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In this post, I walk through on how I incorporate reflection and inspiration into my DIY Planner. Since 2015, I’ve been making my own yearly planners by hand. The biggest reason is because I could never find a planner that embodied everything I needed and wanted for the year.
In the beginning, my custom planners were inspired by and adapted from the Bullet Journal Method. If you love planners and pens and you haven’t gone down the Bullet Journal rabbit hole yet I highly recommend it! There are so many amazing people out there creating these amazing bullet journals every year.
Over the years, my planner has evolved into a flexible structure that I found incredibly supportive. I won’t lie, it’s super practical and NOT artistic, but it’s helped me get shit done.
This is the first of a series of videos in which I walk through how I create “the bones” of each section of my custom, hand-drawn planner. In the last video of this series, I will do a complete walk-through of the entire planner and talk a little more about how I use and adapt each section. If you create your own planners too, please feel free to cherry-pick, adapt or improve upon my basic structure.
Note: I do use a XL Moleskine Classic Squared / Grid notebook soft-cover (7.5” x 9.5”) (paid link) for my custom planners. It is important to mention this because have a system of counting squares to make sure things turn out how I want them. If you were to follow along with a different kind of notebook your results may not be exactly the same or you may need to adjust.
In this video, I show how I create space for reflection on the previous year and inspiration for the new year.
Downloadable guide located here
Ideas for use of Reflection space
- Successes / wins in previous year (goals, achievements, milestones, financial, academic, physical fitness, spiritual)
- What did I learn about myself in 2020?
- Did I use my time wisely the past year?
- What am I grateful about in the previous year?
- What did I take for granted?
- How is my relationship with my body, mind and spirit?
- How is my relationship with the people I care about? How would I like to improve those relationships?
- What has the previous year shown me that matters most to me in life? How does that influence my focus for the next year?
- Who was I this year? Who do I want to be in the next year?
Ideas for use of Inspiration space
- Photos that align with vision or inspire and make you happy
- Choose a “word of the year”
- Choose a quote for the year
- Pull a tarot or oracle card for the year
- List the key action words to guide your year
- Your Tarot card year
- Your numerology year
- Affirmations or prayer for the year
Other posts in this CYOP video series
- 1st Video – Reflection & Inspiration Layout (this post)
- 2nd Video – Vision & Goal Layout – Link
- 3rd Video – Year at Glance – Link
- 4th Video – Future Log Layout – Link
- 5th Video – Quarterly Planning Layout – Link
- 6th Video – Monthly Goal Setting Layout – Link
- 7th Video – Monthly Calendar Layout – Link
- 8th Video – Mid-Year Review Layout – Link
- 9th Video – Another Simple Future Log Layout – Link
- 10th Video – End of Year Reflection Layout – Link
- 11th Video – Budget Tracker Layout – Link
- 12th Video – Travel Log Layout – Link
- 13th Video – Complete Planner Walk-through – Link
In this video I am using…
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