Planning

Hobby? Diversion? Necessity? Career?

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

I have written before about why and how I started planning. I do not need to repeat that again.

I have watched too many videos lately where the person creating the video has said that planning is their hobby.

I have watched some other creators talk about their planning channels as a part of their business. They talked about how planning could be incorporated into anyone’s, into my business.

I had to sit down and start thinking.

Why am I making videos about my planners?

Why do I write posts about my planning?

What am I trying to do by and with doing these things?

A hobby is an activity one does for pleasure in their free time.

A diversion is a recreational activity that diverts the mind from other concerns.

A necessity is something that is required.

Planning? It is not my hobby. My knitting, and reading, are my hobbies. As well as a few other things.

Planning can divert my mind, but it is not a diversion for me. Planning can indeed help me ground, help me balance myself, and help me get more focused.

For me, I do think planning is a necessity. It is how I keep up with myself. It’s how I track what I get done, what I need to do, and what I want to do.

I do not create videos or blog posts or anything else with the intention of turning planning or my planning style into any sort of business.

I make the videos and I write the posts to show other people what I do in case they see something that may help them or something they might want to try.

We are nearly at the end of the first week of February and I have none of my planners decorated for this month. I have the headers written in on each page, but beyond that, nada.

I set up this week’s trackers across the board and am using them, but each time I open up one of my notebooks, I cannot find the energy or the desire to do more.

It’s not that I don’t have ideas as to what I want to do. I have different ideas for different notebooks.

The funny thing is I am still finishing off spreads and bits and pieces from January set-ups. I still have not finished painting in the art page in Morticia from January. I haven’t even gessoed the page for February yet. I do, at least, know what I want to put on the page once I do. That’s a plus.

I have changed up a few things in my planner line-up. Redone planner line-ups are a whole other set of videos I have been watching on YouTube.

I gave up my re-dated Passion Planner as a microjournaling within days of the New year. It simply did not work well for me. Too many planners sprawling across the tabletop demanding my attention. I have been meaning to cover up the little writing I did do in it and hand it over to my youngest for his work.

This month, even though I have dated February, I have decided not to use my GoGetterGirlCo Undated 5-in-1 planner. I only decided this a week or two ago. I haven’t attempted to decorate the pages there or anything for February, so if worst comes to worst, I can cover up everything that I did and re-date it for a different month.

After I wrote this post about what I am thinking about for my planning system in 2024, I did take my own advice and see what excites me about the idea of that 2024 and put that into my current planning system and see what happens. Some of what I want out of the 2024 system is repeated in the GGG — and I decided that if I were not going to be using the GGG system next year, let me cut that out of my line-up and move forward with the books I am using on a daily basis.

I will admit that throughout the month of January, I basically wrote very little in my GGG planner. A lot of it had to do with my personal head space. I didn’t want to do much of anything. I eventually felt too fake writing to-dos in my GGG, so I basically checked in to fill out the gratitude, what I had for dinner, and a bit about my health. Other than that, nothing. I don’t think I touched it at all during the very last week of January.

What I am still using is: Morticia, my Sunshine Sticker Co slim dot grid notebook that I am still sort of ‘playing’ at with decorative Bullet Journalling; Ophelia, my Hobonichi Weeks; Mnemosyne, my Archer & Olive dated planner that I put my hobby-esque activities in; Priscilla, another Sunshine Sticker Co slim dot grid, which I use as my R&D journal; Roisin, my Archer & Olive dot grid A5, the other artsy-style Bullet Journal; and Sarasota, which is what I call my memory keeping journal to write down everything that happens and that I get done in the day.

These are my daily working planners. I do also have a reflection journal. I have not named this one. It’s a simple lined B5 journal I got in a three-pack off of Amazon, so nothing precious. Except that she is very precious to me—I do not use her every day, but when I do it is because I very much need to write something down, figure something out.

I keep intending to force myself to write morning pages, midnight pages, afternoon pages, whatever, but with everything going on here right now, I cannot fathom doing it. There are so many other things I need to deal with and worry about right now.

I will have planner videos up, probably later this week, but I don’t put them up for any other reason than to show people what I am doing where and with what.

One of the things I have changed is where I put the things I was putting in my GGG planner: my daily gratitude, meals eaten, and health check-in.

I created a new set of daily trackers in the notes pages of Ophelia. Thank goodness I bought a Mega Weeks or I would not be able to keep everything in one place. I have only one week set up so far, although I have all of the necessary pages marked and ready.

I also set up another set of pages to keep track of quarterly and monthly goals and project action steps and that sort of thing.

I am beginning to lean deeper into Morticia as my main planner, my main Bullet Journal, as I continue on my journey with my planner line-up. I know I say this after stating in 2024 I want a stack of Hobonichis in darn near every size, but I do not plan on giving up Bullet Journaling, or my darling Morticia. I have a beautiful stack of Sunshine Sticker Co notebooks. I love them.

And then, after all of that, my desire for Hobonichi notebooks, Sterling Ink is releasing their Notebooks with the white edges (as of this writing, all sizes are on pre-sale).

And Sterling Ink, they are selling A5, A6, and Weeks-sized notebooks with grid pages. With the beloved Tomoe River Paper. Plus, there are 520-page notebooks and 260-page notebooks. Having watched entirely too many YouTube videos about Sterling Ink’s amazing Common Place Planner, I may have to try one when they release them for next year.

I am going to keep working with what I have on-hand before I worry about any of that though.

One thing I do have to do soon is replace my PrintPressions Weeks cover. There is absolutely nothing wrong with PrintPressions or their workmanship or anything like that. What happened is our foster George still has issues with other critters in the house…and my one cat loves my planner covers and leather goods. My PrintPressions cover is faux leather, but apparently, it still feels good to teeth and claws.

George went racing over things to escape being chased and smacked by another cat and my planner in its cover was in the way and got clamored over and clawed. My beautiful ginger, Timmy the Teeth, he chews on anything and everything. So, I need to replace that cover.

I actually love this cover. It is my only strings Weeks cover. It has pockets on both sides. One side has a zippered pocket. My only gripe is trying to keep it clean, but that’s more on me than anything. Once I have the funds available, I will be heading to Etsy and PaperBoundCreations to order a new cover or two. Until then, I will make due.

And that is all I have to say for now.

Until next time…