My 2019 Planner and Journal Lineup

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First, before we get into the nitty gritty of all the planner goodness this year, I just want to remind everyone that The One You Fight For, book 3 in The Ones Who Got Away series, is out New Year’s Day! You don’t have to have read the first two to understand this one, though that will enrich the experience. I’m so excited to share this book with y’all. This one was a tough one to write because Taryn lost her sister in the school shooting fourteen years ago and Shaw, the hero, is the older brother of one of the shooters. This may be the most emotional romance I’ve ever written, but I promise you there’s a happy ending. ;)

So if you want to grab your copy now to have it on your doorstep this week, here are all the links. And right now the paperback is cheaper than the ebook, so you can get a copy for your shelf on the cheap!

Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Indiebound | Books-A-Million | Google Play

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The 2019 Planner and Journal Lineup

Now, on to the planners!

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know that I’m obsessed with planners and journals. In a lot of ways, it’s my hobby, but they have the added bonus of actually being functional and making me more productive as well.

I’ve shown some pictures on Instagram of a few of my planners and journals for the year, but I had a number of people ask to explain what each one is and how I use it. So, ask and you shall receive! Let’s dive in.

My Every Day Hub - The Day Designer

This will be my third year using the Day Designer. Sometimes I stray, but this is the planner I keep coming back to for the day to day To Dos and scheduling. Beyond the pretty cover, this is not a colorful planner, which is a plus for me. I find that when I buy planners with color schemes, I get tired of the schemes pretty quickly. Day Designer’s white pages with gray print are perfect. I can keep them clean or I can decorate the hell out of them.

I also like that it’s one day per page. I find this helps me focus on just that day and not get distracted by the things coming up in the week.

Sometimes I use the time side to track my time. Other times I just use it to mark down if I have an appointment. But I use the To Do side daily. I also mark my daily word count in the “dollars” box. It’s a flexible system that I can change around as needed.

A clean page vs. decorated page:

My Done Planner

I went into the details of what a “done” planner is in this post, but basically, this is where I record what I’ve actually done in a week separated out by area of my life or business. I use a Happy Planner Teacher Planner and label the different areas of my life where teachers would label the different classes that they teach.

When I do something in the day, I mark down what I did in this planner. Is this necessary? Of course not. But I’ve found that it gives me a sense of accomplishment AND it also shows me how evenly (or not) I’ve distributed my time in a week. Have I ignored health stuff? Did I let my interaction with readers slip? It’s a good overview of where my time is actually going.

Goal Setting Planner: Powersheets & The HB90 Method

The Powersheets are not a traditional planner. There is no calendar in it. This is strictly a goal setting planner that guides you through a process to pick up to 10 goals for the year. You have the opportunity to update them quarterly. Then it also gives you a process each month to go through to set monthly, weekly, and daily goals. I have used this planner for two years and have one ready to go for this year. I tend to keep the tending sheet open on my desk so I can always see what goals I set for the month.

This year I also added author Sarra Cannon’s HB90 method of quarterly planning for authors and entrepreneurs. The Powersheets contain both work and personal goals. The HB90 system is strictly focused on three main work/business goals for the quarter. I have used this method for the last 5 months of this year (including the kanban board that she teaches you about in her class) and it’s been ridiculously effective for me. Sarra has a quarterly planner you can buy from Etsy and print out yourself. Her system walks you through everything to get you started. I keep these pages in my Done planner pictured above.

Honestly, I’m going to see how it goes this year, but Sarra’s system may make my Powersheets less necessary. I like that it gives me such a laser focus. However, I’ve already bought the Powersheets and still need a place to have personal/home goals, so we’ll see. I’ll report back later in the year if I’m keeping up with both of them.

Reading Journal

I have done a full post on the layout of my reading journal here. I also have a free downloadable reading journal if you want one you can print out. But I’ve kept my reading journal for three years and I LOVE IT SO HARD. Three years filled up one book, so I’m starting with a fresh Leuchtterm journal this year. The sticker on the front is a Happy Planner sticker.

And if you’re looking for something fun to add to your reading journal, check out my 2019 Read Wide Challenge!

My Movie, TV Series, and Concert Journal

This is a new addition for me. I have kept a list of movies I’ve watched and TV series I’ve completed in my reading journal for the past two years. But the simple list doesn’t tell me much. So this year, I’m dedicating a separate journal to record movie reviews, TV show reviews, and to mark down memories of the concerts I attend (because we attend a lot!) I haven’t worked out all the details of how I want to do this yet. I like the idea of writing down the names of my favorite episodes of a TV series for example. Or maybe writing down quotes. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll report back once I have a fully working system. :) But for now, I’ll be using this pretty dot grid journal that I received as a Christmas gift.

