I’ve always been someone who dreams of having an organized life: everything has its own place, nothing is askew, and there’s a planner with everything written in it with the stickers to match. I had this whole idea in my head of exactly how I wanted to organize my life, except I never got around to making it happen because I either just didn’t have the time, or the money and patience.
A couple of years ago, when I was just coming into college, I found out about bullet journaling. As someone who considers herself to be a creative person, I’ve always loved doodling in my notebooks in class. Bullet journaling combined these two things for me, as well as staying organized. I loved being able to make my own layouts and theme each month and decorate it regardless of whether there was a special holiday coming up. Even though it did take up a lot of my time setting it up each month, it was worth it because I knew where I had to be and when and what kind of work needed to get done.
After two years of being obsessed with bullet journaling, calligraphy style writing and having an abundance of markers, I decided bullet journaling was making me feel the opposite of how it used to make me feel. I would dread the start of a new month, knowing I would have to spend over an hour making my new layout and deciding what color I wanted this month to be. I was just running out of ideas. Sometimes I would forget to fill out a meal I had from the other day and I would spend more time than I needed to try and remember what it was just so I could fill it out.
That’s when I discovered Erin Condren, AKA, my new favorite person. I loved the idea of just buying a planner, but I could never find one that had all of my wants and my layout ideas. I felt that I needed to buy a new planner for every layout I liked just to make it my own. I would watch Youtube videos of someone setting up their planner with stickers and making everything organized, and I used to be in awe. It only took them a fraction of the time compared to bullet journaling. I used to love how they had different stickers for every event, but also had a collection of stickers, which is another one of my obsessions. After finding out about Erin Condren, my idea of planning had changed.
I love the process of picking out my Erin Condren planner, I could find the type of planner I needed for my daily use, the layout I wanted, and even pick and personalize the front cover, which was not something I could really do with a bullet journal. I found out about Erin Condren through one of my friend’s sorority sisters who had one and I instantly knew I needed to get one.
I ended up getting the Kaleidoscope Neutral Metallic Life Planner™ with the vertical layout to fit all of my needs. I also personalized mine with my name just in case I lose it, and I was able to choose whether or not I wanted a neutral theme or colorful. The planner might’ve been a little pricey, but with everything you get in it, it’s well worth it.
It includes a full year calendar of the year you get the planner for and the following year, multiple blank lined pages and dotted pages, weekly spreads for each month, a month at a glance page, a big monthly calendar, some coloring pages, contact pages, post it notes and four pages of stickers to help organize the planner.
With the vertical layout, it comes with three different sections in the weekly spreads. Most people use it for separating their day by morning, afternoon and night. I use mine for three different sections of my life: classes and homework, social and work life, and my sorority life.
I also invested in some monthly stickers to continue decorating my calendar and to add more color. I also color coordinate a lot of my events so it’s easier to find things and keep everything even more organized.
Overall, I definitely recommend any Erin Condren planner whether you are a student, planning a wedding (yes, she there is a planner for that), teaching or even just for your daily life. It has definitely cured some of my anxiety about my bullet journal and has saved me a lot of time not having to make a new layout every month. I am very glad I made the switch.
Here are some links to my planner, the stickers I got and some of my favorite pens and markers:
Erin Condren Kaleidoscope Neutral Metallic LifePlanner
Erin Condren Designer Sticker Book
Erin Condren Designer Sticker Book- Monthly Edition 3
Zebra Pen Z-Grip Ballpoint Pen