Plannerpalooza Part 2. Ep 66

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode sixty six. Today we'll be talking all things planners. Last year we did a Planner Paloza episode that was very well received as Sarah discussed the wonderful planning options that are out there. And I know a lot of our listeners are really into their planners as a Sarah, so I personally am very excited about learning about all the options as you are considering your twenty nineteen planner purchases. But if you didn't listen to that episode, it's it's episode twenty that aired last year, so maybe you want to check that out. So there's a lot of old episodes that we would love to have. Yeah, and you guys know, the word planning comes up again and again because you know, both of us feel like in many spheres of life, it really can make for a smoother existence when you kind of know what's coming. And there are many, especially kid related things where kind of having a lag up on what you need to be doing can make things ten times easier. Hello, that's like called ordering something you know on Prime versus you know, having to run to the store the last second. Anyway, we're big planners. We feel like it helps with the things a little and small, and then there are a number of tools that can help you to reach your goals while planning. And the previous episode in two thousand and seventeen was called Planner but no, it was twenty six, twenty seven, seventeen, twenty seventeen. We were doing this past did exist? I wish, I wish, that's wish we'll thinking so No, the episode in twenty seventeen was called Planner Palooza, and I talked about a few physical products, but that more is a like a discussion of how I like to plan. And everybody has different methods and I'm definitely not saying well, my method it is one size fits all. But I do find that when I listen to other people detail their methods, I always get some valuable ideas. So if you're interested in you know, what kinds of lists are helpful to keep, and you know, how do you just decide what goes on a daily plan versus a weekly or monthly or the big picture stuff, that might be a really fun episode to check out. Yeah, there's a lot of other episodes you might want to check out too, on the topic of goals and resolutions and things like that. I know we've gotten a lot of new listeners over the past few months, which is awesome, But maybe you've got some you weren't with us from the beginning, and you've got some long car trips coming up if you're visiting relatives for the holidays and looking for a podcast that's generally quite family friendly. I don't think we've said anything so far that isn't you know you could check out some of those or else just plug in your headphones while somebody else is driving, be in your own little happy place. We had our twenty eighteen Goals episode was number twenty three. Our twenty eighteen Goals check in. Then about halfway through the year, when we were seeing how we were doing. That was episode number forty seven. We did eight y espession, see like, are we doing anything we said we do? Maybe, maybe not, we'll find out. We did a New Year's Resolutions episode with our guest Gretchen Rubin. That was episode number twenty one, So that's a great one to listen to, especially for our listeners who are fans of her books and her podcast. Yeah, episode twenty, as we said, was Planner Poluza. Sarah threw in that you might want to listen to just for fun, the kN Mari Debate episode number thirty. That's a good one to listen to on your way. I threw it in there because I was thinking that maybe people, well okay, I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself, but you know, there becomes a time in the year when you just start thinking about next year and what you'd like it to look like, and all kinds of exciting schemes that you may have, and one very common exciting scheme is that you would like to live a less cluttered existence. So maybe you want to listen to Laura and I debate the Merits of the Marie Condo method in your home exactly. So all great things to listen to past episodes, but I think we should go ahead and dive right in stare because it looks like you have a long list of planners that you want to review for it. I do, and I want to also mention that. Of course, I'm going to have multiple people say, but I use digital and digital. I love digital, and this is not against digital, but I don't feel like I'm an expert in that sphere. So while I also enjoy the use of Google Calendar and shared events, and I certainly use Outlook at work, and I know there's a lot of other tools. You know what, maybe a really cool future guest would be someone who's an expert in digital planning tools, but that person is not meet. However, I have a fascination and love of physical planning products and paper, so that happens to be something I've gotten super nerded out in and so I'm going to share some of that with you because this is the time of year when many people are starting to think about buying their nextor's planner. And you know, back in the day, there weren't that many options, and now oh my god, Like the market seems to be saturated. There's so many planners and many with different purposes, different themes, different aesthetics. I mean, it's kind of endless, something for everyone. And a lot of companies were very gracious and sending Sarah their samples, either for twenty nineteen or ones that they're currently using now, so Sarah was really enjoyed. I wish there were like unboxing episodes, you know, I thought about it, but half the time it was like, you know, actually, the main thing limiting the unboxing videos is the fact that, like I don't really have a good tripod set up, and also I do most of these at night after the kids are in bed, so because otherwise they're going to be like pawing all over them and I didn't want that. So the lighting wouldn't have been very good, and I didn't want to not do them justice. I thought about it, but that would have been a lot of unboxings. Yeah, So I sent out emails to a number of companies, and for the most part, with the exception of two planners that I have used a lot, so I felt like I wanted to include them, and one of them I requested a sample I didn't hear back and the other one I didn't even bother. So look at that. All of these were sent Goddess from the companies and