I thought I'd come up with alternate uses for the planners that were not going to work for me as actual planners. This has been an epic fail for me.
Item 1, the planner I thought I'd use as a memory planner. Sigh. It showed me how bad I am with inked stamps and that I don't feel like fighting this every day. Especially because (see item 2)
Item 2: I have four journals now that I have to record stuff in every day. FOUR. One is the Five-Year Diary, so it's not exactly a journal and serves (sort of) a different purpose, but this is like three too many.
I would be okay with the Five-Year Diary and one B6 sized journal, but I have an A5 journal and 2 B6 journals and OMG!
I keep telling myself I don't have to do this, that I can drop a couple of them. Unfortunately, my brain does not like this idea and the thought of abandoning them is untenable.
My solution for the memory planner is that next year I will buy stickers and redate the entire thing and use it in 2026. I will have to figure out how to cover up and re-use the pages I messed up trying to stamp, but I'm confident something will come to me.
On the journals? I'm just plugging along.
Item 3: The monthly planner was unneeded, and I've moved these items into my everyday planner.
Item 4: The weekly planner was also unneeded, and I've moved these items into my everyday planner.
Item 5: The EveryDay Carry (EDC) Planner. This is kind of working out for me. I like having it all on paper in front of me, and one of my weekly to-do items is to synchronize my planners. Um, I'm mostly successful with this. The one thing I don't like is this planner has a bunch of weekly pages and blank pages and I only need the monthly view. Next year I will buy a calendar booklet and not get an actual planner.
Item 6: the writing planner I wanted to try out, and thought would be my writing planner has turned into my secondary planner. As in it has all the items (or most of them anyway) from the everyday planner, but I keep this one on the other side of the house from the official planner. That way I don't have to run around to check my day.
I had hopes for this, but I've purchased actual author planners in the past and literally never used them even one day, so I'm not surprised. Plus, it's not a bad thing to have a reference handy. BTW, this planner would be totally awesome and a definite contender for everyday planner if it were one volume and not two. Two volumes are a deal breaker for me.
Item 7: the planner I tested, and thought would be my entertainment review book. Sigh. I had such high hopes for this one. I want to consume more entertainment, but I spend so much time writing that it's hard for me to find time to read for pleasure or even watch a movie. Especially when I have so many podcasts I enjoy listening to and they take up what little time I do have. Um, did I mention I'm over 120 episodes now on one of the podcasts I used to love?
And okay, I'm also spending way too much time writing in four journals to read or watch a movie. Gah! Four journals.
I'm sort of looking forward to 2026 when everything will be streamlined, and I won't be spending my entire life journaling.
