New Year, New Planner

Well, here we are -- already a whole week into the new year. How did that happen? And of course, a new year means a new planner and a new diary. For me, those are two separate entities: My planner is just for future planning, appointments, schedules; my diary is for noting what actually happens on a daily basis. And I'm talking paper here -- I've tried the digital route, but it just doesn't work for me. I need to write things down.

I have trouble sticking with any ONE planner for a whole year, and tend to switch every few months. Sometimes that's confusing, but it does keep things from getting boring. For the last several years I've been switching back and forth between my various Filofaxes and the Erin Condren Life Planners. I started off 2014 with the Erin Condren, but after a few months I decided to try my personal size Finsbury Filo, and ended up sticking with that for the whole second half of the year. It was super convenient -- I was able to have both my planner and my diary in one very portable book, just by using different divisions (monthly, weekly, daily).  But two things bothered me: There wasn't much space for writing my daily notes, and I missed the colorful content of the Life Planners -- Filo pages are pretty dull if, like me, you're not really into doing a lot of decorating.

So for 2015, I've gone back to Erin Condren, at least to start the year; we'll see how long I last. As usual, I had a hard time deciding on the cover design -- you can do quite a bit of customizing with these planners. I finally came up with a very simple black and white design that I was sure I'd love -- until I actually saw it. When I saw the planner "in person," it was just too stark (and actually sort of funereal).

Taffy cover design in black and white

But the EC covers are now interchangeable (!) so I was able to order a new cover set to replace the first one I ordered. The new one is much more colorful and much more fun to look at everyday.

Fleur Feliz cover design in teal and white

And for my daily notes, here's what I'm using in 2015:

Yes, that's Snoopy under the strap!

It's a Moleskine large daily planner in the Peanuts Limited Edition. It has one page for each day of the year, in a size that's big enough (5 x 8.5) for me to write down all the stuff I write everyday, but small enough to cart around easily. And I'm hoping that since I really love Snoopy and Charlie Brown and all their crew, I'll be inspired to stick with it all year.

And just for the record: I'm in no way affiliated with the Erin Condren folks, Filofax, or Moleskine. I just enjoy using their products.