Three reasons why I went back to pen and paper | I Had to let the gadgets go.

Three reasons why I went back to pen and paper | I Had to let the gadgets go.

I am a woman, wife, mom, business owner, personal secretary and tech support to my parents, shouffur, chef, keeper of all things and the list goes on and on and on.

Those of you who know me know I LOVE gadgets. The bigger the better. New? Give it to me. Nice and shiny? Yeah I’ll take it!

While I was a master of using google calendar to sync all of my everything on the laptop, phone, iPad , computer AND syncing it with my husbands phone I soon learned that it was not working out.

Let me give you three reasons why:

1. It is SO easy to just hit that dismiss button when your alarm reminder goes off.
2. Even though google calendar would send me an email every morning at 5am of everything I need to do that day…it somehow got buried in all my other email and I would forget.
3. If my phone freezes up I can’t get into my schedule and I’m LOST. Literally. I’ll have to tell y’all about that one day.

It was time for me to *insert scary music here* go back to pen and paper. **GASP** The HORROR!

I searched HIGH AND LOW for a planner that would fit my needs and I walked away empty handed. I  knew exactly what I wanted it but could NOT find it anywhere.

Sooo, I was tweeting through my frustrations on twitter and my dear friend saved the day. She told me to take a look at the planner she made. DIY!? A woman after my own heart.

I sat down and POURED through her blog post that you can see HERE and fell in LOVE. I spent THREE full  days  and some very, very late nights pouring over all the free planner printables on the internet. Pinterest gave me a run for my money. I had NO idea there was such a huge love for printables. NO IDEA.

I ended up on Etsy and found everything I needed there. Talk about happy.

I purchased all the pages I thought I would ever need and went to Kinkos a couple of days later to get them all printed.

I purchased the ARC system mainly because I could not find the Martha Stewart items that I wanted, but I’m SO pleased.

I decided to go with the one that had the interchangeable covers. My mood changes ALL the time and I will change it based on my mood lol. The front covers have prints and the back of them is solid. Win win situation if you ask me.

 I pulled out my paper cutter and hole puncher and got to work:

Special thanks to Kayla for being my photographer at 2 am. Yes, we were all up at 2 am because I was SO excited to put my planner together lol.

I went old school and pulled out my basic grey couture line paper. How many of my scrapbook friends remember this line!? I got so excited pulling it out lol.

I needed some dividers for my planner so I made some (after I realized I could make them and looked at how ugly the ones I purchased looked lol).

I started with the music sheet because I LOVE music. I’m always singing something. It’s a common thing around here for someone to say something and I just burst into song lol.

Now my favorite part…the guts.

There is a clear zipper pocket in front of my calendar page for anything I need to keep up with. It has been a LIFE saver already. I decided on a calendar page that I could write the dates in instead of a pre-printed one. This way I can use it over and over again.

This has to be one of my favorite pages. It gives me space to write down what I need to and see it all at once. Yessssssssss!

This allows me to break my day and week down even more. Not as much space to write but I’m finding that I don’t need that much space for this particular page.

Because I’m a blogger this one has made a HUGE difference already. I’ve been blogging since 2005. I’ve learned SO much over the years and I am continuing to learn. I don’t plan ALL my post but when I have ideas I jot them down and kinda schedule when I want to post them.

I have ALWAYS had a to do list. I wouldn’t get ANYTHING done without it and I’m not ashamed to admit that lol. It has saved my life. If I don’t finish everything on it, I just transfer it to the next week. NO problemo.

This is a daily page, but I’ve been using it weekly. It’s working out great.

This is my FAVORITE page. At the end of every day I write down one thing I’m thankful for. It’s so simple but you will be surprised how this has lifted my spirits when I have a not so good day. Just reading through it makes me smile.

I use these little dots so I can see quickly who has what going on during the week. I have another set that didn’t arrive until after these pictures were taken. Every person has a different color and I have a different color for both of my businesses and a color for travel.

I can’t tell you how much this has changed my life in the month that I’ve been using it. I have not missed an appointment, I have not forgotten to pay a bill. It’s all right here and I take it with me EVERYWHERE. Fit’s nice and neatly in my purse 🙂

That’s it. This has been a LONG post. If you made it this far woohoo!

I know this isn’t for everyone but it is ALREADY working better for me than anything I have used in the past.

Hope this helped someone 🙂

**ETA, I forgot to add the links to the etsy shop lol**

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