it was you know, a lot, a lot of them are very generous, and I do have some items to give away because you know, even though I love planners, I cannot use like ten of them. So it seems like that the system if you have stuff in ten different planners, and I think that would also hurt the system as well. So I will be doing some planner giveaways. Keep your eyes peeled on our instagram, on my blog and also on my blog the story box dot com the tch E s Hu Box for anyone who hasn't checked that out. I've been doing weekly planner reviews usually they come out on Friday, by the time it's airs probab to be up to like number five or so, and then planning out doing them up until the new year. So that's my place to check them up. All right, So we will die right in, let's do it. I am going to start with the Inkwell Press line of planners, and the reason that they get to a first is because they are the only product in this group where we had a podcast. Guest was the CEO and founder of this planning company, Tanya Dolphins, So I feel like she does deserve the privileged spot of being first here since she was gracious enough to be on our podcast. So they inqual Press makes a whole different. They make a line of planners, so it's not like they just have one specific product to offer. They have actually planning pads, they have binders, they have more like exercise and fitness journals. But what they sent to me and what I think they're trying to kind of feature and launch right now is their disclown planners. And I will tell you that. Okay, so first of all, ink woll Press, let me take one step back. They have a really distinctive aesthetic that I think is very pretty. I don't always love super feminine and colorful planners, but this one does it so well. Like it's muted, there are geometric shapes, the colors are super just timely. They don't look like, you know, they came out of the nineties. They look very today. They're just super inviting to write. And they have kind of a hexagon motif and a lot of their planning pages and if you're someone who really likes design, and you don't necessarily want a completely blind splate, like you want a little bit of structure, but you don't mind color as well. This is definitely a line to look through because all of their products have those themes throughout. I can speak to the paper quality and kind of the materials of the disc bound I was skeptical of the disks, you guys. I was like, stuff is going to fall out, that's going to be a pain to put together. It looks weird. I mean, I really was, but I'm sorry, I have to break in here to understand what is a disc Oh? Like you? Thank you? Okay. So you know, normal planners were either bound up like a book like either they're just so up like your typical bound book, or they might be spiral bound. A disc bound planner is kind of like the old ring planners, where you have to actually stick the pages in yourself, and if you get pages that are punched a specific way, you could put your own custom pages in there. But they're discs, they're not rings. And that sounds like it shouldn't work, but it does. I'll have to do a picture because I don't know. I don't know if I can describe that verbally as well, but basically, the paper have holes, but they also kind of like, you know, instead of them just being holes, there's like a little slit that goes all the way to the end, which might make you think that they would fall out, but really it's either the structure of the paper or just the design of the rings. They have like a really wide lip and then a narrow disc. The papers really don't fall out. So it allows for you to put things in any order, for you to add your own custom sheets. Like perhaps you know you have a big project you want to do in November and you want to have a bunch of blank pages there. Let's say you're doing you know, National level writing month, and you want to have pages just for that. In November, you could add those, and maybe February you are off and you don't really want a lot of pages, or you just want vacation planning. So it allows for a super super custom experience you can put in and what you want. There are a number of different paths you can order to customize your own product. There are weekly pages, there are daily pages, there are monthly pages. I actually ordered the well requested they did send this to me for free, so thank you, thank you, thank you. But the goal setting pack just because I wanted to see something different from your typical planning pages, and it's really nice. It has like places where you can really detail ten goals in detail. It has note pages to go through that it kind of sets up action roadmap. So it is structured. And if you have your own way that you like to do your goal setting, that might not be for you. But if you kind of enjoy sort of structured journaling or think that that might be helpful for you, then I think this is something to check out. And I will say that this isn't just for goal setting. This could just be your regular calendar type plan or it's pretty much depending on which insert you order, it could be anything. It could even be a bit more of a we'll talk about this in a little bit, but like a bullet journal, like you could be doing a lot of your own but then maybe have the monthly pages so that you didn't have to draw out calendars. So super versatile product. I would say it's for those who like feminine design, flexibility and like the idea of having some templates or ideas built in, like you don't want to freestyle everything. Oh and I will say last thing. The paper is not smeary, it's smooth, it's very white. It's super inviting paper. Okay, that's number one. I won't take that long on all of them in case anyone that doesn't have a two hour commute this morning, but I've enthusiastic if you can tell how all right. Number two is one that was not sent to me for free, but I had to include it because I've used it a lot. It's called the erin Quondrum Life Planner, very very popular in the planning world. They tend to have different covers. All of them are customizable. There's a more muted, business like looking one that I have an ivory, but it has my initials on it as I customize it. These planners, they have a little bit of an over the top, in my opinion, colorful style that isn't necessarily what I'm drawn to anymore. There was a time that I really