My Planner Problem TAG!

Hello everyone!

I’m going to be sharing some planner-related questions I wrote as a part of the “My Planner Problem” tag! I wrote all of these myself because I couldn’t find a tag that had enough of the questions I liked, so I just made one! Obviously I tag all of you to answer these questions, and I have a form at the bottom where you can answer them yourself. I’m going to include everyone’s answers on a page on my blog, and I may even share my favorite responses on my Instagram (@plannerproblem). If you do this tag, tag me on Instagram! I’d love to see your videos/ posts!

Clearly if you’re here on my blog you have a planner problem like me, so go ahead and answer these for yourself!

To get things started, I’m going to tag Very Stationery (verystationeryblog.wordpress.com , @verystationery) and Pink Bows & Twinkle Toes (pinkbowstwinkletoes.com , @pinkbowstwinkletoes) to do this tag. I’ve been enjoying these blogs a lot lately, and I can’t wait to see their responses!

Lastly, there are a ton of questions, so feel free to answer the ones that apply to you or the ones you like :).

The Questions

How long have you been planning/decorating?
What’s your favorite planner? (Doesn’t have to be one you use!)
Which Erin Condren monthly scheme is your favorite (either old or new)?
What type of sticker can you not live without?
What planning supply (besides stickers!) is absolutely essential to your planning routine?
Which day of the week do you typically plan on, or do you plan as you go?
White space, no-white space, or a variation of both?
Favorite weeks to plan for? (What events do you look forward to making spreads for… ex) The week of New Year’s, or my birthday week)
What’s your favorite planner pen?
For you, what is the centerpiece of the spread? (i.e. what about the spread makes you like/dislike it?)
Do you use/decorate your monthly layout?
How many planners are you currently using?
What/who got you into planning?
What was the first planner you decorated in?
What’s your most sentimental spread?
How long has it been since you last missed decorating a spread? (i.e. how many weeks in a row have you decorated spreads for?)
Printable stickers or printed and ready to use?
Do your friends and family understand your planner problem?
Have you every made your own custom stickers?
For vertical planners: what 3 headers do you use to divide your days?
Do you pre-plan, wing it, or plan as you go?
Anything weird or unusual you keep track of in your planner?
Does your planner travel with you or do you keep it at home?
What was your first impression of planning and planner decorating?
Glitter, watercolor, or both?
Instagram or YouTube for planner inspiration?
Horizontal, hourly, or vertical layouts?
What’s your favorite thing to do while planning
Do you plan ahead, as you go, or plan past weeks?
Share your biggest planning fail.
Matte or glossy?
Why do you love your planner problem?

So that’s it! I know 32 questions is a bit much for a tag, but I’m just so curious to learn about my readers! Below you’ll find my answers to let you get to know who I am, as well as give you an idea of how you could go about these questions!

My Responses

How long have you been planning/decorating?

I started decorating my planner the week of March 28th, 2016, so I’m a total newbie!

What’s your favorite planner? (Doesn’t have to be one you use!)

I love the Happy Planner that I use, but I also have my eye on a Plum Paper Academic Planner! I like the Erin Condren, however I like the how customizable the Happy Planner is!

Which Erin Condren monthly scheme is your favorite (either old or new)?

Old: January is my favorite, with May being a close second.

New: I think it’s between December and November. December seems to be the brightest, so I might go with that one.

What type of sticker can you not live without?

Checklists are absolutely essential for me! I can probably go without full boxes, headers, and little things, but my daily checklists keep me on track, and I’m terrible at drawing, so I need the stickers!

What planning supply (besides stickers!) is absolutely essential to your planning routine?

100% Scissors. I’m always cutting and adjusting stuff to fit, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine needing to tear something instead of just cutting!

Which day of the week do you typically plan on, or do you plan as you go?

During the school year, I’ll typically do it Sunday, however I’ve been doing Monday afternoon lately. I don’t like to plan too far ahead because things are always changing with little notice, and I want to make sure I have everything down!

White space, no-white space, or a variation of both?

