It is surreal to me that I’ve been a part of the planner community ‘officially’ for the last 4 years. In some sense, it feels much longer since I had been using planners and following others on YouTube long before I had a social media presence at all. I’ve definitely come a long way since my early days (might be fun map out a timeline of my planner journey in a future post 😊). I thought today we could go over the top 3 things I wish I knew about earlier when starting in the planner community that would have been handy as a newbie.

1. DIY is an option!

Depending on how you discover planners and the planner community, you may be all over this one with creating your own stickers, inserts, accessories, pretty much everything that is involved in a planner.

When I first started with rings, for some reason I had limited myself to only really using what I was able to purchase from other stores when it came to dividers and inserts. I don’t think I even realised planner stickers existed either… (lol), I had my teal personal rings that I had purchased from Officeworks (which is THE office supplies store here in Australia), no frills or fuss involved, I was good.

Transitioning to now, I had never thought about making my own dashboards to hold planner cards and deco, or printing on blank sticky notes to make them multi-functional. There is so much you can create at home with just a laminator alone! 

(Some of my favourite creations from the past!)

One of the great things aswell about this community is that we are always thinking about new and innovative things we can make to better our planners. Because of platforms like YouTube and Instagram, we share these ideas with each other which is amazing. Giving credit where it’s due of course, I remember when task cards weren’t even a thing until @madyplans had introduced the concept in the community. How about the famous Stalogy notebook? It has revolutionised how many of us set up DIY planners using the plain grid notebook.  The creativity is endless.

 

2. Start simple, it is not a race... 

Okay, so this was probably something I needed to hear wayyyyy back when I was first discovering all my planner options. After going through my ‘plain Jane’ phase, I hit the other side of the spectrum where I had to try ALL the things. I don’t think I even necessarily considered what would work for me or what I actually enjoyed using. More that I had to use all this stuff I saw on the internet 😂

I had this mentality where; having all the planner things = I’m doing planning right (let me know if you can relate!). If I had all the stickers and washi tape, it meant I was a ‘proper’ planner person (I honestly don’t know what I was thinking). 

Throwback pic from the early days😆

Obviously, I was heavily influenced by the planner content I was consuming from the community at the time. I do wish that I could go back and tell myself to start small, to take my time figuring out what I really like before spending so much money on items I didn’t end up using at all.

This does make a good segway onto the third thing however which is…

 

3. Destash groups!

So it turns out, if you’re wanting to give away or sell planner items you’re no longer wanting to keep, there is a space for that within this community! I can’t even remember when I first discovered destash groups, but I know it was something I found out about later down the line. Highly recommend to check out some local to yourself (FB and IG are usually the main platforms to find them I’ve found 👍🏽).

There are so many advantages to using destash groups besides give your unused planner goodies a new home. Depending on the items, you can usually find them for a marked down price which makes this an affordable way to try and experiment with different types of planners or accessories. It also gives you the chance to own something that is no longer manufactured but would love to have (e.g. the rare unicorn planner). 

One of my first and favourite destash finds, the Kate Spade zip planner 😍

I know one aspect that is advantagous for me is that it gives me the opportunity to purchase items that may not normally be accessible or are so expensive to ship to me, being out here in Australia. Plus these groups can act as great icebreakers when trying to meet others in the community if you’re not too sure how to connect with other planner people 😊

So those were my top 3 things I wish I could tell past Tash when I had first started in the planner community. I would love to know if you also had a similar experience back when you first started, or if you’re new to the community and any of this resinated with you, let me know in the comments! 🥰

agenda planner inserts

leather agenda covers

personal planner inserts

writing utensils

Till next time xx