With attending the Brisbane Planner Markets and launching How to Make Planner Stickers ecourse I've fallen a bit behind in posting for the 52 planner in 52 weeks challenge so let's change that in this post!

Week 5

For week 5, I was intending to pre-plan my week by jotting down everything I had to get done and would like to get done during the week.

I used the anything list (8 sections version) from my shop. these were my 8 categories:

1. Blog posts
2. Behind the scenes (of my blog and Etsy shop)
3. Products
4. Videos
5. Graphic Design
6. Stuff to print
7. Photos to take
8. Personal

I printed out the printable and put it in my Arc notebook (you can download a copy of the printable from the free printables library). If you'd like this printable in another color, it's available in my Etsy shop. I printed the page at A4 page size - for US letter size, half letter size or A5 size see this post for printing tips.

After I jotted down all my to dos I thought, wait a sec, why re-write them out into a planner layout when I'm just going to re-cluster them into their categories again each day? None of these tasks (except the blog posts) have to be done by a certain date, and I usually end up not sticking to the plan and not doing tasks on the days I allocate them to anyway, so why not just use the pre-plan page for my actual weekly planner?

Related: Planner Organization: Why I use the Arc Planner instead of binders

Pens used

The Paper Craft Stall 0.8mm (24pk) from the Reject Shop in Australia. I almost didn't buy these pens because, well, I have enough pens already! - but I was pleasantly surprised - the colors wrote nice and vibrant!

Related post: Ultimate list of the best planner pen brands and how to choose colors for color coding

Would I use this layout again?

Yes, I ended up really liking this layout!

• Because my planning style is very task focused/functional rather than decorative, I liked that there were 8 categories so I could really split out everything that needed to get done rather than clustering sub-categories together (e.g. photos to take, stuff to print and videos to film are sub-categories of blogging which I normally lump together)

• I liked using different colors for each category - I feel like it avoided everything on the page looking boring in just black pen and also gave a clear visual distinction between the different tasks to get done
• Loved the checkboxes for each category - I'm obsessed with checkboxes rather than lining through tasks when I complete them as it keeps the page looking neat

• While I didn't get everything done on my list for the week (do we ever?!) - I could see where I spent most of my time (shop stuff) and where I didn't get a lot of things done (personal/ me time)

• This week I didn't have any events such as birthdays or social activities other than dinner with a friend. I'd rather plan those 'special' things using stickers to make it a bit more decorative - this planner page doesn't really allow for that so I would probably only use this layout for busy weeks

• I also did more work on the blog rather that making new products for the shop this week. I could see this page being useful for planning a big product such as writing a book or planning an ecourse by keeping everything separated e.g. videos to record for each module, worksheets and course collateral to make, outlining what you want to cover in the sales page, images to make for the sales page etc.

• I think 6 tasks was a good number per list/category so I didn't get overwhelmed and prevented me from overscheduling

• I liked that I could easily see everything on just the 1 page, rather than a 2 page weekly spread

• I liked that there wasn't an open ended notes space as I'm prone to messy brain dumping in that section of weekly planners

• I liked that I could break things down into more categories. Planners usually only have 2 - 3 sections per day unless it's a student planner with multiple sections to keep planning for each subject separate (I just ordered the Plum Paper 'Me Planner' which has 7 sections per day). Usually I lump together videos to record and blog posts so I liked that I could keep them separate this week - especially since I tend to film tutorials weeks in advance before they're posted here on the blog and my YouTube channel (make sure you subscribe to my channel if you haven't already!)

• If I was going to continue using this layout I'd probably change up the sizes so that the blogging checklist was larger and one of the other sections (probably the video section) smaller as I usually post 4 times per week and write another blog post as backup (or post 5 times per week), but tend to only record 2 - 3 videos per week unless I'm creating an ecourse

Want to try this layout? Download the planner page for free

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Catch up on past week's of the challenge:

• Week 1: Using a daily habit/routine tracker to plan your week
• Week 2: Planning using daily checklists
• Week 3: Plum Paper Vertical Planner – Better than the Erin Condren?
• Week 4: Minimalistic planning: how to plan your week using a blank notes page and stickers

Related Posts:

• Plum Paper Planners Haul & Review (better than the Erin Condren?)
• Favorite black pens for planner addicts
• Planner Organization: How to color-code your planner (so you’ll actually use it effectively)
• Review of Frixion Erasable Highlighters by Pilot – are they worth the cost?
• Ultimate list of the best planner pen brands and how to choose colors for color coding