Becky

Will I Regret Buying a 2021 Planner?

I love planners and have been buying a new one each year since the beginning of college. I think in high school I used the ones the school provided or just didn’t use one—it seems incredibly out of character for me to not use one though—but in college I bought a new one each year to keep track of assignments and due dates and other fun things. Planners came really in handy when I was in grad school, which was online, so I was really responsible for keeping track of all of my work. I finished my program back in 2017 but still use one to keep track of fun things and when I’m working at the ice cream shop and stuff like that.

Enter 2020.

Last fall I spent about 10 minutes standing in the planner aisle at Marshall’s to find a really great one for 2020 because I had all of these fun things planned. For the first few months of the year things seemed promising and I put in when the races were that I had signed up for and the day we were going to a Red Sox game in May. Come March and April, I was spending more time crossing out all of the fun things than putting any in.

It’s safe to say that I got a bit discouraged about using my planner and became a bit to obsessive in keeping track of my runs since I had nothing else going on. I was able to get myself out of that habit and didn’t really use my planner too much in August and September, mostly because nothing was going on.

So I did spend some time debating whether it made sense to buy a planner for 2021. Who knows when we can go back to actually making plans and seeing other people and doing fun things. But it felt weird to not buy a new planner. So I let myself buy a new planner.

The planner runs August 2020 to December 2021, and it has monthly and weekly views; I like to have the week by week pages so I can also use it for a daily to do list. I still plan out my runs but I’m not as obsessive about them as I used to be, plus I can also plan out my yoga days. I have a bunch of vacation days left to use, so I’m also able to keep track of all of those.

I treated myself to some stickers from Redbubble to decorate the cover. I like that the stickers are removeable, so I’m able to get them just right on the cover and not worry about them being too permanent. I’m really happy with the stickers I got and how the cover looks now 🙂

We’ll see how 2021 turns out and if in fact I’ll regret buying this planner and all of the stickers. My goal with this planner is to simply keep track of my to do lists, my days off, and when I choose to run. With all of the uncertainty around, I think at least my planner will give me some sort of normalcy.

Do you use a planner? Did you buy one for 2021?

17 comments

  2. I have a planner for school for lesson plans, and then just a tiny pocket one to keep at home for appointments and things! Both I will use for 2020-21 so its all good haha

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  4. I also love planners even though we couldn’t use them that much this year. Why not share a photo of how you decorated your new one? 🙂

    All the best, Michelle (michellesclutterbox.com)

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  5. I like your collect of stickers! I have a calendar book for work to keep track of COVID testing events, when I’m driving the mobile unit, meetings, STI clinics, mass flu immunization clinics, and such. I don’t do checklists for myself since I practically do the same things everyday (while in the office at least) so I just have a monthly spread. The only sprucing-up I do to mine is using different color highlighters to certain days like holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and pay days; otherwise mine’s pretty boring.

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  6. I absolutely use a planner. Several in fact. I use one for work, one for home and one for my crafty life. This year I am going to combine the crafty life and the home one together. I got one from Plum Paper that is a yearly, January to December 2021, daily. It is one that you can customize so I made my own headings for the sections on the daily pages. I use it to keep track of quotes I like, happenings in our lives and at the end of the month there is a page where I put a picture of the full moon for that month and a selfie, something I’ve been doing for the last four or five years now. I’m going to do a blog post about it soon.

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  7. I love it! I wanted to buy one but I’m scared too…
    I didn’t buy one for 2020 like I normally would and I miss it but I’m thankful I didn’t so I’m torn !

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  9. Wow this actually made me realize that I’m essentially going to be done with classes for 2020 (just have my work-based learning class), so I will no longer have classes/classwork to add to my planner. I will purchase one for 2021 though, even if life remains the way it is now, planners really help me keep track of my daily to-do lists, appts, and any medications for my pets (like Heartgard, fleas/ticks, etc). Plus, it can help me keep track of any work meetings/bills/paydays I need to remember.

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  15. […] It’s funny to look back on all of my posts from last year and see my progression through the pandemic. I mean, I was “that puzzle person” for a while and watched a lot of new shows on TV. I went through a phase of wanting to become a zoo keeper and wondered if buying a 2021 planner was a dumb idea. […]

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