liked it, and they certainly have a following. But what I really do love about these planners and the reason that I've purchased them more than once, is they have a fantastic weekly layout that consists of three boxes and then some lines underneath, so each day you can kind of customize what you'd like to use each box for. I tend to use the top box for time dements, the second box for tido items, and then the third box for like workouts and dinner. So you know, you figure out what works for you. But I think that a lot of people do enjoy this customization. One of my best friends and planner buddies, Vicki and Vicky if you're listening, she is an interesting example of someone who uses this planner because it also does not fit her general life aesthetic at all, but she admits that this layout is just so functional that she can't help her. So I would I would encourage you to check that out. The paper is fairly thick. I don't feel like it's as smooth and luxurious as the Inkquo press, but it certainly holds up well and is not the spearing type of paper. Right, So that's number two. Number three is the get to workbook, and I will give a shout out to the companies. Many of these, by the way, have female CEOs or owners or founders, and this is another one of those. It's owned by Elise Kripe, and she responded to me personally when I ask for samples. It's called the Get to Workbook, and it's designed to be a calendar, but it also has integrated goal setting pages. Now, what makes it different from the Inkuo press Number one? It's a spiral bound number two. It's very business looking, so it's black. It has a pretty professional look inside kind of graph paper aesthetic, which I think is really cute. There are action items for each day. It's that it's very blank like, so you can you could really turn this into whatever kind of goal setting you want. Even though the templates are there, they're really wide open for your own customization. It's heavy. That I think is the only real con because it's quite thick, which would make it durable. I could see this one, you know, the name is Get to Work. I could see it living on a work desk. And some people do like having their own separate planners and notebooks for each place, Like they might have one at home or that goes in their bag, and they want at work. This might be the sits at work planner where they plan at all their work projects and their two items for the day, and then when they go home, they check everything off, but they just leave it there, so that I think would be a great one there. The fourth one is one that I already have a review up on the blog, and I was surprised. I thought, I didn't necessarily think there were going to be a lot of overlap between readers of my blog and uses of this planet. And the reason for that is it's called the Full Focused Planner. It's put out by Michael Hyatt, who is a former CEO at Thomas Nelson Publishing, but he has his own kind of empire these days, and a lot of sort of planning tools and executive leadership type of products. Not everything that he puts out is something that I can imagine myself jumping on board. But I was intrigued by this planner because it's super structured, it's quarterly, and it actually has had two editions. In the prior edition, there was something about the design that I really really liked. When I put the review on my blog, people did kind of comments. Some people liked the new design better and then other people like the old design better, So that's something to mention. But it basically is a super structured ninety day planner that helps you identify your goals, really block out your time, really block out your daily to do items, make sure that everything you're doing is kind of serving the goals that you have. It's very professional looking, like it would look at home, on a work desk or at a meeting, but it is only going to work for twelve weeks. So I could see this planner being great. For example, if you were you know, you would just come back to work and you're really getting on a swing of things at work, and you want a tool that it's just going for ninety days be your best friend where you kind of put everything in there and get yourself back to a work life structure. For example. It is, it is, and it might be something that you just use once every couple of years when you're really in that frame of mind, because I don't necessarily know that the value of looking at my routines every three months is going to be as powerful, but every couple of years or so, really diving into you know, what makes a good weekend and what do I want my evenings to look at I think would be really valuable. So I think this is an interesting product. I also think that it's a little bit marketed to men, not that women can't use it or shouldn't use it. In fact, everyone you know should consider all types of planners. I hate that planners are gender. They really shouldn't be. But that's why I was kind of excited that I had some female readers of my blog that we're saying, you know, actually I've gotten a lot out of this planet. So that is the full focused Planet by Michael Hyatt. All right, number, well, I think I numbered the wrong number five. No, no, underneath that I numbered it wrong. We'll get that, Okay, So number five is the Commit thirty planner. And this planner I had seen on Instagram a whole bunch. They have definitely done a nice job marketing on Instagram. It's a small company yet again, and this player is really interesting because it goes with this thirty days to create a habit theme and every single month there is a kind of motivating chart where you say I commit to and you put your thing and what your reward is, and I just thought that was really cool. The layout is similar to the Aaron Continent and that there are three boxes per day, and then there's sort of space to write down whatever you want. Free form three big items underneath that I think that this planner in my mind, and by the way, they do come in different sizes. I asked for them to send me the compact home just because I don't know. It's most intrigued by the idea that it could be a powerful thing in a small package. It seems like it would be an awesome fitness and extra fitness nutrition. Like if you're like, this is going to be the year that I get super healthy and trained for marathon, and I want to record all my