For the past two years, I used a Sugar Paper for Target planner for all of my goal-setting, to-dos, and daily planning. I’d switched when I was unable to find another favorite planner of mine, and I discovered that the weekly layout with a facing weekly planning page was exactly how my brain worked! When I went to buy one for 2018, I made the sad discovery that they weren’t selling that planner through Target any more! I had fallen in love with the weekly layout, and the planners directly sold from Sugar Paper didn’t even meet my needs 😉
As I discussed this “tragedy” with Husband, he suggested that I make my own. He even volunteered to set up an Excel spreadsheet to auto-populate the dates onto the weekly pages and calendar spreads so that I wouldn’t have to do it by hand. In fact, he went so far as to program it so that I can enter any year, and it will calculate the proper dates! Hooray! He really is amazing.
Not only that, but he helped me fine-tune the margins and cell sizes so that it prints out just right. I decided to make a half-letter sized planner and use the Staples Arc system to bind it (I purchased THIS punch–affiliate link). In past years, I stuffed all sorts of bits and pieces into my planners and they ended up bulging in an unsightly way with extra papers (and then they’d fall out if I dropped the planner…). I purchased a set of Arc covers and the largest discs I could get so that it has plenty of room to grow. I’ve already added several bits and pieces (notes from my daughter, slips of paper with school information, ephemera stapled to patterned paper, and cards…) and it makes me so happy to see them as I flip back. I love that these bits of life are now part of the planner in a sleek way.
After lots of fussing with the layout and fonts, I finally reached a look that satisfied me. I took my favorite aspects of the two planners I’d loved and some modifications that I’d been making to them and mashed them all together.
At the front of the planner, I have a year-at-a-glance calendar that I modified from HERE. Because it wasn’t quite the right aspect ratio for what I needed, I took a screen shot of the .pdf and re-created the title with fonts that match the rest of my planner.
Each month starts with a notes page, which I am using to keep track of the things I accomplish during that month. On the facing page, I have a planning page to help me keep track of my intentions for that month in each of a number of categories: scrapbook (memory keeping), sew, home, and health. I also have a spot for important dates and a box where I can make notes for future goals and hopes — the ones I want to get to but aren’t reasonable for that month.
Right after that comes the month’s grid. In a future iteration, I hope to have the boxes programmed with conditional formatting so that the borders show up only if there is a number inside… but for now, I might add pretty patterned paper to the blank boxes… maybe! These pages are printed on card stock, so they serve as a bit of a divider. I may add little tabs (maybe with matching patterned paper??), as well.
Each week has a planning page and a week-at-a-glance page that I use to keep track of my daily to-do list and appointments, etc.
It took me until almost the end of January to get everything in order, but I was using test pages from the beginning of the year, and that really helped me work out some of the finer details before I printed everything. I am really, really happy with how this turned out! I am so very grateful for Husband’s help! This wouldn’t have come together without him.
I finished my dress! I will publish a post about it soon! (I also bought one for my trip…and some fabric to make a couple more summery garments.)