My Daily Memory Journal

This will also be a new addition this year. And y’all keep your fingers crossed for me. I’ve tried this before and haven’t been able to stick with it, so we’ll see. But I would like to keep a Hobonichi style journal, where I jot down memories or thoughts from the day and then either draw or put stickers in it. This isn’t going to be a deep contemplative journal. I already know I don’t do well with keeping up with those. This is more of a memory keeper, a simpler version of a scrapbook.

For this journal, I chose a Stalogy notebook because it’s about half the price of a Hobonichi Cousin and has similar paper. I’m keeping it in this notebook keeper since it has a soft cover.

The I-Bought-Them-On-Sale-and-Haven’t-Decided-Yet Planners

I’m weak in the face of 60% off. I haven’t decided what these beauties are for yet. One might become a planner for the family. The dark blue one may be pulled apart and merged with the Done planner since they are the same size. I got them so cheap that I don’t mind cannibalizing them to merge them into another. These are both from Happy Planner which you can buy online or at craft stores like Michael’s and JoAnn’s.

I would say “that’s it!” but that’s an understatement, I know. : ) I have a lot of planners. It works for me. I hope you found something in the mix that may work for you!

So what are you using for 2019? Anyone journaling?

The "Done" Planner: Combating the Dark Side of the Traditional To Do List

Earlier this month, I did my annual post about what planners I’m choosing for the upcoming year. In that post, I mentioned that a new thing I’ve added to my system is a 90-Day “Done” planner, meaning a place where instead of marking down my To Do list (which I do in my main planner), I mark what I’ve done separated out by category.

Since I’ve done that post, I’ve had a number of people ask follow up questions about the details of this planner, so I’ve decided to do a post to explain how I’m using it.

The Concept: Overcoming the Dark Side of the Traditional To Do List

I got the inspiration for a 90-Day Goals planner from author Sarra Cannon. She has some great videos on her site explaining how she sets and keeps track of her 90-day goals. So when I was putting together my 90-Day planner, I grabbed a Happy Planner Teacher Planner because that’s what Sarra was using. But then when I put it all together, I realized that I didn’t need those pages to mark To Dos. I already have my Day Designer that houses that kind of list. So what could I use this shiny new layout for?

Well, the beauty of the teacher planner is that it’s divided into columns so that teachers can have separate lists for their different classes. But I realized it was the perfect set up to break down the different areas of my work and home life to visualize where I’m making progress. This made sense to me because the dark side of a traditional to do list is that you can check off a lot of things and wow look at all those check marks! But you may be checking off lots of inconsequential things that don’t really move the needle on your big goals. If I have a day where I’ve checked off ten things, but those things are like “mailed something”, “emailed someone”, “did laundry”, and I didn’t write any words on a book I’m drafting, have I really been very productive? No, I’ve probably been procrastinating the hard stuff.

So the idea behind the Done Planner is that not only can I see what I’m getting accomplished, I can see if I’m doing things that work toward those big 90-day goals. This has been a huge help. And on the flipside, it’s also given me a different view at the end of the week because sometimes you feel like you haven’t gotten anything done. But now I can look at my Done Planner and see ”Oh, hey, I wasn’t so great at social media this week, but that’s because I’ve really worked hard on these other two important goals.” It’s a clear picture of where I’ve spent my time, and that’s very rewarding. It gives me more a sense of peace at the end of the day or week (and gives me mental permission to take a break that evening or weekend.)

So are you interested? Let’s talk about setup and how I’m using it.

Setting Up the Planner

I’ve put everything in a Happy Planner hardcover discbound system. You can find this stuff at Michael’s and some Targets still have teacher planners on clearance. Amazon also still has a few left in stock. (29.99 is the standard price, so beware if you see any marked up.) The teacher planner does not come with this kind of cover. You can buy the hard cover separately, but it’s not necessary to have if you’re happy with the flexible cover the planner comes with.

Inside the teacher planner looks like this to start:

So here’s where your customization begins. See those blank spaces at the top of the columns? This is where you’re going to choose the buckets you want to focus on. You can simply write the title on top of each column (especially if you have better handwriting than I do), but I love the way the Avery stickers look colored with my mildliners (highlighters that aren’t so bright.) I use the Avery removable 3/4 inch circles (which are cheap on Amazon right now with their included coupon) and the Avery 5424 small removable rectangles. I usually color these all in one sitting while I’m watching TV or something and they last forever. I’ve had all these for probably a year now.

