I’m back!
Hey everybody! I know it’s been a super long time but I just finished finals to wrap up my freshman year of college. I’m back home and have tons of post scheduled for you all that I’m super excited for!
Today I’m going to just briefly go over the three main types of planners that I’ve seen around (not including Erin Condren). These are the three that I have and have tried out and wanted to let you all know a little bit about each. I’ll then go into detail about them in individual posts so that you can get a closer look at each one or the one you’re looking at investing in. Hopefully this helps you see how I use mine and which would work best for you.
They are all great planners, but they’re all going to work best for different lifestyles. I went this year from a bound planner, a day timer, a bullet journal, a Filofax, and then I got a fauxdori that I’m using, just not for planning. I have to stick to planning with my Filofax that I just love.
So these are the three planners. It’s the original organizer patent Filofax in fuchsia, a regular gridded Moleskine hardcover notebook, and a fauxdori I got on Etsy from LeatherPlannersPlus.
The Fauxdori
I had been seeing traveler’s notebooks around everywhere and at first I was like ehh and didn’t think I would ever try it. After seeing a few videos, wanting a place where I could keep several notebooks, and realizing that I did have a purpose I could use it for, I decided to go for it. I liked the idea of the feel of the leather and just being able to throw it in my bag and take it with me and allow it to be messy.
I was really wanting to get a foxidori from the Foxifix but I couldn’t find a time her shop was open and then when I started looking it was just a little too expensive for something that I was just wanting to test out to see if I liked. Her shop is now open much more regularly by the way since she started doing it full time! I was also looking at HappieScrappie but again, could never find when her shop was open with the fauxdori’s available for purchase.
The fauxdori I ended up getting is okay. I’m not an expert at leather and I’ve also never had any other kind of fauxdori. The leather on mine was very stiff and although it’s loosening up, I still don’t think it’s ideal for me. After watching a video on YouTube from MissVickybee I really think I’d like to get the fauxdori that CodyWms makes. The elastic on mine was also very thin too. However, the shop I got mine from did offer a wide range of beautiful colors for leather and I think is a great place to go if you’re trying to test out the system to see if it’s something you’d even want to invest more money in.
The Moleskine Bullet Journal
I had seen a bunch of pictures on Pinterest of people just using a notebook as a planner/daily to-do list. I had seen the term bullet journal tossed around a lot and looked it up. This video and website has everything simply and beautifully explained about the basics of what a bullet journal is. The great thing about a bullet journal is you can customize it to do what you need it to while at the same time keeping everything simple with just needing your journal and paper.
I saved up my money and bought a standard regular size, gridded, hardcover Moleskine to use. I drew inspiration from a bunch of different pictures I’d seen and spent the whole night setting it up. I loved it and it works beautifully. I think it would work best for people who have one thing they need to focus on or not a whole lot of extra stuff to worry about scheduling. As a full time student and editor at my school’s newspaper it just wasn’t working for me to easily be able to see my up coming assignments and keep track of all the things I had to get done for the different aspects of my life. It got all jumbled up for the very reason I loved the bullet journal, you just write whatever you need on the next available page.
I just needed more compartments, a space for homework and my job and lists, just keeping all the things I had going on separate. However, now that it’s summer I might go back to it for the easy and productive list making it lets me do since I don’t have a ton of forward planning. The Moleskine itself was great. I had saved up a little money so I could purchase it and I love it. Any journal you have available would work for this though, and that’s the beauty of it.
The Filofax
Let me tell you, I had been eyeing this for a long time. I got sucked in to the planner world with all the pretty pictures on Pinterest and the videos on YouTube. I was had an itch I had to scratch so I went to the Office Depot next to my school (so very dangerous for that to be so close) and got a purple Flavia DayTimer in an A5 size. I was so excited and I had my own dividers and everything else made and set up quickly. It wasn’t great because I didn’t have too much money to spend on purchasing different inserts but with some washi tape I made it work.
But then Christmas came along and I used some of the money I received to purchase my personal Fuschia original patent Filofax. I was, and am still, in love. I got the personal size to have something a little easier to throw into my bag. I used the rest of my money to get dividers and inserts off of Etsy along with some page markers. I’ve changed around the inside a lot, and that’s the great thing about it! I can try something out and if it doesn’t work I can simply try something else very easily.
I am still searching for planner peace. I must confess that after over a year of eyeing the Erin Condren’s I broke down and bought it when they released the 2016 planners. That was what got me looking at all these planners in the first place and I figured if I’ve been thinking about and wanting something for so long that it would be worth it to get.
I’m going to try using it with the coil it is bound in for a while. But I’m hoping to save up and get an A5 turquoise domino Filofax to put my Erin Condren inside. I ultimately think that that is going to work best for me and then just sticking in a to do list from a note pad each day because check lists are the only reason I get anything done! Having it be in a Filofax with allow me to still have a separate section for notes and lists as well as anything else I might need.
I’ve loved and disliked each of these planning systems in different ways and I hope this gave you a bit of insight on how and why to help you decide which might be best for you.
How about you? What planning system are you using at the moment?
I personally have been using a bullet journal (which is more of a system for notation… e.g. can be used inside a Midori notebook, etc.)… I am using a Leuchtturm1917, which is seriously an upgrade to the standard Moleskine types…
The system is flexible enough and everything is there as record. Everything is ephemeral but at the same time reviewable and archivable. If you don’t intersperse your daily logs with collections (lists of things, brainstorming ideas, structured notes, etc.) then you are missing out and just making a cheap freeform planner.
I even (on a weekly basis) scan my new pages (and any that I updated, since I datestamp collection pages with the last time I “touched” them). So I have a mostly up to date copy in my OneNote on my computer and online. Between that and a very well-maintained Google calendar for reminders (yes, info in two places… but works really well for me), I am able to capture most everything. Still training myself with the system after a few months of using it, but very happy.
When I fill up this first one in the next couple of months, I will likely make sure I have a good scan and put it on my bookshelf in my office (at least until I run out of space). I can fill 2-3 notebooks a year at this rate, so should be an interesting objective archive of what I was working on. I would say, if you a personal, narrative journal sort, keep a second journal or use a Midori (with one for bullet journal, one for writing). Otherwise, you’ll fill it up and headings and bullets make things easy to locate… prose may make it seem hard to find things without looking through the table of contents.