasks, or a budget. The only thing I used a planner was to keep track of tests and due dates for essays. Ever since I began using my planner, I find that I am more productive in several aspects of my life.
While I was bullet journaling, I became quite into goal setting and blog management. I had sections on my bullet journal dedicated to these aspects of my life. However, I was done with bullet journaling and now I am back into planners. Lately, I am using a bunch of different planners to keep track of those several aspects of my life. You don’t have to use this many planners, but I do think that by organizing your life is the easiest to accomplish your goals. On this post i discuss how to plan your life. Check my last Bullet Journal set up here.
PERSONAL LIFE
To plan my personal life I am currently using the Brilliant monthly/weekly planner by mochi things. I am planning on getting the Erin Condren Life planner for 2019, but meanwhile i am waiting to finish this one. What I like about this planner it its simplicity. It has a line in the middle in the week to separate your day into AM and PM. I used to use the AM for my personal life and the PM for work related stuff. However, I decided to get a different planner for work related staff mostly because when I was looking at my personal stuff when I was either off of work on during the weekends i would feels stressed and anxious to even think I had to turn in 5 reports by the middle of the month.
On the monthly set up, I plan my appointments, birthdays, goals for the month, tasks for the month, weekly hours worked and pay days. This planner has space for two years, and because i only used this planner from August to December 2019, I use the rest of the calendars as a habit tracker.
On my weekly set up, I keep track of when I am allowed to buy coffee during the week (I am on a tight budget over here!). I plan my to do for the week, my goals and lunch menu, mini shopping list and the blog posts I have to write.
WORK
As I mentioned previously, I used to use my personal planner for work as well. However, I find that when I plan my personal life I don’t like to do at the things I have to do for work, because I get stressed. I rather keep my work life from my personal life and maintain that clear division.
For my work planner i use this Bando Planner. The reason why I chose this planner for work is because it is fun and it makes me happy when I look at it. Thus, if I am happy I will want to work more right? right? The planner came with stickers, but I rather use the stickers on my personal planner than the work planner. This planner will last until August 2019.
On my monthly calendar, I have meetings, when my reports are due and important deadlines. On the weekly set up I have the to-do for the work day, such as making phone calls, rescheduling clients. Lastly, submitting the weekly things I have to turn in every Thursday and Monday.
BUDGET
Lately, I have OBSESSING over my budget and financial situation. In the current state of affairs I have to keep track on everything I spend my money on and payments. After watching 1000 budgeting videos on youtube, I decided to buy my own budget planner. I looked over 5 planners but at the end I chose the Erin Condren Deluxe monthly. I like having a special space to keep track of all budgeting and money things together.
On this planner, I have my monthly budgets, and within the months I have my bi-weekly paychecks break down. At the end, I created set ups to keep track of my debt, my debt snowball and payment plans.
BLOG/YOUTUBE
For my blog/youtube planning, I use a binder. On it I have monthly calendar printables and trackers I found on Pinterest meant to plan and keep track of posts and videos. Check it out here and another one here. I only use the calendar and the trackers because i have no use for the other stuff. On my calendar, I usually use post it stickers because sometimes posts or videos are not set on stone and I have to move them around.
After this section, I have a bunch of binder paper to write down outfit ideas. After my “notes” section is my fashion posts shopping list. The fashion post shopping list is only for clothing items I need to create my content. Being a fashion blogger is a little more difficult due to the amount of clothing one has to buy, as well as to keep track of trends. So a shopping list of specific clothing items for the season is necessary.
ICALENDAR
The Icalendar is also a big part of planning my blog and youtube channel content. On the Icalendar I usually pre- plan posts and videos before writing them down on the paper calendar on the binder. The Icalendar allows me to move things around easily and write notes on what I am thinking on doing with a future post. I separate the videos and blog posts by color, for example lifestyle posts are blue, and fashion posts are pink. Youtube videos are purple and the green is for “maybe” posts or videos that I am debating on doing or not.
and that is it for my planning methods. So far I really like how everything is going. I really like the fact that I am separating my personal life from work. My personal life, blog, youtube and budget are going to mix nonetheless, but I am ok with that.
THE NOTEPAD
Due to my personal planner being so small often times I do not have enough space to write my full To-Do list. So in the mornings, I write everything I have to do for the week on a mini notepad. Then, I separate the tasks and assign a day to each one. This is how i keep track of smaller things than can go unnoticed. Also, on the notepad, I have a “general” to do for the weekend.