The Columns

Once you decide what you’re going to use to label your columns, now it’s time to decide what you want to name your columns. Really give this some thought because you don’t want to be tracking useless things. For my first three, I used my three main 90-day goal areas:

1. Writing - This is where I mark down word count and anything that has to do with moving my story forward. That means some days I may be marking down brainstorming/thinking time because I can’t write without thinking a lot. Thinking is work and counts as being productive as long as I’m actively focusing on the book. (Can you tell I had to do a mindshift to accept that a while back? lol)

2. Readers - This is where I mark down social media posts, blog posts, and newsletters. Anything that involves me interacting with readers goes here. So if I was going do a booksigning, it would fall under this category.

3. Business - This is the place where I mark down anything I’m doing that doesn’t fit under the two previous columns that is work-related and helping my business. If I’m taking a course. If I’m reading a book about marketing. If I researched something business-related.

The next four columns don’t directly deal with my 90-Day goals but are general life things and mental/physical wellness things that are very important to me.

4. Yoga - This is where I mark down which video I watched and how long the routine was. I’m doing the videos from Yoga with Adriene. Love them.

5. Input - This term comes from the Gallup Strengthsfinders system, which is a personality framework. But if you’re not familiar with that, this is basically my “refill the well” column. As a writer (and a writer with my particular personality), I need vast amounts of input to refill the creative well. This means reading, TV shows, movies, podcasts, audiobooks. When I let this slide, this is when I get writer’s block. So I’ve made it a priority to make sure I’m refilling the well. I mark down what I’m reading that day, if I watched or listened to something, etc. This is a good example of stuff that wouldn’t be reflected in my traditional To Do list. I wouldn’t write down “watch tv show”. But this done planner let’s me see if I’ve neglected this during the week and worked too much.

6. Budget - Simply where I record anything I spent that day outside of ordinary expenses. (If it’s a lot, it’s often a sign I’ve been surfing the internet too much and avoiding working lol.) I may change this one in the future, but for now, I’m testing this one out.

7. Home - The catch-all category for anything I did for home: laundry, groceries, meal planning, stuff for kidlet. I also usually mark what I’m cooking for dinner there.

So those are my seven categories, but the beauty of this system is that you can choose whatever categories that work for you and your life. What are you working on that you want to pay attention to and track?

Tracking

Remember, this is not a planner to write down what you hope to do that week. It’s what you’ve done. So it’s probably going to be something you need to keep open on your desk or easily accessible because if you wait to record what you did later, you’re going to forget. Plus, it feels good when you’ve done something to go mark it down. And hey, if stickers are involved, even better in my opinion. ;-) I’m currently using tiny icon stickers from FayeCreates on Etsy, but you can use whatever works for you. It may just be a bullet point you make with your pen or a colorful little dot sticker. But this is what mine looks like after a week.

And here’s a close up of the icon stickers if you want to see the variety.

Because this is a 90-day plan, I’m only keeping three months at a time in the binder. I’ve found this helpful because it makes the planner less bulky and also keeps me focused on the plan. Like hey, there’s only one month left to go, where am I on these goals?

I’ve been using this system since August, and I can say that I’m loving it. I’ve felt much calmer at the end of the day because I can clearly see what I’ve accomplished. Or I can clearly see which areas have fallen through the cracks. And hey, sometimes that’s okay. Like the week pictured above, I sucked at doing yoga that week but I got A LOT done in many other areas, including starting a book, so I was okay with yoga taking a backseat.

And really, if you’re not a planner fanatic like I am and don’t want to maintain more than one planner, this could easily be modified to be both. You could hold-punch (or disc-punch) a sheet of paper with your To Dos for the week and insert it into this system. There are lots of options because this system is so flexible.

So that’s how I’m using it. I hope you found this helpful! Please let me know if you decide to give it a try!

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Resource LIst

Here’s the round-up of supplies and resources if you don’t want to pick through the post to find them:

• Happy Planner Teacher Planner

• Big Happy Planner Hardcover

• Mildliner Highlighters

• Avery round stickers

• Avery rectangle stickers

• Colorful tiny dot stickers

• Icon stickers from FayeCreates

• Sarra Cannon’s 90-Day planning videos

See you next time!

What I'm Watching This Summer

Summertime is the time of sunshine and the outdoors...well, in other places. Here in Dallas, summertime is full of sunshine and unbearable heat. Today it's 90 and it feels like autumn to me because we've been dealing with 105-110 temperatures for over two weeks and 90 truly feels like relief. We'll get a few days of this before the temperature races back up again.