progress when I'm eating and when I'm working out in a book, this would be a fantastic planner for that. Just because the squares lend themselves welt I could see for meal planning and for exercise, and the fact that there's a goal for each month, so I it could be used for anything. I mean, this could be someone's primary planner, especially if they like the idea of picking one goal each month to really focus on. But for whatever reason, I think it would make an awesome health and fitness product that's kind of a sidekick to someone's actual kind of all right now is a really fun part of this episode, Or at least I think it's a fun part. If you're still listening, you probably do too, because the next three products are all really customizable, and this is something well, actually one of the brands has been around for a long time, but this is something that really only in the past few years has taken off. And I think that's because we've gotten to a point where you can have an app online that's very user friendly and has a fast turnaround time to get your own custom item printed. Because I don't remember seeing these kinds of things ten years ago and now they seem to be to be everywhere. And for those of us who again really want very specific things out of a planner, being able to actually create your own is opens up a world of options. Okay, so the first one in this custom section is the plum Paper planners. They one thing, I'll say, and by the way, I did not take the time to include pricing information for every one of these planners on this on this episode. Most of them are kind of similar in price, somewhere around the fifty dollars plus or minus twenty kind of realm. There are a couple that are a little bit more expensive. But the reason I mentioned plum Paper is because there's I feel like for what you get. I don't know if they're going for a budget, but they do seem like they have a really nice price point for what you get and get a colorful, customized large planner for something like you know, forty five dollars or a little bit less, which is similar in price to a non customer items. So I just wanted to point that out as one great feature there. Now, there are a multitude of options on their websites, so I cannot review all of them. But I had so much fun designing my own planner with their layouts. And when I say design on my own, I don't even just mean like, oh, I can put some monthly pages or whatever. You can actually drill down in terms of I created like a weekly layout with boxes to do all. I like that. I put lines in there because I really like lines, and you actually get to name the roads, like so I have am PM work home side, eat workout. But they could say your kid's names, or they could say you know, running, They could say anything you want. So when I say customizable, I really mean down to the texts that are in the planners. There also is the option for putting in you know, interesting pages with each month, But do they be blank pages or more structured planning pages. I just chose to put some blank ones. They have colorful laminated tabs, which I always love. That's an option to include in this planner. There's a pocket in the back which is very handy and convenient, and because again it's customizable, you can do a large note section as you've may have remembered from a prior episode. I tend to like to have sort of a bullet journal component to my planer, whether that's like a separate notebook that tops in the back or an integrated part. This would allow you to do it completely integrated as a whole section of the planner itself. You also get to customize the cover in terms of customization and your initials, and the paper is also I would say up there in terms of quality and smoothness. I do feel like the paper has that kind of extra smooth touch. I've used a few pens on it where include smudge, which for me is very upsetting. So if that's something that bothers you, you will keep that in mind. But that actually has is a phenomenon. More on the monthly pages, which are made out of a thicker but smoother paper than the daily pages, so you'll have to decide how much that would bother you or not. The next customizable option is the age Endo. This, you guys, is the most customizable thing I've ever seen. I mean, I yes, the plump paper is customizable, and the next one I'll talk about is too, But this one, if you're like I'll say, it could be a turnoff if you're not enough of a planner nerd. You have to really want to like get in there and you know, engineer every page. But once you do that, I went in and created a daily product that I actually plan on using it a little bit differently. Again, I can't use fifteen different planners, but I did feel like the ones that I customized, I had a duty to try to figure out a way to use it, partly so I could take pictures for you guys, but partly just to try it out. And for this one, I did a daily one because I figured, hey, I can use these daily sheets kind of separately, not necessarily the whole planner altogether, and you can put in like if your child takes a medicine, you can put a check off box for that and what dose they need. On what day? Do you know what I'm saying, Like, you can build that in. You can put in that you have to pay your lawnmower on a certain day. You can put in checkboxes for anything you want, and that text actually gets integrated into the planner. So I highly recommend checking this out if you just really want to control every detail of your planner. The paper is nice and smooth. I definitely, it's nice and white. It has a medium smear potential. I would say you get to choose all of your colors, so you could create a black and white product, or you could create pastels to go with each month. And it is ring bound. I would say. The only downside is if you are a planning nerd if you create a daily product, you may create a very large planner without meaning to. So this one is a bit of a behemoth and that I can't imagine bringing it back and forth to work. But it could be a great thing to just fit on your desk and kind of it could be a great journal for every day where you you know, write your intentions or plan out your day and then maybe either bring that sheet with you or leave it in the planner. So it sounds like it might be good for somebody who like worked from home for instance. Oh, absolutely, if