2024 was a year of planner… upheaval!
Well, at least for me. Let’s look at which planners made it through and which were sacrificed for planner peace. My planner stack changed a bit over the year and that’s ok, we are always evolving and it’s ok to switch it up if it’s not working for you!
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Let me know, did you stick with the same planner all year or change it up? What planner(s) did you use?
How it started…
I had my trusty Erin Condren Vertical and Daily Duo and I grabbed a companion planner to use for brain declutters and other lists. I picked up the Happy Planner wellness for fitness, a cute mini dashboard for goals, and a big vertical for content. Then I had Archer and Olive (use code Runsonespresso to save 10%) for my monthly trackers, memories, media, and reading.
Before 2024 I shared my planner stack, I’ll link to the post here.
How it’s going…
The Erin Condren vertical is still here but I swapped the Daily Duo out for only the Archer & Olive bullet journal. I found the daily was too much space and I wanted to see my weekly tasks all together instead of flipping back and forth.
I tried the fitness planner a few different times but it never stuck. Maybe because I didn’t have a good grasp on my fitness this year. But I started tracking a few things in my bullet journal and that’s been going well these past few months. My goals and content have been trashed. I couldn’t find the right thing for planning and tracking these.
I still have my memory planner and journal. I’m also still doing media and reading but I’ve struggled to keep up with the media journal.
Thoughts/Reflection
I will say, I tried to use each planner I had for different things this year. If it wasn’t working for my original intention, I tried using it for something different. But nothing was really working. I started the year having everything very compartmentalized, which has been my go to for years. I’ve always liked planning out content, goals, chores etc in different planners then using my catch all to bring it all back together.
This year, it wasn’t working for me.
A little over a year ago, I got a promotion and the type of things I need to track for work changed. I struggled to find a system for work, which also messed with my personal system. I finally figured out work and then I was able to settle into a new system at home.
I also have taken a step back from content so I don’t need a dedicated planner for that. I took a few months off completely and am slowly adding some ideas back into my bullet journal.
Currently, I use my vertical for my weekly overview and have fun with stickers. I thought the daily duo would work well because it had the hourly and the to do list. But I really need to see my full week at once to see which days I’m at the office and which days have meetings. I tried the new weekly overview in the duo but the problem was a lot of flipping back and forth so the vertical is the holder of all meetings, appointments, and events. Then I do a simple weekly spread in my bullet journal for tasks and other reminders.
It’s kind of similar to the compact vertical but I get to do the arrangement how I want with the weekly task box first, Mon to Wed across the top and Thurs to Sun on the bottom. It makes my brain so happy! Plus, I can still do all the monthly stuff I like to track in my bullet journal. I wouldn’t be able to fit all that in the compact vertical, or even the monthly.
I like my memory keeping and journal system. I used it all year! I will make some minor tweaks but I’ll share that in my next video where I share the 2025 stack.
It wasn’t in my original blog post but I’ve been using a Hobonichi Day Free for my scrapbook planner. I saw Linda Loves Creating using one and thought I’d try it. I like the idea of it and have been using it all year but going to adjust this a bit next year as well. Because I can’t with this paper. I KNOW I KNOW. I’m a terrible human being because I cannot embrace the tomoe river paper!
Finally, my reading and media journal. I really liked how I kept the reading journal simple and set each month up using Sweet Bean Plan stickers. In 2023, I tried to do different books for each monthly theme and it became a lot to draw it all out and setup. By the end of the year I had given up and started using random stickers. This year, using SBP monthly reading stickers worked really well. Lesson learned, keep it simple silly.
As for my media journal, I started out doing a page for each piece of media and wrote a synopsis and review. That got to be a lot and I fell behind, way, way, way behind. I decided to write a few sentence reviews for each about halfway through the year. That has been a lot easier but I have a lot of empty space on some pages. I also put books in here too so it was somewhat redundant even though I don’t write reviews in my reading journal, just track the book and stars given. I also printed photos of the cover/poster on photo paper and it really bulked up the journal. I started putting them on the bottom to try and balance it out.
I’m planning to do something a little different next year, again more info will be in the next blog so be sure to check back if you want to see what I’m doing for 2025!