But all this is to say that in summer, I often end up catching up on TV watching because we're indoors hiding from the heat. So I thought I'd pass along what I'm watching this summer both on TV and YouTube. And I'd love to hear what interesting shows you've found recently!

For pure soapy reality TV

Big Brother on CBS

If you've followed me for any length of time, you know that I'm a long time Big Brother fan. I look forward to it every summer, and it's become a family tradition. Hubs and I love all the strategy and personality dynamics. Kidlet loves all the competitions. (We fast forward through any not-safe-for-10-year-olds moments.) It's quite a commitment with three episodes a week, but I eat it up like candy. My favorite contestant this year in Tyler. I love that he came on and was all "I'm just a dumb, cute lifeguard" and has turned out to be the most socially strategic and smart player so far. The writer in me loves characters, and Big Brother always gives me good fodder for analysis.

Fun for the Whole Family

The Middle

Last summer kidlet and I picked a show to binge watch together for device-free summer. Last year was The Goldbergs, which has become a family favorite (and kidlet obsession) now. This summer, we've picked The Middle. (Side note: finding a truly family friendly modern sitcom is a challenge! But this one fits the bill.) We're almost done with season 2 and are really enjoying it. If you want to binge watch this one, it's not streaming anywhere for free (last I checked) but Freeform and the Hallmark channel have been running the seasons marathon style and we've been taping them, so look for that.

For the Music Lover

The Big Interview with Dan Rather

This is one hubs found on one of his favorite channels AXS. Dan Rather interviews famous musicians. (He may interview more than musicians, but the ones we've watched have all been musicians.) These interviews were taped a few years ago, but they are fascinating. Dan Rather is a master interviewer, and if you love music, you'll love the stories he pulls out of the people he puts in his interview chair. So far we've watched interviews with Greg Allman of The Allman Brothers, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Even if you don't know much about the particular band/artist (I knew hardly anything about The Allman Brothers) the interviews will pull you in. Highly recommended.

For Nostalgia or a Peek Inside 90s Teenhood

My So-Called Life

I mentioned a while back that I was so excited that one of my favorite podcast duos were starting the My So-Called Podcast where they rewatch episodes of My So-Called Life and then comment on them. This has been so much fun--to rewatch one of my very favorite shows from my teen years through adult eyes and then follow each episode up by listening to Jillian and Patrick pick apart the episodes in a funny yet respectful superfan kind of way. It's made it such a multi-layered experience. It's made me laugh a lot but also has made me wonder what the hell I was thinking loving Jordan Catalano (played by Jared Leto) back when I was 14. I mean, yes, he's beautiful, but dude, he was SUCH a jerk on that show. Adult Me totally wants to yell at him for his behavior. Anyway, if you want to rewatch or watch for the first time. Here's where you can stream it and here's where you can find the podcast.

For Your Brain

The 2000s on CNN

CNN has made series about many of the decades and every time, I am so here for it. I believe they started with The Sixties. That's the first one I watched at least, and they've gone on to make a series for each decade. This summer it is The 2000s. The show is produced by Tom Hanks and is done in such a great way that I get hooked every time. Each show will take one topic of that decade and do a deep dive. So, for instance, the episode we watched this week was all about technology and the "I-Decade"--the iPod, iPhone, iPad, social media, etc. Even though we all lived through it, it's fascinating to look back and really think about how much has changed so quickly. There was also an episode on TV shows in the 2000s and then there are the political ones (9/11, the Iraq War, etc.). I believe there is a music one coming up. All very well done. And if you haven't watched the previous seasons--60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s--they've all been fantastic.

For Your Body and Mind

Yoga with Adriene

I am trying to create a yoga habit, but I have trouble making it to classes because the timing never works out. So I've started doing yoga in the mornings at home. There are tons of free videos on YouTube, but I've found that the ones I like the best are from Yoga with Adriene. The videos are well shot, the routines are doable, there are lots of routines of varying length if I don't have a lot of time. Plus, Adriene is easy to follow and comes across as very down to earth. If you're looking to get some yoga into your life, check out her channel.

For the Planner Lover and Writers

Heart Breathings with Sarra Cannon

Y'all know I love a planner and anything having to do with productivity systems. I recently returned from the RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference where I met up with the writer/planner group I'm in online. So fun! And I happened to sit next to author Sarra Cannon who had brought her 90-day planner. I loved her set up and found out she has a YouTube channel where she talks about all things planning and writing. I blame her for the kanban board I put together this week. But if you're a planner girl (or guy!) like me, her channel is worth checking out. 

That's all I've got for y'all today! Tell me what you're watching and loving this summer. : )