Best Laid Plans

BLP Ep #122: More Custom Planner Peace, Sticky Note Ideas, Email & Baby Book Backlogs, and a DIY 2023 Goal Planner

November 28, 2022

Cheryl’s Planner Peace

Cheryl shares her Planner Pad and Full Focus (<– affiliate link) combo + lots of stickers and homemade cloth covers.

Sticker companies mentioned:  MakeStickers.com and KHDStickers.com 

Thank you Cheryl and keep the submissions coming! I’d also loooooove anyone who is excited about their 2023 system to share — Prospective Planner Stack Peace?

Jenn’s Sticky Note Suggestions

these are so pretty!
  • Knock Knock – super functional and sometimes tongue in cheek

Q&A: Email backlog AND twin baby book backlog?!

Yep, the same listener with both! 1000% understand how one might get behind on email with twin babies or toddlers, but I think the same principles apply – you CAN clean up both of these loose ends if it matters to you.

Email – I advised to bulk archive old stuff to declare partial email bankruptcy and just go through the most recent month or so in more detail. If it’s on page 352 it’s essentially invisible to you anyway, right?!

Baby book – think about what your goals are. Preserving the memories? Having a fun process? If it’s the former, maybe throwing together a photobook (which can be done imperfectly in one afternoon) would suffice. If it’s the latter, maybe think about how you could catch up 3 months at a time and how you might plan things out to make it fun and low-pressure.

2023 Goal Planner!

I opted for a rather open ended option — the Erin Condren 2023 monthly planner! This has just enough structure for me plus the luscious paper I love from EC. Each monthly section has a tabbed dashboard page, monthly calendar layout, and then 5 sheets (10 pages) of blank notes, plus there are 20 blank sheets in the back.

I plan on including annual, quintile and monthly goals in here, plus keeping track of bigger projects.

EC monthly planner with vegan leather cover + harmony neutral interior . This is my attempt at a desk-scape . . .
had to cover stuff up, can’t give away all my schemes + goals yet! (and this is just a brainstorm page anyway . . .)

The exact item is linked above (regular non-affiliate link); if you’d like to shop using my EC referral link, it’s here (this provides me with a small credit to use towards EC items).

Episode Sponsors:

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Plan to Eat: Meal planning with your own favorite recipes. Best Laid Plans listeners can get a 25% discount on a yearly subscription by signing up for a free trial at plantoeat.com/plans.

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4 Comments

  • Reply Allee November 28, 2022 at 11:03 am

    I just bought these sticky notes from Target to do a similar thing to what your husband was looking for. https://www.russellandhazel.com/products/to-do-sticky-notes

  • Reply Alexis November 28, 2022 at 11:43 am

    Thank you so much for the plan to eat mention! It is changing my life so far (I imported a few recipes already today). 🙂

  • Reply Brooke November 28, 2022 at 9:59 pm

    I love these post its that may accomplish what Josh wants: https://www.target.com/p/post-it-list-notes-3-34-x6-34-blue/-/A-83043099

    I’d also settled on using a monthly EC to replace Powersheets – and the Makselife just came out with a new monthly planner that exactly what I need. Monthly with tabs, monthly/weekly goals pages, and blank lined pages each month, and minimal prep work in the front. https://makselife.com/collections/all-planners/products/12-month-undated-goal-setting-monthly-planner-cloud

  • Reply Kelsi November 30, 2022 at 3:39 pm

    Get to work book is awesome- I used their planner for years until recently upgrading to a custom agendio. But it served me well, and I love the rainbow stickies, I ‘save’ them. Need to get over this!

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