My 2017 Planner

When it was time to find a new planner for 2016, I couldn't  find the style I'd been using for the previous four years. The one I finally did settle on was awful, to the point that I was ready to ditch it mid-year and start over with almost anything else.

Then I started seeing things about planners and bullet journals. Remember how in last year's planner post I said that there was never going to be a planner with spaces for tracking everything I need to track? It turns out that the solution is making up my own trackers as I go along...and as a bonus, I can make the weekly pages fit my husband's eight-day work cycle and have exactly as many pages in between as I wind up needing for project notes and shopping lists.

A bit before Halloween, I grabbed an empty notebook and drew out the days for the next couple of weeks. This is working so much better than anything I've done in previous years! I'm not terribly consistent and my handwriting isn't pretty, but it's working well so far.

I've got a nicer journal to start using as soon as I work up the nerve, along with some washi tape I found on sale at Hobby Lobby and some I'd bought a few years back and then forgotten in a desk drawer.

When I write down what we had for dinner every night, it keeps me from cooking spaghetti twice in the same week and also keeps me from killing the kids by feeding them leftovers that are past their prime.

How about you? Do you have a fancy pre-printed planner? A cheap notebook like I'm currently using? Something in between? More importantly, does it work for you?