Hi friends!
Happy 2018!! The beginning of a new year is always so fresh & exciting..especially when you’ve got a brand spankin’ new planner to go to town with! 🙂
For the past few years I’ve been using an Erin Condren planner. They’re really pretty, do provide a good organized layout, but they just weren’t enough for me. There was almost too much blank space – I need a little more structure in a planner to keep me on track with using it daily. You know what I mean? Some people love decorating their planners & really making each weeks look pretty & customized, but that is just not my thing lol. I wish I enjoyed doing that more!
So…towards the end of 2017, I was on the hunt for the BEST planner I could find, for the needs I had. I wanted something that had an hourly layout (EC planners do offer this btw, I just never got those ones), tons and tons of space on each page for to-do lists & reminders, a monthly layout (duh), BUT it was also important for me to have a place to write out goals, projects, and my vision for the upcoming future. As someone who works for herself, it really helps me to physically write out not only what I want to accomplish, but what I want my life to look like (manifesting, hello!) so I really wanted to find a planner that would encompass all of these things.
I actually asked you guys on an instagram post if you could share your favorite planners – and I got SO many amazing responses! If you’re still on the hunt for a good planner, def check out that post because there are sooo many good options. Anyway – I allllmost pulled the trigger on the Day Designer (I really do like that planner) but then came across the Start Planner on insta – and bingo! I found my perfect match. (This is in no way sponsored, BTW!)
The Start Planner has a few different planners to choose from, they have planners for students, wedding planners, the ‘Fancy Pants’ planner which comes in a binder, and then the Hustle planner which is what I chose! The Hustle also comes in a weekly or daily layout – I got the weekly one. (You can see them all here)
So, let’s get into it! You GUYS, I love this planner. Not only did it check all of the boxes for things I was looking for (including goal setting/tracking pages) but wait…there’s more! SO much more. It also has tons of pages to track:
- Home responsibilities (anywhere from change the sheets to cleaning the fridge to pruning trees & bushes..they thought of everything lol)
- Budget
- Volunteering/donations
- Medical expenses
- Entertainment (think lists for movies, books, restaurants to check out etc)
- Travel planning
- Holiday budget
- Groceries
- Gifting
Like what?? Can you imagine having ALL of those things written down, in one place, where they can be checked off? #GOALS And also just a fun side note…there’s pretty much a little box in every space that you can check off for each of these…so. freakin. cathartic. All the praise hands!!
Another thing I love is that at the beginning of each month, along with a full 2 page calendar (with room for to-do list on the side), there is:
- A full blank page for notes
- A page for 3 ‘mini’ goals for the month (including space for goal date & for action steps to take)
- A ‘cards & gifts’ section where you can keep track of the recipient, event, date, and when it was bought & sent
- A page for a monthly income, expenses, and budget
- A ‘punch list’ which is basically a big blank monthly to-do list with boxes you can check off!
As far as the weekly layout, each day is laid out Sun-Sat with time slots from 6am-8pm. There is also 9 extra spaces (with check boxes, woo!) below the time slots for each day for a to-do list. I LOVE this feature because I’m crazy and sometimes don’t like to write something in a time slot when I know it won’t be done at that time OR if I know I don’t need a full hour time slot to complete it. Is that nuts? Probably lol. So I like that I can have a to-do list for random things for each day (ex. insta posts, insta story, walk Rosie, laundry, clean up kitchen, plan out dinners) alongside scheduled out tasks for the day, and I can check those things off as I get them done.
On the weekly layout, there is always space for:
- Top 3 priorities for the week (love this!!)
- Space for weekly to-do’s (and yup, it’s got check boxes!!)
- A place to track water & AM/PM supplement intake, as well as a checkbox for exercise
- Reminders to schedule out seasonal home tasks, when applicable
I really feel like this planner thought of everything. And I love that it combines both the ability to track work tasks/goals as well as home tasks on top of typical daily & weekly tasks. For someone who runs her own business and household, this planner is everything I could ask for!!
xx Becca