My journal + planner 2020

My journal + planner 2020 - student project

This is my most ambitions project from 2020, hahaha, yes I know we just started but it was indeed a work of love. I made everything from scratch because i want my agenda to be certain size and use colored pages instead of plain white. Why? Because I used to have an agenda I really loved, the format was just perfect for me. Plus, I want it to open flat, as you will see in the pictures.

I have tried to keep a journal/ agenda for several years already, and it seems like I always leave gaps of several months in which I don't write anything. Trying to keep records of everything at once (weather, glasses of water, mood, etc), made it very overwhelming and usually I would be too tired to complete that daily "chore". It wasn't fun.

After I got my beloved planner, I used it as both: to keep things organized and to write about the most important things of the day. It's really interesting to look back and read about my goals, struggles and in general, my life, when I read those entries. There was one from 2014 that said "I want to be great at art, I want to be recognized for what I paint". I don't remember having those thoughts at that time, I was pretty sure that I starting focusing on art only 2 years ago, but seems like I was wrong... and that's why it's really important for me to journal, that's my "why".

I kept things minimal and I will probably keep decorating in as time goes by but so far, here's my DIY journal+agenda:

My journal + planner 2020 - image 1 - student project

-recycled that watercolor illustration from my Daphne's Diary planner (which didn't fit me at all, I barely used it and spend almost all year without an agenda...crazy, I know.)

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 2 - student project

-yearly planner, each month has a lot of space to put the most important aspects for each month.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 3 - student project

-"monthly books" This section is inspired on my previous planner, it worked perfectly for adding book titles to review each month. I like the limited amount of rows which remind me to stop accepting book requests for that month, but there's enough space to go a bit above the limit. (My January list is overflowing because I didn't organize myself last year and have a lot to review now).

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 4 - student project

-"Reading challenge". Those of you who use Goodreads might now that we can set a challenge with how many books we plan to read this year. I couldn't complete last years quota, bad planning again :( But this year I'll go again for 50 books, yay!. Also, I repurposed parts of last year's agenda and used stickers that came with it. I still don't know what I'm going to write on the month's title page, if nothing comes to mind, I might leave it as it is.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 5 - student project

-If you noticed from previous image, now that we get into each month, the color of the pages change. This makes it super easy and fast to find the right content. Also, that's the reason why I don't need an index, because this is custom made! :D Here you can see my month's calendar where I can see at a glance due dates, projects, appointments, bdays and so on. I'm thinking about adding special moon dates on the left side or hashtags of challenges.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 6 - student project

-Pink page has "Useful bits", because sometimes I just come to write down bits of information before they disappear from my screen, never to be seen again. This is like a substitute to post-its or that piece of paper we end up throwing away by mistake. Because there is a page like this for every month, it keeps information organized and easier to find in one-single-place. Yasss!

The yellow page will be for my 265 days of art. HerI'll write my plans about what classes or challenges to take during the month. As you can see, the color changed which means... new section!

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 7 - student project

-Yellow is meant for my weekly planning AND journaling. This is how I used my favorite planner: to do list goes to the left (under the name of the day) and journaling happens on the wider boxes. This example doesnt have anything because it's first week of January, but what I usually do (unused paper space is my pet peeve) is that I doodle on them with relevant illustrations of ideas or emotions. I practice my ink doodling and lettering like this. 

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 8 - student project

-This spread is from this week that just started, so you can see how my to-do list starts to grow on the left side. Today (Monday) I'll write something important about my day on the right side.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 9 - student project

-This is when I realized I would be measuring and drawing several lines for each page (104 pages total) mhmm... so I came up with quick and cheap solution: cardboard template. It worked perfectly.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 10 - student project

-after December, I added a many pages for "Quotes" I love writing down quotes from books, movies and everywhere! Last year that I had Daphne's planner, because of their layout, I wasn't able to keep quotes like this, all of them at one place.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 11 - student project

-again, repurposed dot grid pages from Daphne's diary and made a list for book posts and different platforms where I publish my reviews. That way I can keep track of all of them and don't miss any.

 

My journal + planner 2020 - image 12 - student project

-last but not least, I have a "black" section with no purpose at the moment. As you can see, I used different type of paper, and I loooove how it looks.

 

Things to consider for next time: make sure paper is thick enough to handle brush pens without bleeding. Loose dot grid sheets would be better to avoid extra measuring work (maybe print them on thick coloured paper).

 

If you reached this far, wow, thank you! Hope my journey inspires you too!

 

Thank you Audrey!!