you really wanted to, like, right, that's age age people who come like it's like agenda but with an IO instead of an A yes. I think that someone who work from home and wanted to be able to like block out every moment of every day or you know, maybe remind themselves that they want mondays for like you know, long range planning or writing, they could build that right in. I think that would be an awesome product for that. And I just want to cut in here with this potential thing. You know, Sarah is really evaluating this for you guys because she's left handed, so everything smears more. Yeah, I love that, good friends, so she can actually tell you if it's gonna smear because of that. So absolutely well, And I'm sure there's some right handers that you're right. I think it's more of an issue for a left hand and it's something that I care about. Some people might not care at all, so that might not be something that I'm not saying that's a requirement depending on what your needs are. All right, we have one more customizable one. We are getting through this. I promise this one is the Golden Coil, and I think of this as the elegant sibling to the two above. The two above are beyond customizable. They're colorful, they're beautiful. Golden Coil is like, I don't know, the great aunt wearing like a beautiful woven shawl and she's super and tells you about her worldly journeys. That's the Golden Coil. Really, I'm going to turn my planner into a person anyway. There are also many layouts of Golden Coil, but they have these linen covers and gold writing and their fonts are very kind of professional reserve looking. The papers very caught me like you might find on a fine invitation. I think a Golden Coil planner would make a fantastic gift, and they don't have to be full on planners. They do have a number of planet layouts, but they also have a lot of different notebook options, including because I wanted to make something different once again, I made a recipe slash meal planning book that included they had meal planning pages that I can incorporate where you list each meal and then you have a grocery list and then also like favorite recipes, if you tend to like to print out recipes. This isn't the best, but if you want to write down kind of your favorites to keep it in an archival fashion, then this might be for you. And there's like these beautiful gold page marketings like basically this the Golden Coil is a pleasure to use. I didn't find it as functional when I tried to design an actual weekly planner, just because I'm super picky about what i want my layouts to look like. And even though it's customizable, it didn't have exactly what I wanted. But man for like a notebook or a journal or like a specialized planner, I think it could be great and again an awesome gift. It also comes in like a very beautiful box, so it would be nice presentation. Okay, two more, I cannot leave out my favorite used planet well most used personal plann I wouldn't sa favorite. I don't have a favorite. I'd be like choosing a favorite child. But the Hobo Nisji Teto planners are kind of special to me because I've used them for a number of years. I think they're one of the most customizable or not customizable but flexible options out there, and for someone who does use the calendar portion of my planner as my actual calendar. Now, I do use Google Calendar to communicate with others. I use it as a backup to add additional information I have to use my Outlook calendar at work, et cetera. But I have a master calendar in my planner, and I think the Hoboichi is for those people because there's just a very useful timetable on the weekly pages. And then if you want a full day pages to write out your day and you don't want someone to structure it for you, you want to do it yourself, this planner is fantastic if you are more of a bullet journaler type person, and I can get into that in a minute. I think most people have heard of the bullet journal, but I'm going to mention that as a special bonus thing. But if you're like a bullet journal who does not want to draw your own layouts, which like that's kind of where I am. A traditional bullet journaller is sitting there like drawing out each week and each month, and they're like using a ruler to get it all perfect. And honestly, if you're a perfectionist like me, that sort of sounds like torture because I'd probably make a whole layout and then I draw one number wrong and that I have to do it again. It would just like not help my productivity. But this open layout of the Hobo Nicci allows you to kind of do whatever you want with it, but already have the layouts present, if that kind of makes sense. My only two negatives are number one, Yeah, are hard to get. You have to well not hard, but they take a little time. They have to order them off of the website that it is in English, but they do ship straight from Japan, so you kind of have to get used to that. I think of it kind of as a positive personally because it's fun because it's a little bit of a different shopping experience, but it is perhaps a con if that's intimidating. And they do have really thin paper which makes them super portable. I mean, I can't think of another book that allows you to have daily, weekly, and monthly pages. And it's not honestly very big. It's the same size as a modest a moderate length paperback book, I'd say, but that means the pages are really really thin, and if that annoys you, and they see through this annoys you. There's a little bit of bleed through sometimes and certainly a lot of ghosting, which is a term for when you write with a pen and you can kind of feel the texture on the other side. So that is the whole bichi. I personally use the Tech Show cousin most successfully. That's the largest product that they have. They also have the regular Techo, which there's an English and Japanese version, and this one, however, does not have a weekly page built in, so I found it to be kind of a deal breaker for me. You can get this little separate book, but it is very small, so your milage may vary with that if you're using it as a calendar. There's also another product they put out called The Weeks where if you really just want it as a calendar. Actually, there are number of people who have crammed a lot of things in this and I can't do it justice. There are whole Instagram accounts dedicated I'm serious