I’m addicted to planners.

Paper, electronic, whatever. I don’t care. I feel like there has to be the perfect solution out there to make me productive, rich and famous. (Okay, maybe not the last two. But they might naturally grow out of productivity, right???)

I’m also all about taking recommendations.

• Michael Hyatt ran a great big company and has branched out on his own and seems to be doing quite well for himself (he’s was named one of Forbes Magazine’s Top 10 Online Marketing Experts To Follow In 2014.” He used Nozbe. I grabbed the free version, loved it, and pounced on the huge sale they did at Christmas that gave us two accounts for the price of one. I got Chris using it. Then I realized that it didn’t really work for me either. (Luckily, they have a 60 day money back guarantee, and incredible customer service.
• Erin Condren Life Planners are pretty. I know a lot of people who swear by them.
• I’m a huge fan of everything Kimberly Wilson does. Back in the day, she was a huge proponent of the Planner Pad. A few years ago, Kimberly started putting out her own Daybook.
• Etsy has a TON of options. Last year I downloaded this one.
• The company I used to work for did everything through Microsoft Outlook (and later, SharePoint) tasks.

The thing that all of these had in common was: they’re awesome, but not for me. (And they’re rather expensive.)

(This may be my ego talking, but I don’t think so. Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me I’m wrong.) I think, as a creative professional who has to devote a lot of time each day to just producing work, but not necessarily crossing things off a check list, I have a special set of needs when it comes to organization. Back when Kimberly was promoting the Planner Pad I used the basic structure to make something myself. Last month I spent most of the week before the kids went back to school (when I wasn’t cleaning out closets and drawers and generally purging) creating a new planner system for myself. Half-way through the first month, I’m pretty happy with it. It is based on goal setting and creating monthly and weekly plans before digging down on the daily level.

It’s very specific for me: I know I can’t focus on too many things each week, or each day, so I’ve left limited room to list things. I want to be reminded of my reading and art goals, because they’re the ones I tend to shove off to the side. I don’t usually have a lot of appointments, so a skinny schedule column works.

There are a few things I know I’m going to need to change.

• In the monthly reading column I need to add a line for the inspirational book.
• I have forgotten about the Gratitude list, so I need to set a reminder for myself on my calendar.
• It’s not super pretty. I use colored pens to fill it out to give it some pizzazz. But if I had the time and talent, I would like it to be a little more designed.

Because I love you, if you want I’ll give you the planner pages for free. Just put your email in the cute box below. I know it probably won’t work perfectly for anyone else, but if it helps, that’s great. And if it doesn’t…well…it was free. 🙂

This has been working sporadically, and I’m not sure why. If you don’t get it right away, send me an email: me (at) amandamichellemoon (dot) com and I’ll send it to you directly until I get the glitch worked out.

Do you have a planning system? What do you use to stay organized?