I think I mentioned that I'm trying a new primary planner for the year. The Complete Planner from Sterling Ink. (I received no compensation of any kind and paid full price for my planner.)
What intrigued me about this planner was that before every weekly vertical spread, there is a blank page. This gives me room to setup a weekly dashboard.
I've tried setting up a mini-dashboard in my 2025 planner, but because there were no extra pages, I had to do it in the middle of the weekly spread. It didn't work. I still forgot all about my weekly tasks.
However, in 2025, the monthly dashboard worked exceedingly well for me, so I was hoping that if I had a dedicated weekly dashboard it would help me out.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2024. I've always been able to manage my daily tasks by using my daily planner, but the monthly and weekly items killed me. It was a relief to figure out monthly, but I'm still testing out different options for the weekly, hoping to find one that sticks.
Overall, though, I really, really loved my 2025 planner because there was a meal tracking section in addition to the daily, monthly, and weekly pages. There was even room in the meal section to record my sleep. The Complete Planner does not have this dedicated section, and I knew I was going to miss it.
Then I had a scathingly brilliant idea. I am not a weekly vertical planning girlie. I get absolutely overwhelmed with that layout, which is why I struggle so much with weekly tasks. I was going to convert the weekly section to keep track of weather and word count (like I did in my 2025 planner), but that still leaves me a lot of room since I have that blank page in front of each week.
I counted lines and decided I had enough space to add the meal tracker to each weekly spread. Since I didn't want to do all that writing, I printed out some stickers, used a little washi tape, and came up with this layout.
I'm keeping track of the weather and word count at the top. Sleep and the books I'm reading that week are on the sidebar and then meals, vitamins and medication, and below that (unseen in the photo) is water tracking. I'm soooooooo bad at drinking water.
My 2025 planner had little water drops I could check off, but I don't want to use stickers here because of the bulk and I don't have a stamp small enough for the column. I do have a stencil I can use, but drawing 8 water drops for 7 days for 52 weeks? I can't do it. Instead, I'll just make tick marks for each cup of water I drink.
Just in case my Complete Planner doesn't work for me, I also bought the same planner I used in 2025 so I can switch if necessary. I think I'll like the Complete, though. It's just a matter of making the weekly dashboard work for me.
I am laying them out week by week so that I can change if it doesn't work and not be locked into anything.
My other planner, the one I used in 2025, I bought the 2026 version in a smaller size. I want to see if I need the A5 or if I can get by with a B6. I decided in the B6, to only do weather on the weekly vertical spread. I'm putting word count in the yearly tracker in the front. Again, testing it out because (if I like this), it will save me setup time in 2027.
I kind of wish that I could mash the Complete Planner and my 2025 planner layout together. It would be absolute perfection then. Sigh. I'll re-evaluate a few months into the year.