to the flexibility of the Hoho Need two Weeks. If you're thinking about wanting a really small yet flexible planner to also use as a calendar, you may want to consider that, and I would say yes searching on Instagram. Okay, Our last product here is the Amelia Lane Planners, which is a newcomer to the planning sphere, and I give them a gold star for generosity because I asked for one to review, and Chanelle, who is the owner of the company, she wrote me back personally and sent me four, so we will be doing some giveaways there. They are super beautiful. They are more feminine looking. They have sort of flowered patterns. My favorite one has a mint green color and a palm farm planner and a gold edge corners. It is just super super beautiful. They have meals and fitness trackers embedded, which you know that may be a con for some people, but if it's something that you're looking to incorporate into your planning, you may like this. I would say the only cons for these planners are that you do need something if you want. I like to have my planner open on my desk because I will use it to kind of like go through my day basically like, oh, what do I have to do next? What's coming up? These don't stay open, so you'd have to use some kind of a pretty bookweight or something to kind of hold them open. If that's something that's important to you. And they do have some tiny boxes in them. I am a tiny writer, so if I'm considering them small that that kind of means something. I'm debating. I really want to keep them pristine because I want to give them away, but then I also feel like to do a fair review, I want to do a page of a mock up. So maybe one that I give away will have like one or two pages written in because Sarah, for one day, that'll be fun. I'll do it. I'll do it like at the end of December, so that hopefully you will have moved on to your next planner by the end. Perhaps, But I do feel like I can't criticize how small they are without actually really trying to write in them and seeing how it goes. And they have actually multiple options. There are two compact ones and there are two larger ones, both in a daily and weekly format. I would say they're pretty heavy, so they're more of a desk thing, except the planner ones could fit in a pursor bag pretty easily the compact ones, So that is amal ling. So there you go. That was I believe ten different options. It says nine, but they were number wrong, so there were ten, which is a nice round up. I didn't even have any that that was mostly for you, Laura plan like following along exactly, and I did mention bullet journals. So I guess I'm going to give one more shout out to that. Some people prefer these dates use a blank notebook and completely kind of customize their own experien and that is called a bullet journal. There was recently a bullet journal book out, and so if you really want more information about that, you might want to check that out. I again author writer Carol. He does Writer Carol, and he's the one who coined the term bullet journal, so it is fitting that he wrote this book on the method. I just personally can't quite wrap my head around writing out all those lines, so that's me. But anyway, I hope that you, if you've made it all the way through, you must like planners like I do. So please go to Instagram and share with me what you're using, share with me what you think maybe we should review next year. There are definitely some things missing from this list. Some of that might be because I emailed the company and maybe I got like a blunt rejection. So I didn't to talk about them here or other than I may just not know about so please let me know. Yeah, now that sounds great. You can also follow shoebox plans on Instagram, right, that's oh, yes, I have been doing some more on shoebox plants, so it's shoe box Underscore plans. And I do like fun planner layouts. I've been trying to use these samples and show people, you know, what it might book like to use them in real life, so that that has been kind of fun. Yeah, and that's awesome. I I gotta say it's because I like to do things specifically my way. I have never been able to like get into another planner, like I just like a blank notebook and then I write what I need to write in there. And so I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of like a system that somebody else kind of are a bullet journal or without a bullet journal, or yeah, without it being a bullet journal, I guess because it's not got the bullet I mean, it's just notebook. There's there's no bullets involved. This is like a you know, something I bought at Target. As long as it's you know, big enough, stays open and has like college ruled paper. That's pretty much all I all I need. But you have that separate from your paper calendar. Yes, so I have a little small paper calendar, which is the Dayminder weekly small thing. It's just like five and a half by you know, three eight or oh by three oh, like tiny and then it's uh, well, I may be wrong on that. I haven't actually measured it. But the Dayminder at a glance weekly appointment book. And the upside of that is, I mean the pages are you see the whole week on one page, one open page, spiral bounds so it stays open, fits in my purse. I don't actually want a whole lot of space on any given day because I don't like to plan too much on any given day. So that's why that that's like that. But my planner is, yeah, just a notebook. So there's obviously many ways you can do this, and we'd love to hear from people who have their own methods of how they plan and what you've come up with. And I don't know, maybe I need to give my methods some sort of fancy name and write like, let's try to create an empire out of it. It turns out that's not too late. Too late. I don't know. I'll write that with you. Yeah, well, there we go. Let's let's get on. So yeah, those were awesome, Sarah, thank you for doing all those. So moving to the questions section of by the way, we'll put all this. I'll put these in the blog posts I do. I'll list all of them so people have the names if they were just tuning in and out for the podcast. Our question this week comes from a listener who wants to know how to use a morning hour. So she has three kids, ages fifteen, twelve, and eight. Her fifteen and twelve year old needs to be on the respective buses like before seven am, so early early. The