planner stuff

I have an electronic planner in my phone, but I remember things better if I write them down. So I use a paper planner. I like paper planners. I have one for homeschooling, one for day-to-day planning, and a travelers notebook that comes along with me. And I have a bullet journal, for whatever I’m currently writing.

My planner of choice is from Plum Paper.  This is my everyday planner, with bonus Pusheen and rainbows. Yes, stickers and washi tape are a huge part of my planning.

I like the formats and the customization available with Plum Paper. The sizes are great (the one pictured is 8.5 x 11), and the paper is wonderful (there’s no bleed through no matter what pens I use). I have a bunch of 5×7 Plum Paper notebooks, too. But I’ve discovered that, while the spiral bound notebooks are every bit as wonderful as the planners, the perfectbound Plum notebooks are not quite as robust as I’d like them to be. Which is very, since I need this to go in and out of my purse or my laptop bag. , and last for the length of the series I’m writing.

That little owl notebook is my notes and plans for Swords of Charlemagne, and this is the second perfect bound notebook I’ve killed because I’m rough on my things. Once again, I needed something to replace the bullet journal. Then I discovered the Paperdori from Plot your Work.

Plot your Work offers several different sizes of Paperdori. This one is holds three 5X7 inserts (which Plot your Work offers as well). And if you can see on the left, there’s a planner charm — you can choose your charm, and I chose a fountain pen nib.

For my three inserts, I used a dotted journal (for my bullet journal) and two of Plot Your Work’s single project planners (with awesome hand marbled covers!).  This ended up being much more than I needed — I probably could have gotten away with using one single project planner for the last two books in Swords of Charlemagne.

Because I have a pocket sized ‘dori, there are only 28 lines on a dotted page. So I had to kinda had to format my monthly calendars to fit. This is where I’ll log my wordcounts, and my word totals, and I’ll make note of any professional events that will be happening while I write. You can see Indie Bookfest listed on those pages.

In the single project notebooks, there are a mix of dotted pages and project planning specific pages. I’ve used these before in the full sized Plot Your Work planner, and I like how functional they are.

Now, why I said that I could have used one of these single project for both books? That page there is an entire year of planning.  It takes me four to six months to write a draft — so one of these single project notebooks would have fit both books left in Swords of Charlemagne. But I wasn’t thinking of that when I set things up, so I wrote in both. I’ll remember this for next time — the way I use these planners, I can fit two related books into one single project notebook.

So, consider this an enthusiastic two-thumbs-up for the Plot your Work Paperdori! Very functional, and they definitely over deliver!