Jenna’s Planners for 2018: Not Totally Excessive At All…

December 14, 2017 by Jenna | Features

2018 is fast approaching (less than 3 weeks!) and the most exciting thing about the new year is definitely my new planners, along with creating a new Goodreads reading goal, of course. Today, I thought I’d go through the three planners that I will be using next year and what I use each of them for.

Erin Condren Life Planners

I have two Erin Condren Life Planners for 2018. One is in the colourful version and the other in the neutral. These planners are expensive so you’re probably wondering why I bought two of them. Well… this year I started with one EC planner and then picked up a second one in March when they had a 50% off sale. I ended up using one as my weekly planner and the other for rewind/memory keeping spreads. I love the idea of a memory keeping planner so that I can look back at certain days in my life and see exactly what happened that day. And I’ll be doing the same thing this year.

I bought both planners with the default platinum coil because it has no additional coating on it, which means that it will never chip. While I do love the rose gold coil that I got on one of my planners for 2017, I actually prefer the simplicity and the colour of the platinum/silver. I got a blue cover for my colourful planner, with the painted petals design in ivory. Blue is one of my favourite colours and I particularly love this shade of blue. For my neutral planner, I decided to go very neutral for my cover and get a houndstooth pattern. The default houndstooth design on the website had the black and white reversed but I liked it this way better. My favourite thing about these EC planners is how customisable they all are.

Next year, I will be using the colourful planner for weekly planning and the neutral version for memory keeping. I absolutely love the colourful and think that it’s extremely beautiful, but as you can see in the image down below, the weekly spread has the painted petal design in the top corners of the pages that I can’t really cover with stickers. The colour of the petals also change depending on the month. I don’t anticipate that it will be too difficult to match sticker kits to the colour of the petals but for memory keeping spreads, I don’t want to be limited in any way, especially if I want to use a super meaningful kit for that week (e.g. Harry Potter kit for when I go to the Sydney Symphony for Prisoner of Azkaban). Using the colourful for weekly planning also means that, on some weeks, I can transform my spread into an hourly spread by sticking hourly timestrips in the space between each day. That way, I can pull in multi-colour items that match the colour of the petals and do a mostly all-pen spread.

Hobonichi Techo Cousin

I bought the Hobonichi Techo Cousin as an on-the-go planner. I currently don’t take my Erin Condrens with me on the road because of the size and the fact that I don’t want to damage them. The Hobonichi Cousin allows me to carry it in my handbag and take it with me to and from work. It’s an A5 size so it’s not the most compact of planners but I liked that it not only had the daily pages but also a week-on-two-page from January to December, just like the Erin Condren. The weekly spread layout is exclusive to the Cousin and doesn’t come in the other Hobonichi sizes. I also love that the weekly spreads are in the hourly format, which gives it a different purpose to my EC planners.

I also love that the day-per-page layout gives me enough space to do some journaling as well. I currently have a bullet journal that I use but I’m keen to see what I can do with the Hobonichi that I don’t currently do in my bujo.

Three planners might seem really excessive and it probably is but even after one full year of consistently planning in my Erin Condrens and bullet journals, I still haven’t figured out the optimal method for myself. This setup for next year allows me to bring back what has worked, as well as experiment with new things.

Let me know if you do any kind of planning. I’d love to hear what you do and what your creative method is!

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Jenna is an Aussie blogger and reader who loves to indulge in great books and great food. She is a doctor (of philosophy) and can usually be found fangirling about something, devouring delicious food, or taking a nap. You can find her on Twitter @readwithjenna and on Instagram @readingwithjenna.

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16 responses to “Jenna’s Planners for 2018: Not Totally Excessive At All…

  1. Omg Jenna, your Erin Condrens are beautiful! I’m also interested in that cousin one because it seems very handy for being on-the-go… I love the EC you got me, but sometimes it just weighs down my backpack when I bring it with me everywhere, lol. Do you have any other recs for lighter planning?
    I love that you’re doing one planner for memories and one for planning! I guess mine is a mix of both, which makes it even more special for me.
    Aila J. recently posted…Mask of Shadows Review: Amazing, Action-Packed, Diverse Fantasy Full Of Intrigue!My Profile

    • Yeah I would never dream of taking my EC out anywhere. It’s just too beautiful! Though I have travelled with it in my suitcase to and from Canada haha. I would totally recommend the Hobonichi. The Cousin is kinda big but they have a smaller A6 size and then an even smaller one. Just check out the website. And the best thing about Hobonichi is that they allow you to make multiple payments to pay it off haha.
      Jenna recently posted…Jenna’s Five Disappointing Reads of 2017My Profile

  2. Grace Osas @ Somewhat Reserved

    Three planners is a lot! Well done for having incredible organisational skills!

    I personally use a Bullet Journal which I struggled with at the beginning but I enjoy it a lot more now. I can’t wait to start another one!

  3. It is great to see how you use your planners. Hey, if 3 planners is worth it to you then that is great. As long as it works for you, right? I’m not much of a planner person. Instead of getting a planner for just me I just got a family planner this year. I’ve always been drawn in by those but never tried them before. Oh and technically I have a very simple planner for the blog. But I’m already using that one right now.
    Annemieke recently posted…Book Review – Lady MidnightMy Profile

  4. You’re definitely super organised when it comes to your planners! Having one on the go has been enough for me haha (with various other ways of keeping track of things). Looking forward to seeing your planner spreads!

    • HAHA the fact that our names are anagrams of each others was one of the first things we noticed too! I think a bullet journal is pretty versatile if you don’t really have much time to plan! You can just make simple to-do lists and decorate it with some washi-tape. I think that would work really well!
      Jenna recently posted…Jenna’s Five Disappointing Reads of 2017My Profile

  5. I have always loved the idea of planners, and I do have one at the moment! I bought myself a passion planner, and I absolutely love it, but I never really have the time to use it to its full potential, or be more creative with it. It’s also hard because I’m that type of person where everything has to be perfect, and if I mess up, I want to give up. 😛 But these planners look so cool! I don’t think I could handle three of them though!
    Valerie recently posted…No Review Required: Fantasy Reads!My Profile

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