eight year old's bus time is eight thirty, so we have an issue of there being a whole hour and a half between kids one and two getting on the bus and kid number three getting on the bus, and she's trying to figure out how best to use it. She says she's a small business owner who works from home, so she's a fair amount of flexibility. Her husband travels quite a bit for his job, so she's sort of not planning on him being there most days during this window of time, so she usually gets up at five point fifteen to run her walk with a friend until six fifteen she gets her older kids out the door. They're pretty independent, so they don't actually need all that much time. The issue is what she does from seven to eight thirty. She was hoping her eight year old would sleep in for more of this time, but he does not. He wakes up with his older siblings, but then he's up and ready to go and says that at this point he would like her to actively engage with him during the next ninety minutes. And she says while she loves the one on one time and feels that it has been a gift to a degree, they've been reading to another. He helps with household tasks and all that, but she also feels a bit conflicted, like she is losing a huge chunk of what could be her best time. That's seven to eight thirty, time to accomplish deep work or do personally fulfilling things that would help set up the rest of her day, like pray, go through her planner, or read so many mornings, you know, she basically isn't even getting out of her running clothes until he's on the bus. She says, ideally he would sleep a little bit longer in this window, and I did have some time, but I'm not sure that this could happen, So suggestions of how I could plan this time more effectively. Right now, I feel so scattered and behind. Once I get him out the door, it's hard, hard to settle down and get to work. So yeah, do you want to go? Well, why don't you go first? But I want to say one thing, which is that sometimes I feel like we get stuck into routines when our kids are young, and then we forget that they're not young anymore, and the routines are still there, Like I do. I mean, her kid is kids are so old that they could be so self sufficient if she wanted them to be. And it's not that, you know, it's very important to spend that time, but I wonder if a lot of what's happening it's just because it always was, because it was like that when he was thirty, when when he was four, and now he's eight. And I think it's great that she's taking this time to think like, hey, this isn't really working, because I think we don't do that all that often, and then we realize that we're stuck in three year old routines five years later. Yeah, no, that can happen. But I mean I definitely I felt for her because you know, we have we have something similar in the sense that you know, well, I get the sixth grade er up, I mean it's shoved forward like another hour, but I get my sixth grader up at seven fifteen. Then you know, he gets driven to school either by us or by the neighbor at seven fifty and the other kids bus comes eight thirty, eight thirty five, and then the preschooler goes at nine. So basically I could be in getting kids ready for school and two school mode from in essence seven forty five to nine fifteen every morning, which is better than it could be. Because the middle schooler's bus was going to come at seven twenty, it meaning I have an even bigger, like totally unusable gap. So we did a carpool short ofly to make the morning a little bit less spread out, you know. But I also I did a couple of things. One is I made a decision that I'm generally not the one bringing the three year old to school. I will sometimes that ar nanny comes and does that. Most days she comes actually eight to help with the getting ready. You know, I do it Sundays, but if no one expects it, I can start my work day at eight thirty five instead of like nine ten, And that's actually a reasonable chunk. Like you know, if you're starting at nine to ten, you know, you're kind of after the start of most people's days. And so for me, those forty eight productive minutes do wind up mattering. But I gotta say one, you have a couple of choices. One is to simply just accept that seven to eight thirty is not going to be your worktime, and that can be okay, it can be kit time with some understanding that you can kind of direct it right like that, and you can get the time back later. Like he is eight, you don't have to, you know, entertain him after school. If you're entertaining him before school, and you know, when your husband's around, you could sort of designate a chunk of time on the weekend, is like, this is mommy's worktime because I've been doing the morning routine all the other days of the week. And I think that's something that she believed her husband would would definitely be willing to help with because we heard back from this lady, by the way, and sometimes it's the expectations that cause the stress. It's not actually so if she simply says seven to eight thirty is not worktime, then she's probably okay with it. Where the problem she has now is she's like, well, I could be working, but I'm not. Now I feel bad about that, but then I feel like I'm not paying attention to my kid. So it's all bet Like, if you just say no, it's not you know, it's not my worktime, then I will start with you know, all engines of blaze at eight thirty. I think she could probably be fine with that. I do like the idea of him, And the other thing to say is this is a very limited time thing because the eight year old will be twelve and getting on the bus with the twelve year old in four years, so you know this is this is not gonna last forever. I do like the idea of him doing chores with her. Since she is a self employed work from home person, she probably does spend some time during her work day doing chores, and this is her excuse not to do that, Like now, everything that needs to get done could maybe get done between seven and eight thirty with the two of them working alongside each other. She could also steer him into doing things that she does want to do during that time, Like she says she likes to pray and do devotionals. Well, those are things you could actually do with an eight year old. That would be a great way to share her faith with her kid. That would be a wonderful thing they could