The current plan(ner)

I was reading a "mommy blog" post the other night about buying school supplies. I would post the link, but I can't remember where it was. It was about spending a fortune on school supplies, not being able to find leftover ones from the year before, having to conform to school lists, etc., but, as is often the case, the comments were as interesting as the article. One of them struck me so much that I took a screen capture so I could copy it. It said:

"Mostly, I just think about how with every pen or notebook I've purchased (or that has been purchased for me) I have also consumed hope. Hope for organization, for uniqueness, for a clean slate, for the ability to be ready when the world (surely) imparts some knowledge upon me. And should that knowledge require a protractor or gel pen to understand, I will (by god I swear) be ready."

I have purchased SO many notebooks and pens over the years. So many different configurations, Franklin Planners, Levenger Circa, Moleskine, Piccadilly, and on and on. I might be a little OCD about it . . .

And planners. I've failed so many times to keep up with a planner. The closest I've come is the Franklin Planner binder with a Daytimer filler that I just happened to have started in January before Bob went into the hospital. It was great then, and as I've said before, I think it saved my life, because I wrote down everything that happened, everyone I met, everyone that visited, all the doctors and nurses and all the test results, and while I would never have been able to remember all of that information, I had it written down and could access it easily.

I kept it up for awhile, but it's so big and heavy, I started leaving it at work, and now it resides in a drawer there. It's just too big and bulky to carry around every day. So I downsized within the Daytimer universe. Many years ago I went to work for a commercial real estate company. When they hired someone new, they routinely ordered a monogrammed Daytimer wallet of your choice, which thrilled me! I got a burgundy leather one, and it's stayed beautiful for about twenty years.




I decided to try it again, and ordered a years' worth of monthly filler books. I've discovered that one of the reasons I love, and tend to stick with, monthly planners with either loose leaf pages or separate monthly books, is that if I mess something up, I get a new chance, a new start, every month. I choose the two-page per day kind, with the left-hand page dedicated to to do lists, expenses, and appointments, and the right-hand page is blank for notes.




So that's the current plan(ner).