Creative Planning: The MAMBI Happy Planner

After my decision not to use my Dylusion’s art journal as a planner I weighed my options as to just which journal might be right for me.  To be honest, I’ve never been much of a ‘write down my schedule’ girl, but a few things had me convinced that perhaps I should be.  The fact that with so much of my life wrapped up in technology, the simplicity of keeping track of schedules, goals, lists and activities on paper has been proven to be somewhat cathartic for others.  A physical planner also provides one with visualization when everything is laid out in front of you on a page and well, it of course is built to keep you organized.  But the big deciding factor for me was that so many people were using it as a journal of sorts.

Now that I’m art journaling to document my creative journey, I found myself thinking about journaling for other parts of my life too.  I remember the comfort that my grandmother’s journals brought my Mom and my aunts after her passing, and now that my own Mom has passed I find myself reading and re-reading notes that I come across in her handwriting.  The thought that by keeping track of my life in a paper planner can also document my life for future generations holds a real value for me.

So I bought a paper planner.

I looked at the Erin Condren planner that so many people are crazy about, but for a techie like me, I honestly didn’t see what all the hoopla was about, not to mention the steep price. I admit to being drawn to the Passion Planner, but the lure of instant gratification convinced me that the Me and My Big Idea, Create 365 Happy Planner that I found at Michael’s, would fit the bill just fine.  Especially since I had a coupon I could use. 

I chose the My Life version for its simplicity and classic black and gold colors.  For my first planner I think it’s a nice size, and should give me plenty of room to not only keep track of my schedule and to do lists, but also document life activities. There are only two things I see as drawbacks with this particular planner.  The first is that it didn’t have the envelope in the front to keep stickers and small pieces of memorabilia and the second is the disc binding, which won’t allow me to easily add pages unless I get a specialized paper punch.

I took care of the envelope problem myself, using a gorgeous piece of gold foiled decorative paper I had in my stash and my envelope punch board, I simply created an envelope and attached it to the inside front cover.

So far I don’t have a lot of stickers or stamps to use in my planner yet, being only on week one of usage, but I did purchase some really pretty printable stickers on Etsy as well as creating my own coffee cup stickers with Photoshop and my Cricut Explore. And being a complete newbie to the paper planner thing I’m still trying to determine just how I want to set up my pages.  For example, I’m currently looking for a cute set of planner stamps for bloggers in order to set a section of each work day for blog related activities and goals.

So far I find myself sitting down each night to add items to my week, even though I tried to set the week up in advance on Sunday. I’ll keep you posted on how my paper planner experiment goes.  In the meantime, if you have planner tips or hints I’d love to hear them, share in the comments or give me a shout on social media.