Definitely no-white space. I don’t think I’ve even done a white space spread since I started decorating my planner. I tried to do a digital spread with white space to showcase a printable kit, but I didn’t even know where to start, so I just gave up! I know this may sound weird, but white space is so much easier for me!

Favorite weeks to plan for? (What events do you look forward to making spreads for… ex) The week of New Year’s, or my birthday week)

Generally, I like planning busy weeks. It’s satisfying to know that the hour or so I spend planning is going to be useful. In terms of big events, I think I’ll like planning New Year’s because of all the gold and black glitter!

What’s your favorite planner pen?

I’ve been using my Staedtler fineliners lately, and they’ve been working great! I may have a review up about them in a month or so to give my overall thoughts. I have the 20 pack of pens, and I’ve been able to have every pen necessary! I also use ball point pens regularly for pre-planning and writing quick checklists. I’m not a huge fan of gel-pens because I find that a lot of them skip and run out quickly, but hopefully I’ll find a gel pen brand I like!

For you, what is the centerpiece of the spread? (i.e. what about the spread makes you like/dislike it?)

Definitely full boxes. Before I made printable kits, I would download samplers and based on the full boxes I would design and make my functional items. When I design my printable kits, I start by looking for full boxes. If I can’t find or make ones I like, I just start fresh with something else. I think full boxes give the ultimate inspiration for a sticker maker.

Do you use/decorate your monthly layout?

I used to lightly decorate my monthly view with sidebar stickers, boxes, and labels, and I tried once to use a monthly overlay I found from myplannerenvy.com, but I just didn’t like the look if it in my planner, and it seemed like too much of a hassle to find a label every time I needed to mark something. For July, I’ve been trying out doing just pen, and so far I’ve been liking it more. I’ve been using pens in the same color as the month in my Happy Planner, and it’s been looking better than any of my other monthly views!

How many planners are you currently using?

During the summer I use 2 planners for my decorating and pre-planning, and during the school year I use a third. However, I’ve been using digital inserts to do mock spreads to showcase kits, but I don’t think that counts!

What/who got you into planning?

Bonita Juanita on YouTube (@bonitajuanitaplans on Instagram) was the first person I saw planning. I was and still am a huge nail polish fan, and I loved watching her nail polish videos! But then I saw that she posted a Plan With Me back in January, and I was so intrigued that I clicked on the video and watched it. A few weeks later she posted another using a kit from Oh Hello Stationery Co and I had started watching their channel, Microscope Beauty. From there I was getting tons of recommendations to other planner videos, and I started watching Kirsten’s videos, and I was hooked! I then discovered Scribble Prints Co, and it was her review on the new Happy Planners that made me go to Michael’s the next week to get one of my own! From that point on I had already been completely immersed in the planning community, and there was no turning back!

What was the first planner you decorated in?

It was definitely my Happy Planner. I immediately started doing no-white space spreads, which is pretty strange for a new planner, but I had watched enough videos that I had an idea of what I wanted to do.

What’s your most sentimental spread?

It has to be my first. It was also my birthday week, so it adds to the sentimentality of it. I posted a picture of it on my Instagram a while back too. It was super messy and uneven, but it was my first attempt!

How long has it been since you last missed decorating a spread? (i.e. how many weeks in a row have you decorated spreads for?)

I started decorating March 28th, and I haven’t missed a week since! I didn’t plan one week while I was out of town, but I went back and decorated it to document what we did and ate.

Printable stickers or printed and ready to use?

Do I even need to answer this? Of course the answer is printables! I just like that I can change and alter them for what I want. From a designer’s perspective, I don’t have to worry about shipping, paper, cutting, or any of the logistical aspects of selling ready made stickers. I also can add as many stickers as I want to a kit without worrying about weight or price, which is essential to me! You’ve seen my kits… 6 full pages is a bit much, but it ensures that I can include something for everyone to use!

Do your friends and family understand your planner problem?

Everyone thinks it’s weird, and I haven’t even tried getting them to understand. But they also don’t understand my nail polish obsession, so this isn’t unusual for me!

