Wednesday, October 22, 2014

TIP TUESDAY: How To Organise Your Planner


As promised, today's post is about how to stay organised in your planner. I thought I'd whip out my much-neglected Lilly Pulitzer Agenda & set up a few fake pages. I know, I know, faking pages is cheating, but I didn't have any uni things going on at the moment & I thought that planners would be most effective to help with school work and whatnot, so you understand, right? :-)

First off, these are my planner essentials. Washi tape, stickers, post-it notes, coloured markers & highlighters. A lot of planners have pockets for you to keep your bits & bobs so stickers fit nicely in there, as well as notes from school or important receipts & papers from work. The Marvy Uchida Le Pens are nice & thin, fitting nicely into my pencil case, as well as the Stabilo highlighters. I'm the kind of person who LOVES to use colour for anything & everything. In my opinion, they're great for colour-coding your subjects or allocating various things to different colours. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto pens are also great for those with limited pencil case space :-)


Monthly calendars often have space on the side for To Do lists. Sometimes I like to put my colour-coding system there to remind me which colours are for what. And this way, you can change them up each month if things happen to change (different subjects, extra curricular activities, etc). Washi tape is also great for highlighting/blocking out holidays or special dates.


While I'm doing my homework, if there are questions I want to ask teachers about, I write them all on a post-it note & stick them in my planner to ask at school. Post-it's are great because you can just stick them anywhere & throw them away once you're done with them (or keep them to make your pages pretty & colourful :D)

If you're not a colourful pen user, you can use highlighters to add a little bit of colour while helping you still colour code. I did this before & liked it quite a bit. It kept things simple yet colourful & organised without being too over-the-top. And some highlighters could bleed through the page or be too neon-y so sometimes I like to go back to the good old coloured pencils.



As you can see here, I assigned my subjects different colours so that anything I had to do for that particular class can be written in that colour throughout my pages. ☑︎ Check boxes are also a great way for you to keep track of what you need to do. And let's face it, that feeling you get when you tick things off is oh-so-satisfying. I tend to use check boxes for things I need to do & stars or bullet points for reminders or meetings, etc.



And your planner doesn't have to be strictly for work or school. I like to almost use it as a journal in some way, recounting things I did that day. For example, date night got a special little sticky note :D And I like to go all out for birthdays & holidays as well.



Having a planner can be really fun. I remember getting my first Filofax and being so excited to use it whenever I could. And that actually distracted me from my studies quite a bit, having the opposite effect a planner should have. Not to mention, I spent my days on Instagram & Pinterest, stalking amazing photos of planners and getting inspiration. So I think there needs to be a balance. Balance is so important in everyday life, and I guess once you get over the initial hype, you really do start to use it effectively & get the most out of it.

I hope this somewhat helped you to get an idea of how you might want to set up your planner & stay organised. I'd love to hear your thoughts & tips on how to organise your planner so please leave them down below.

Love Always,
Anna Banana ♡

10 comments:

  1. Excellent ideas! I absolutely love your blog. Your pages are so pretty and practical at the same time. I'm still new to this planner stuff but am thoroughly enjoying the process so far. And yes, finding balance is important. It is very easy to get side-tracked when you have more "fun" things to do :-)

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    1. Aww thank you! You're so sweet! And haha, that's so true! I hope you have just the right amount of fun with your planning :D (...maybe a little more :P) xx

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  2. It is super easy to get all caught in up the "inspiration" photos floating about the internet! Makes me wish I had more things going on, just to use my planner better!
    Your color-coding system is amazing!
    I think the best planning tip ever is finding the right system for how to plan things. Some people keep their daily pages as a journal, and some keep just important reminders. The beauty of a planner with rings (like a Filofax) is that you are able to change out the pages to whatever you need it to be for you. For myself, I have a separate journal, so my planner has just weekly pages instead of daily ones, that's just to keep note of what needs to be done on those days (blog plans, dinner, and places I need to be).

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    1. I agree with you completely! And everyone would have their own planning system that works for them - maybe not for others, but as long as it helps you get organised, it's done it's job :D I love your way of having separate journals as well & am actually thinking of starting journaling. Thanks for your awesome comment! xx

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  3. I've read a lot of "How to Organise Your Planner/Agenda" but I find yours one of the best. It was simple yet informative. I'll be buying my first Lilly agenda this summer and I can't wait to start planning. . I actually wish I had one for last year because if look at my phone calendar its absolutely full haha. I think I'll bookmark your page for future reference. And btw I really love your handwriting, its small and neat (the complete opposite of mine lol :).

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    1. Oh, thank you so much! You are just too too sweet! Unfortunately I haven't been posting as much lately but plan to (eventually). I hope you enjoy your Lilly Agenda! I absolutely loved mine. Hahaha I used to rely on technology as well until I forgot due dates because I just couldn't see it and have learnt my lesson :D xx

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  4. Woooowwww
    Is that your handwriting...It's freaking sooo beautiful !!!! ♥_♥

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    1. Aww thank you so much! I feel so bad for replying to your comment so late when you left such a sweet comment! Thanks again! xx

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  5. I love your handwriting its so nice !!

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