How I Turned Planning Into a Hobby
by Amanda Snead
When listing off hobbies, planning probably isn’t what comes to mind for most people. I’ve been using a planner of some sort since middle school. I started out with the free “agenda books” that the school provided us and eventually moved on to a nicer Blue Sky planner in high school. However, college is when I started getting into planning because it became a necessity to keep all of my assignments, extracurriculars and work organized. I discovered Erin Condren planner my freshman year and have been using one ever since. Here’s how I turned my planner from a boring notebook into a fun hobby!
Decorate and make it colorful!
Looking at a plain white page with only black ink makes me feel more stressed about the tasks listed. Invest in a few sticker books (I use mostly Happy Planner sticker books but the Dollar Store has some cute ones as well if you want a cheaper alternative!), some colored pens and highlighters to make it more ~*pleasing*~ to look at.
Utilize every page
Make use of every page you have! You’re already paying sixty bucks so why not get your money worth out of it? I use the dashboard (shown below) to create monthly goals and matching habit trackers which I try to change up each month, as well as important dates and a quote to live by each month. In the back of the planner, I used the dot grid pages to create a mood tracker and a spending tracker. I used the lined pages to create a book tracker with the titles of the books I read each month and the corresponding rating I gave them on Goodreads.
Color code everything!
Instead of just drawing a line through completed tasks, I use different colored mildliners to indicate how far I have gotten with assignments during the school year. Purple is for finished tasks, orange is for assignments I have started but not completed, pink is for unstarted assignments and blue is for due dates. I also have a pen color assigned to each course as well as a color for extracurriculars, work, and other things.
Change things up!
I change up the way I layout each week depending on what I have going on. You can see how I changed up my washi to create a new layout in the first photo when school was out versus how I laid things out during a week of school. Changing things up helps keep things fun and aesthetically pleasing to look at.
Keeping a nice planner helps to turn something that often feels like a chore into a fun new hobby. Find what works for you and helps you feel more organized for whatever you have going on in your busy schedule.