Have you every made your own custom stickers?

Obviously! I have custom stickers in every one of my spreads, even before I started the blog. In fact the reason I started it was because I was already making stickers for myself because a lot of the printables online are not meant for no-white space spreads (also why I do full kits). I thought that if I was already making kits for myself, I might as well share them with people who may have less time to do it themselves. However if you do have the time I would 100% recommend that you try it! Even if it’s a couple boxes or headers, it gives you a custom look that you can’t get anywhere else!

For vertical planners: what 3 headers do you use to divide your days?

During school I have school, to do, and today headers in that order. As soon as school ended, I started doing to do, today, and little things.

Do you pre-plan, wing it, or plan as you go?

I very heavily pre-plan. I probably take about 30-40 minutes to make sure I do it correctly. Otherwise, I feel overwhelmed and unable to finish the spread. You can see this post on how I do it.

Anything weird or unusual you keep track of in your planner?

I have a weekly ombre that has always been in my spreads that I use to keep track of what nail polish I wear what days. It helps me see how long it’s been since I’ve used one. I also mark my favorite polish that week just for memory keeping!

Does your planner travel with you or do you keep it at home?

I initially wanted to take it with me to school, but the Happy Planners are very bulky and I don’t trust the disks to be able to handle the stuff I put in my backpack, so I decided against it, and it’s permanent home is my desk.

What was your first impression of planning and planner decorating?

As I mentioned, my first experience was from watching Bonita Juanita on YouTube. If you watch her videos, you know that she used to be a huge white-space planner, and even with all the white-space, I thought she was crazy for taking that much time and effort! When I started watching Kirsten, I was like okay, these people have lost their minds! I just didn’t find a reason for covering every inch of a planner with stickers, but I completely get it now. I always love showing people PWMs just to see them react the same way I initially did!

Glitter, watercolor, or both?

I’m not a huge fan of watercolor. I prefer glitter way more, which is why you’ll see it in almost every kit I make!

Instagram or YouTube for planner inspiration?

I think Instagram is great for finding planners and etsy shops, but YouTube is great for getting inspiration because you can actually see people putting together their spreads. When I was reformatting my kit for horizontal planners, I watched tons of videos to see what horizontal planners used to get an idea of what I needed to include. I also got the inspiration for my current layout from Andrea at Scribble Prints Co, and my school spreads are modified versions of Kirsten’s.

Horizontal, hourly, or vertical layouts?

I like horizontal for school, but I much prefer vertical. I’ve been using vertical layouts for my weekly spreads and for putting together my blog to dos and upload schedule.

What’s your favorite thing to do while planning?

I love watching other people planning! It makes me feel like we are doing it together, and I like listening to the podcast-like audio in the background.

Do you plan ahead, as you go, or plan past weeks?

I usually plan ahead, but I did do a rewind spread once for a week I was on vacation. I really want to try the plan as you go style, but it takes more energy to get up to plan every day than it does for me to do it once a week for a couple hours.

Share your biggest planning fail.

It was this mint colored Easter-like spread that I did, and it was awful. I used a printable kit from cutedaisy.com, and it wasn’t the printable that was bad, but it was my laziness that ruined the spread. First problem was when I was making my stickers. I made some of the colors too bright, so when I printed the pages, I couldn’t read any of the text. Also I was just feeling very lazy that day so everything was crooked and uneven. It was just not my best spread, even though the full boxes and original sampler were beautiful.

Matte or glossy?

I like matte for when I need to write a lot of stuff, but glossy just looks so much nicer IMO.

Why do you love your planner problem?

It’s so much fun to feel apart of a planner community where you can share ideas and see what others are up to. Also my planner problem led me to my new favorite hobby- designing and blogging- which I wouldn’t have had it not been for a couple YouTube videos in January!

Your Turn!

Alright so now you can answer the questions yourself! Be sure to number them or just copy and paste from above. Answer as much or as little as you’d like and check the box to indicate if you’d like me to share them! Tag me @plannerproblem if you make any videos or write any blog posts on this tag!