It hurts my soul to read about others having an epiphany and realizing that the layout they fell in love with while ordering their planner no longer works for them, but it happens! Things change, and of course sometimes it's just one of those things that pans out differently in reality than in your head. My hope is that if this happens, you don't just toss it aside, or even worse throw it away. In fact, I have a better option: how about transforming the planner to fit your lifestyle?
Transforming my planner is just what I decided to do when I discovered the hourly layout wasn’t working for me. First of all, the reason that the hourly layout did not work for my lifestyle is because I am a teacher, and as you know, our work days are scheduled the same way every day with few exceptions like the occasional pep rally or early release. So, it occurred to me that I was wasting all of that valuable space between time slots 7:00 and 3:00. Just as any creative planner or crafter, I HATE WHITE SPACE, so sections became the solution to my problem. The first step in creating this new layout of sections is whiting out the times along the edge of the side bar. You may be worried about the ugly blotches of white gooeyness. No worries! This is nothing that a beautiful strip of washi tape cannot fix. Sometimes stickers! Sometimes a combination of both!
Once the hours are dead to you, I count the lines within the day section and divide that amount by three. For me, that meant dividing 27 by 3 creating a 9 lined sectioned for my mornings, my days, and my evenings.
My favorite sticker shops come to the rescue when it comes to labeling each section of the day. The Alex Studio lists both Glitter Label Stickers and Pastel Glitter Label Stickers to fit Limelife Planners. Planner Pandemonium has over sixteen different patterns to choose from and actually includes decorative boxes to match the labels as well. I have found that other shops including Plannersque and Planner Kate will also customize labels for you (Requesting my labels to be 1.68 x .25 works best for me.).
The newest format that I have created was based on different areas that are involved in my career. I mean everyone knows teaching is a career of many hats. I divide the sections the same way to create this layout, but I label each box differently. In addition, I look at this spread as a true week in comparison to daily sections.
One could, of course, have their own personalized version of this layout depending on their obligations at their workplace. Maybe you only need two sections? Or four! The key is to make the layouts in your planner your own. I wish you the best finding your own peace in Planner Heaven.
P.S. If you'd still prefer not to transform your planner pages, you can contact the girls at Limelife and they'd be happy to help you purchase new weekly pages that better suit your life.
This blog post was written by Elliscia Axson-Hall for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. Please do not repost this entry without giving credit to Limelife Planners and the post author.
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