Now that we are steady into 2023 and have had a taste of what our planners have to offer, some of us may be struggling with being 100% committed to our new planners. Before I continue, let me preface this by saying you don’t have to stay in the same planners all year round. Feel free to change things up whenever needed.

But for those of us who may be experiencing the itch to switch… yet feel like they haven’t given their current setup a fair go, have you considered personalising your planner to make it really yours?

And I mean going beyond the few deco cards and front dashboards here. 

Does your planner feel like home to you?

I encourage you to start with an initial brainstorm…

• How do I feel about my planner(s) right now?
• How can I enhance this space to be what I need in my life right now?
• Is there anything I am hesitant to include in this planner and why? 

After considering these questions, you may already have some initial ideas on how to personalise your planner further. If you are stuck with how to approach this, I’ve got some ideas for you 😊

Incorporate your interests outside of planning

Considering that we are multifaceted beings with different hobbies and interests, it would make sense to include elements in our planners to reflect this. Taking a more holistic approach to our setups, it can be really fulfilling to add spreads or deco to reflect these other parts of us. 

Maybe you enjoy working out at the gym, why not include a spread to celebrate your milestones you’ve achieved in your journey? Or maybe you’re a huge green thumb, what about a visually appealing aesthetic board to add some greenery to the front of your planner? I know we have BTS-stans in this community haha, why not add in a cute selfie of your bias to make it fun? 😄

There are so many ways to go about this. Something I’ve recently looked into more was custom dashboards. May happens to have a few available in her shop and I opted into getting this one as a nod to my writer-self, which I love so much.

Items pictured: Custom Script Vellum Dashboard, 2023 YO1P Milk Vellum Dashboard, Acrylic Block Luxe Ruler

Add quotes and messages relevant to you

Depending on how you use your planner, for some of us it truly serves as our second brain. The great part about this is that we can set ourselves up for success and create a safe space for when we have those not so great days. I encourage you to give this a try if you haven’t before. 

I love leaving quotes and messages for myself in random places in my planner. It can be such a great pick-me-up and can challenge us to rethink our current mindset at the time. You can get creative with this as well, make an entire dashboard or spread dedicated to positive messages for yourself. Or maybe you need that extra bit of encouragement to get your current project done. 

I tend to opt for sticky notes when writing messages to myself because they can be placed pretty much anywhere.

And remember, it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. Only you.

Creating a positive and safe space

The previous points do tie into this aswell of course. But for this, we are a digging a bit deeper and are considering images, themes, maybe even smells that really hone into what we want to feel or experience with our planners. That will make us go, ‘I love being here..,’ contently as we scribble into it.

For example, including photos of loved ones in our planners to make us smile or remind us of a memorable experience. 

This is not exactly a photo…but still is the same concept. Monsters Inc. is one of my favourite movies of all time, brings me so much comfort and I can translate that feeling into my planner by including a dashboard of Mike Wazowski haha.

I also mentioned smell before, I have yet to try this but I’ve seen other people put perfume sample cards in their planners which is actually genius!

BTS-stans, here is your go ahead to go all out and Jimin-ify your entire planner 😂

At the end of the day, you want to feel good about being in your planner. So much time and effort goes into using them, make it an enjoyable experience for yourself. 

Let me know if any of these suggestion resonated with you, or if it made you think of something else entirely that will really help you define your planner as truly being yours.

I would love to see what you come up with aswell if you want to share on IG, you can find me @creatively_tash

Until next time! xx