2025 planner, time to use you!

[havocthecat]

On New Year's Day, I broke out the 2025 planner. I put in all the holidays (well, no, I put in some of the holidays, I'll fill in the rest later), and the work holidays, and the school schedule, my 2025 medical appointments, and, weirdly, a portion of my work schedule. Because otherwise I'll potentially schedule my vacations on all the wrong times, and no one wants that, right?

Next up - you! What's your planner strategy? Do you have a strategy?

I have some graph paper in my planner and I might try putting some habit tracking together for those parts. I'm so bad at habit tracking. But! But I think I could try. Kind of some hybrid regular journaling and bullet journaling. Which I don't normally do. I think it could be interesting.

Do you plan on making any changes to your planner habits in 2025?

What's your favorite thing to use to mark up your planner? Do you have any stickers? Stamps? Washi tape? OMG, washi tape. A color-coding scheme better than mine?

Comments

[lunabee34]

I'm sticking with my tried and true huge ass calendar + running to do list.

I also start out each year by putting a bunch of important dates on the calendar-- in my case everyone's birthday and when I have to change my birth control ring. Then I put all the academic calendar dates for me and for Fi on the calendar. Then once I get my syllabi done, I put all the due dates for student assignments on the calendar. After that, it's just putting in appointments and meetings as they arise.

I don't decorate my planner; I reserve that for my journal. But I love washi tape and stickers in my journal.

[havocthecat]

I understand! I have a running to-do list for work. For home, it mostly sticks in my head. Mostly.

What stickers do you use for your journal? Anything specific or just stuff you pick up here and there?

[lunabee34]

Just stuff I pick up here and there, gifts or from JetPens. I only use washi stickers/tape on the actual pages of the journal because they aren't bulky and don't cause that bump effect when you write on the back page. I do use other kinds of stickers on the end pages or the outside covers.

[nyctanthes]

I started using a planner halfway through last year and found it very helpful for organizing my week. So for 2025 I got a Hobonichi Techo Book (the Cousin Avec A5 Japanese which comes in two parts: Jan-June and July-Dec). And a pencil board and a cover, heh.

[havocthecat]

I love my Hobonichi! I use one that's day-free because that's too much for me to carry, but the Cousin Avec two-parter is also pretty great, I've used that before too!

Which cover do you have?

[nyctanthes]

I like the Japanese version of the two-parter. (I don't think it comes in English?) I'm not a fan of inspirational quotes in my planner, and this way I can't read them. :P

I splurged on a Keiko Shibata fabric cover. Two cats bicycling near a woods. I rather love it!

[grayestofghosts]

Really the only thing I do to prepare my planner for the new year is to immediately migrate anything already noted for past the end of the year in the old planner into the new -- doctor's appointments, etc.

This year's planner is the Kusano Masamune/junaida "Through The Purple Night" planner. This year I'm trying to write a sentence or two of what I did that day in the weeks section. I started off using the graph section for this while keeping the left hand side for to-dos but am thinking about switching them, because my tasks usually have checkboxes...

[havocthecat]

Ohhh that's beautiful! I use an A5, but I was thinking of trying a B6 in 2026. I'm not sure how that will go, I have very large handwriting.

[ganseyisms]

I'm starting out with more minimal bujo spreads, e.g. tracking fewer things/habits. I'd previously ditched any kind of system/structure + all decorating to see if it helped me write more down but I need at least some guidelines or my journal becomes a mess and the messiness makes me stop using it. So for now I'm using the original Carroll logs with a five column habit tracking section in my monthly log, no special extra identifiers, and I'll see how it goes.

[havocthecat]

I'm going to look up the original Carroll logs now that you've mentioned this. I do think a very minimal habit tracking might work better for me. I have some Midori stamps where I just write the habit on top and circle what I did, but I might try a page on the opposite side for some more details too.

Thank you! This could be very useful for me!

[ganseyisms]

I think the original original monthly log doesn't even have habit tracking, just the column of days on one side of the first page and the monthly task lists on the second(so like this), but the way I'm implementing it looks like a simpler version of this, where it's a tiny group of columns on the other side of the dated page. I also found that having a dedicated page with a lot of habits tracked was a tad overwhelming, so I stopped using it.

[spiralicious]

I'm actually having trouble getting things set up this year, but that is more of a time management problem than a planner problem.

The only major changes I'm making this year is that I got the dashboard layout version of the planner I got last year (which was horizontal weekly layouts). I only use the weekly layouts part of the planner for tracking media consumption (books, movies, TV) and my mood, so the big two page layout was too much. In the dashboard layout, one page is little lined squares of the week days and the facing page is for notes, sectioned off into 4 squares - one for a checklist, one with graph/square grid space, one with dot grid, and one that is just blank space. This has proven to much more useful so far.

The other big change is that instead of trying to paperclip things into my planner or my bullet journal, I just got a folder. Things that would go in the folder are like the tracker sheet for the public library's reading challenge I will need to turn in when I'm done with it, or instructions for February letter writing project.

As for marking my planner & bullet journal, I prefer using stickers on the outside and highlighters on the inside.