“Okay, this is it. The year I finally get organized.”
– Me every year when I buy a new planner and use it for 2 months
I always start out with the best of intentions with planners. Like I really think that buying a notebook calendar is going to make me a different person, who is organized and has their sh*t together. Lol adorable.
I received a Passion Planner as a birthday gift from a friend. *cough* take the hint *cough* She bought Passion Planners for a group of us and created a group text where we’d send pictures of our weeks so we could keep each other on track and be more intentional about our lives. (Read: “Get your sh*t together, Carol!“) I am all for that accountability game and the false hope of a new planner, so I was in.
WTF Is A Passion Planner?
Basically it’s the Amazon.com of planners. It has everything you didn’t know you needed, but now suddenly can’t live without. It’s a classic day-to-day planner with space to map out your day in half hour increments, it has space for goal setting, to-do lists, gratitude logging, and even a separate blank area for sketching/additional lists.
It was totally daunting at first. I’m the type of person who finds it insane that people do coloring books to relax because coloring in an intricate mandala sounds stressful AF to me.
And people take their Passion Planner artwork seriously. For real, search “Passion Planner ideas” on Pinterest and you’re bound to have your brain explode.
Luckily, making it look pretty only matters if it’s important to you. I did my very best to make it look nice. I bought $20 worth of gel pens because I spend my money very wisely. But my focus wasn’t on having my planner be Pinterest-worthy. I wanted to do the aforementioned getting my sh*t together.
My Favorite Things About Passion Planners
“Good Things That Happened”. This section really motivates me to look for the good in each day and each week. Sometimes it’s a weight loss achievement, other times it’s just being stoked I could start listening to Christmas music because Halloween was over. Yes, I’m one of those people who listens to Christmas music in November. Form an orderly irate queue, Thanksgiving fans!
Today’s Focus. I have a love/hate relationship with having to come up with a daily focus each day. I mean, my usual “focus” is: “just make it to tomorrow, Christina”. Which, ya know, is a solid goal, but isn’t very specific or the most positive. I started putting focuses like “check-in on weekly goals” and “focus on family time” and “self-care”. It was a tad more fun and constructive, especially when I knew I had something like a self-care night planned. We love a face mask and bubble bath queen!
Personal To-Do List. We all probably sub-consciously make to-do lists for ourselves each week, but having a space for it in my planner made me actually write things down and follow through. The planner separates the to-do list into 3 categories: top priority, priority, and errands. Plans and errands I had been putting off were finally written in ink and were staring me in the face on the regular. Try getting out of scheduling that dentist appointment now, Christina!
My Least Favorite Things About Passion Planners
Space of Infinite Possibility. It’s too stressful!! Kidding. Kind of. I had a blank space baby, and I was not going to write your name. Mostly because I had no idea what to write. Sometimes it was doodles, sometimes it was quotes I liked. I think it’s a great space to have, and I don’t want to be dramatic, but the blank space still haunts my dreams.
Day Planner. Another love/hate relationship here. I like getting to map out my day in half hour increments, but I wouldn’t recommend having your Passion Planner being your only planner. There isn’t much space to put details. For example, if I was meeting someone, I didn’t have the space to write when and where or any event details. For this reason, I used my Google Calendar as an additional, more detailed planner. Also, I am already horrible about plans changing, but now, if plans changed, my Passion Planner looked like a scene out of Silence of the Lambs. She made it out alive, but honey, it was not pretty.
Overall, I think Passion Planners are extremely dope and helpful. If you’re thinking about getting one, I recommend encouraging friends to get one too. I loved seeing what my friends were up to every week and what their personal goals were. It was also cool to see how differently we each used our planners. There are no set rules, you can really go ham and make it whatever you want it to be. Make it all pictures, have no pictures, plan your entire week only using stickers — no rules!
How do you keep your life together? Passion Planner? Google Calendar? Sorcery? Help a girl out in the comments!
