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Did I once say I was as close to planner peace as I could get?  Not too long ago, I do believe.  I think it was in June (2022)—and then OneBookJuly came along—which I think I undertook the following month.  And that following month totally wrecked every bit of planner peace I may have had.

Well, I started this October with a PLAN.  I had all my notebooks at the ready and I was prepared. As you can see here.

Let’s see.  Based on that video, I never even cracked open the daily Passion Planner.  I think the day after I made said video, I had already decided I wouldn’t be using it this month and that if I dated it once, I could redate it later, no harm, no foul.  As in, next October, if I so desire.

I also have stopped using the Passion Planner weekly planner.  My GoGetterGirl planner works so much better for me on way more levels…so there was no contest there.

The blue cover is my diary/gratitude log.  I don’t think I have touched this as much either because my GoGetterGirl has a ‘Today I Am Grateful For’ spot at the top of the page.

The spiral binding is my GoGetterGirl and I am so happy with this planner.  I know it is six months in one book, but it is everything I want and need in one place, and I love it.  It has a monthly spread, weekly spreads, and daily spreads, among so many other good things.  I already have a pair ready to re-date for next year, if I need to.  I am keeping an eye out on their 2023 new releases as well, just in case.

The vanilla-colored planner covered I swapped out for a purple jelly cover which I have been loving.  I am still using my bullet journal, but again, the WAY I am using it is beginning to evolve.

In the polka dot cover, I am still working in my SimpleDori Traveler’s Notebook from Cocoa Daisy.  Maybe not every day, but I do tend to sit down every couple of days and play in it over a series of pages.  I have also been using and keeping up with my Reference Journal, Rosalind, which I keep in this cover as well.

Still, my best beloved is my Weeks in the brown faux croc on the top of the pile.  After taking my one insert and creating a writing/publication tracker in it, I found myself…mostly unwilling to keep up with the trackers—because I guess it is just too much work.  So, I am thinking of revamping that insert – it has, I think, 120 pages total of Tomoe River paper, and I have used roughly ten of those pages.  You’re darn right I will be repurposing this baby.  I am madly in love with this paper.

Now, something else happened.  I bought an undated year-long planner (this one).  It is in a second Weeks cover.  I dated it from the beginning of October 2022 all the way to the beginning of October 2023.  Originally, I am not too sure what my plan was with this, other than a year-long dated calendar that I could carry around with me.  What I really need at this point is a Weeks cover with strings—which means I will have to make one myself because I have seen them nowhere at all online, unless I want to throw everything into a regular TN cover and call it a day, which, being the fruit loop that I am, I do not want to do.

Now, in my brown faux croc cover is my PrintPressions hardbound Weeks Daily Layout notebook.  This is my ‘microjournaling’ journal, as well as a bit of a tracker on the daily.  These trackers I have no problem following and keeping up with.  Go figure.  I threw in the Minimalism Art journal that I had (roughly, oh, so roughly—but the best I could do with cat and kid helping and standing over me—and not bad for the first notebook I have ever cut down from A5 to Weeks size)cut down – and I am using that for my daily reflection on one page and my most important to-do list on the other, as well as any random notes that crop up and I need to jot them down (like article ideas).

So, now you are all caught up on where I am and what I am using.

My problem right this minute is: I feel stuck.  I feel as if I am writing everything in one journal, and then re-writing it all in another journal.  Plus, the farther we get into the month, it seems as if I am getting less and less accomplished—so I am having to write a lot of the same things over and over and over, twice every time I have to rewrite things when I migrate them, and nothing is getting accomplished. 

My planners and journals are what keep me grounded and what keeps me focused on the here and now—as well as the future.

Since October 1, the first day of Quarter Four, I have had on my to-do list to create a Project Management Binder/Bullet Journal/Something so I can plan out what I want to do with the first part of my Grimoire of Self (GOS) series (parts 1-31). 

Two days ago, I decided that I wanted to be able to move pages around if I needed to do that.  My first thought, I have no idea why, was to buy a mini Happy Planner (discs?  Really?) and use that—but why?  Because I have the perfect cover for it?  Yep, that was pretty much the only reason.

For the record, disc-bound planners and I do not get along all that well. 

So, I went into my stash of things I already have (gasp! I know! Right?) and pulled out an A5 ring binder, a simple yellow one that I have notes from a class still in.  I don’t need that information anymore, although after all the time it took me to print and cut to size and hole punch it all and shove it into the binder, I will be keeping that stuff, just in case I ever want to use it.

I have a stash of rings hole-punched paper, dotted and lined, somewhere.  Somewhere safe.  You know how that is.  I at least have a 6-hole punch sitting right where I can see it and can grab it, so if worse comes to worst, tonight I will be cutting computer paper down to A5 size and hole punching it for my rings.

I do at least have the most basic of to-do lists and plan where the GOS project is concerned.  I am not as behind on the project as I want to think I am, but I could be farther ahead.

My daily plan is written out in my GoGetterGirl planner…and then again in my bullet journal…what I accomplish during the day is written in my bullet journal, as well as any movies we watch in the evening. (I am only doing this for Halloween.  We watch a lot of garbage, which is why you don’t hear more about this tracking.)

I don’t feel I am getting as much out of my bullet journal as I could by doing this.

I was this close (.) to setting up my November bujo in the same manner I set up my October bujo, the whole month planned out.  Monthly spread.  Weekly goals and reflection.  Weekly spread.  Each daily spread has two pages.  Reflection, the moon cycle, and holidays already built into the system.  All in one of my new B6 journals, safely ensconced in one of my gorgeous new B6 covers.  Alas, I am so happy that I did not do this. 

What I want and what I need are no longer the same as they were earlier in this year.

I am thinking of streamlining my planning process, in some fashion.  I am not quite sure how yet.

I am thinking of setting up a bujo, with more than a single month in it…more like six months or more in it, with only the basics: monthly spreads, weekly spreads, and task lists.

I think a master task list is something I definitely need to have at the moment.  That way I can sit down in the morning, decide what is most important and do that—instead of writing a dozen tasks down over and over, twice every day.

My weekly brain dumps have evolved from me dumping the crap out of my head onto the page, to me going through all my notebooks and planners to see what is undone, what notes I scribbled down throughout the week, and so on…and then adding on anything else that might come to mind. 

That alone has been a HUGE help for me.  I want to keep that up…but in more of a daily journal thing.  Which I do believe is where my Weeks notebooks will come in handy, the ones I cut down, not my yearly nor my PrintPressions ones. 

I am keeping my GoGetterGirl because nothing else has kept me as focused as this planner. 

I have an A6 journal that I have been collaging and playing in every day (my APL journal) and I have been loving the journal (a Stalogy) for its size and compactness.

I was thinking of using that B6 notebook I had planned to use as my November bullet journal and turn that into my Memory Keeping journal, adding in bits and pieces as I go along versus having it planned out and set up for the month ahead. 

I also want to pull some of my older, more original bullet journals from a few years ago to see what my daily set-up looked like and what I tracked back then.  I have long missed my line a day, the best thing that happened, and things of that nature, so I am looking to reincorporate some of the things that made me happy about my planner back into my system.

I am willing to give that a go in November and see what works and what doesn’t. 

What’s changed in your planner system of late?  How are you doing with your current setup?

Let me know what’s going on with you in the comments below.