Finding the right planner setup: part 2- First set up in compact wine Holborn

So this is the set up that I had at the beginning of this year. Not much has changed actually other than trying different inserts (more on that in up coming posts). 

So in the front I usually kept my school ID card and bank cards. This worked for a while but I found it not to be so handy because sometimes I would use cash (I’m trying to use cash more) and I didn’t have a quick place to put the change that I received. I carry a small coin purse around but then I found that trying to put the receipt in the planner, then take out the coin purse to put the coins in, and also quickly get my groceries packed so as not to hold up the line, was just too cumbersome.  

Also in the front is a nice dashboard and I have paper clipped some papers which are already punched. This spare paper is the scraps from printing and cutting out the lime tree fruits free printable. I can’t find the exact place where I downloaded it but here is  link to another weekly free printable that you can get from her. With these scraps, I could insert more weekly to-do lists when I had an especially busy week. And also be able to move it on to the next week if I didn’t complete any of the tasks, instead of rewriting them.Behind the dashboard are more sticky notes where I make quick grocery lists and other notes.

Next came my FF planner stickers and colour dots that I used in my month of two pages. This section is one that I refer to often. I like that I can glance at my month and see what is going on. If i’m free or not to do a gig, if a holiday is coming up, or any birthdays that I need to prepare for.

The month on two pages inserts shown above come from Scattered Quirrel. She also makes some really nice inserts for free that you can find here. Whilst I like the colourful nature of her printables, what I don’t like is the fact that the week starts on a sunday instead of a monday. So I continued to search and decided to print the ones that you can find on the Philofaxy website.

I only printed up to august because I’m hoping that I will find some colourful month to view inserts that start on a monday. But for now, this will do. I have yet to use it since the Philofaxy inserts only begin from april. Will let you know how that works out. I can already tell I will miss the extra space that the Scattered squirrel has around the dates, because I use that space to write my goals for that month.

Above you can see where I first tried out the StudioL2e stamp set. I will have to practice more to do it nicely. But I like that it gives me guidelines to write. On the other hand, I found that on really busy days, the lines restrict my writing space. And also, on not so busy days, I don’t like that there are just lines there :p. Picky, I know.

You can also see the Lime tree fruits that I had printed and prepared to use when school really started for the new year. I wanted to test the inserts on a normal week and not during a holiday. Although I could fit 6 months on the rings (really stuffing it) I decided to only have 3 months worth of week on two pages in the planner at one time.

The next sections in the planner were my financial section where I would track my spending. My contact sheets where I put most used contacts and also, phone numbers of people for my work. And at the back, I had credit/business card plastic sleeves. These were there for when I decided to use the planner as a wallet on the weekends. Usually I am at a more relaxed pace and not in the need to rush :).

A simple set up, and it worked for the most part. However, I was missing the ability to manage and track how I spent my time. So back to the drawing table…

Next I will show you how the Lime Tree Fruits inserts worked out.