do. Or they could both decide to journal for a bit. Maybe she could convince her son to, you know, write or draw about what he wants for the day or things he's grateful for. And you know, he's not going to do this for an hour, but he might do it for ten fifteen minutes, And so then she could get some of that time. When they're journaling side by side together, they could talk about their daily goals with each other. That would be nice reading together, like she could if she likes to read. She said she wanted to use some of this time to read. Well, they could again read together. She could research some literature that an eight year old could handle if she was reading it to him. There's a lot of really great sort of classic literature, maybe like the Narnia books or some of the Newberry Awards, but you know, just avoiding sort of the Captain Underpants genre of eight year old literature. She could do a research and find that stuff. So yeah, I mean, in my case, I've sort of accepted that seven fifteen to eight thirty is family time in my house and I will not plan on ever having work available to me during that time. I might, but probably I can't plan on it. So I'm just sort of trying to relax and enjoy longer breakfasts with the kids and chatting with them about their days. I love that. Yeah, I'm going to steal that, like side by side dreading an idea because I think my super into that. But I guess I will also just point out that again there may be just to make sure that some of this is in the holder from when they needed that full on supervision, because I will use my one example, which is that it used to be and this is a little different. This is much earlier, But it used to be like if my kid will with a forty five in the morning, then it's like, well that's it for my morning. But now if I'm working out and one of the big kids wakes up, they can watch me do big body. They may do it with me. They will sit there and they can get their own banana and they can watch. And therefore I could still do the thing that I wanted to do and be with them, and like, it doesn't derail my day now, of course it will do rail my day. Of Genity wakes up because she can't do that yet. But that's just an example of how in just a couple of short years, you know, Cameron couldn't have done this maybe a year ago, but now you can. Things have changed. To just make sure that you're always evaluating what your kids are really ready for. And I will also throw out that you know, maybe this is one of those instances where you think about, you know, what you do one day isn't what you have to do every day. So maybe you tell your son like or maybe it's maybe you want to do this planning and it's annoying you every day in the house sitting down and plane. Well maybe you only only need to plan on Fridays. Maybe you can spend that time with your son. But you say that, like, hey, if you're up early on Fridays, that's wh when I figure out the whole weekend and I have to look at all my stuff. So you can plan with me or do your own thing, but just I need that time. So remember that each day can stand away. Yeah, and she wrote back, which was awesome, and she liked our ideas, you know, so she recognized that, you know, he's old enough that he's okay being in the house by himself. I mean, so one day she was coming back from the bus stop for her twelve year old and she realized she didn't actually have to go inside and you know, deal with the eight year old right away. So she sat on her porch and sort of had her her fifteen minutes of quiet time there on the porch, and he didn't think get anything of it when she went in a few minutes later than usual, so you know, she she did some of that. She also said in general, she wasn't going to think of this as work times. She can have some of this during her you know, the summertime, she was thinking she no one had to be anywhere, so those were her best working hours. But she gets the whole school day, you know, during this phase of life, like during the school year, so she actually doesn't have to have those ninety minutes in the morning when everything's quiet, like now she gets that time later in the day. And they're going to do some more reading together too, and she's working on some great books. She mentioned things like Poached by Stuart Gibbs, which is part of the Fun Jungle series. They're reading the Spy School series, they read Harry Potter and The Mysterious Benedict, so there's lots of great things that they're going to do. And they're also working on doing dinner prep together. So that was great to hear that she's using that. So that's awesome. What do you have this week for us? I have so well, it's sort of a general and a specific. So my kids are almost My big kids are almost two years apart, and the older one is a girl and the young ones of boys, so they don't always agree. On the Potford TV shows, they did go through a big Wildcat Space and they did Girls From Doing That together, but then they kind of watched all those and we were having a lot of fighting over who was in charge of choosing the show. And there's a series called Vanpaverna, which is not necessarily the most highber hour educational TV ever, but it's on the Disney Network, but you can buy the episode at Amazon, and they both love it. The music is kind of cute and it's one of the few things that give no fight. Like, we both want to watch it together, so shout out to sometimes do what works for both kids. Yeah, I say in that line, my kids love the Young Sheldon, so the spinoff from the Big Bang Theory about well young Sheldon when he's like a nine year old genius, which it's kind of better done than the old Doogie Howser MD series. But they I don't watch it's not my thing, but the kids all seem to, like the older three all watch it together and with my husband, so that's that's kind of a cool thing that they can all do. Oh that's you. Yeah, the whole family. I love it. Yeah. So anyway, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking all things planners this week. We'll have a list of those on my blog and Sarah been reviewing them on her blog on the shoebox dot com, and we'll have them on Instagram too, So you can check out those ten planners we mentioned and see what might be the best for you for twenty nineteen, so anyway, tune in next week for more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.