Passion Planner Planning Starting In December

Ya know, I have been trained, by public schooling and other institutions in this country (USA) to follow directions and not to think, not think outside the box, not think for myself.  I was taught to regurgitate whatever information I was given in order to pass a test and after that, who cares?

So, I had no idea that I was approaching re-dating old planners the wrong way.  Well, at least I have been re-dating them the wrong way for myself.

I currently have that large Passion Planner from, I think it was originally 2021, that I completely re-dated for 2023—that I used for about three days at the beginning of the year, didn’t see the point of continuing it, and let it go.

I’d bought day of the week re-dating stickers.  I’d bought number re-dating stickers.  I’d bought all sorts of other decorative stickers to put all over it to keep it festive and whatnot.

I had started on January 1…and worked my way to December 31, in only a few days.  I had a perfectly usable and valid start of year to end of year planner.

I have been going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, for several months now.  After I pre-ordered my Sterling Ink Weeks-sized 2024 Common Planner, I started to wonder if I had ordered the correct size.  I still do not think I have, even now that I have that planner in hand (more on that in a different post).  I may actually have to order an A5 Common Planner when they become available.

Anyway…

I started researching and looking and checking and pondering.  I love the Go Getter Girl Co. Planners.  I considered MakseLife planners.  Commit30 planners.  Planner Envy’s hybrid planners.  

I have a stash of Go Getter Girl Co planners, undated and dated from last year.  I am not ready quite yet to dig those out and put them to use.  It didn’t feel right, or like it is quite the right time for them yet…although if my latest attempt (which I will tell you about in this post, soon, I swear) falls through, I will immediately grab one of my GGG planners.

I also have a stack of several different 90 day planners, including about three different Panda Planners.  Not to mention the large stack of Passion Planner planners of various types that I bought when I first became an ambassador to the brand ( I am no longer doing that, not because they are not a great brand, they are, but because they are not a good fit for me or what I am working on/the way I want to do things—moreover, the ambassador monthly activities were quite repetitive and I wasn’t interested in retreading the same space every time a certain theme came up).

All that to say that I do have options and I do have them on-hand.  I should not need to go out and buy anything at all.  Not to mention, I have enough blank notebooks I should be able to do everything myself, make my own monthly planners and whatnot.  I can draw the spreads up and make myself happy, without issues.  But, … honestly … I don’t wanna do that.  Not right now.  I want to focus my time elsewhere.

Now, what I have been looking for is a planner that has both monthly and weekly spreads, together, not separated.  Anything more than that is pretty much a bonus and not something I am too interested in at the moment.

Dailies are something else entirely that shall be and are being kept in a separate notebook.

I only had the one large Passion Planner (the already re-dated one) and I didn’t want to waste my time redoing everything all over again in this planner.  I pulled out my favorite PashPlan that I had on my shelf, the 2022 Year of the Tiger.  

When Passion Planner released this planner, I wasn’t ready to buy a yearly planner.  By the time I decided, ok, yes, I am going to buy one, they were sold out of this planner.  I found the one I have on eBay.  It is medium-sized. (Roughly B5)  It is also a Sunday start.  I hate a Sunday start—I only use a Monday start.  The good thing about buying a planner that is obsolete is that it makes no difference if the planner starts on Wednesday or any other day.  It’s all going to be re-dated anyway.

The first thing I did was glue scrapbooking paper in on the inside cover and the first page.  I then glued scrapbooking paper to the back page, the one facing the inner cover pocket.  I also did the same to the other side of that last page, more for reinforcement than anything else.  My last Passion Planner, that I bought for yearly use in the year it was released, was a hardcover — and the binding split on me within three months of use.  I am already working to negate that happening with this planner.  I am not saying it will, but I am going to work to avoid it anyway.

I glued the first two pages after the initial front cover pages together for the above reason as well.  I then glued down scrapbooking paper over the ‘future log” calendar years in the front of the planner (I think the years were the previous year, 2021, and the next year, 2023, but I can’t be sure for you now).

I added a strip of washi tape to the edge of the very first page of notes pages in the back of the planner, just so I have a visual idea of where they are should and when I need them.

I want to use this planner in December (2023) to see if it will fit my needs in the coming year.  I pulled out previous stickers and [planner kits, as well as my new December planner subscription box from Planner Envy (whom I love dearly). 

I also ordered monthly tabs from Amazon, as well as day of the week re-dating stickers and number re-dating stickers.

Instead of going to the month of December (2022) in the planner, I opened it up to January and started re-dating and decorating.  I would make a video to show you, but I have already begun to fill things in and by the time I finish blurring everything I don’t want seen out for the video, it wouldn’t be worth my time or yours.  My apologies.

I started on the monthly.  I don’t have a “December” monthly sticker, so I simply put a random sticker over the month.  I added blank boxes to every day that I would not need for the month.  I used stickers to change the order of the days, so instead of Sunday to Saturday, I now have my preferred Monday to Sunday set-up.  I then re-dated each day of the month so that it would be correct for this month.  I put little stickers over any pre-printed holiday or whatever on the calendar already.  Then I simply wrote December 2023 at the top of the calendar in black pen.

I added in events, holidays, and birthdays.  I added some stickers for decoration, and to cover up boxes I won’t use and don’t need (the sidebar of the monthly calendar).

I simply repeated this process for each week of the month.  Then on the weekly pages, I wrote in all our events, holidays, birthdays, and other information.

The purpose of this planner for me is as a planner, period.  No tracking.  No braindump.  Nothing like that.  Only appointments, schedules, and tasks.

As I have already begun to fill in various appointments and tasks and whatnot for December, I have begun to notice that maybe this is not going to work the way I need it to work.   The vertical weekly spread doesn’t seem to have enough room for me to fill in everything I want and need to fill in on a daily basis.  

I have begun to wonder about using tip-ins  (yet another good reason to ensure I reinforce the binding and spine as much as possible).  I have not had to resort to that yet, but then again, December, for all its busy-ness, does not have a lot of tasks I need to keep track of every single day.  One thing I have been thinking is changing the pen I use.  But that may defeat my current coloring coding system.  

I have only begun to set the task lists and whatnot up in this planner, so I will see how things go once December does arrive.  

At least I know I have options if this experiment fails, so I am not entirely upset.  I would rather have a single month filled out and used than nothing at all.

The other good things are: #1 I can always continue to use this planner for something else, project management or whatever, and #2  nothing has to be within the same year as the initial set-up.  Maybe I use this planner for three months before deciding it isn’t working for me the way I need/want it to, then I set it aside.  Maybe I set it aside for a few months.  Maybe I set it aside for a few years.  

I have decided not to set any other month up until I reach said month.  The only thing I may have to change are the monthly tabs, but even that isn’t that difficult.

I need to find some pretty ribbon of duck tape to use to cover up the 2022 on the spine of the planner.  Other than that, I’m pretty happy with this planner.

This is only the first of the planners I will start using in December as I test out my new planning system and strategies.  

I hope you continue to follow along on my journey.