Keep It Together: Introducing My 2021 Planner!

Posted December 17, 2020 by shooting in Planning / 25 Comments

Third Thursday of the month and that means KEEP IT TOGETHER time! Come join the monthly link up all about planning, scrapbooking, memory keeping of any kind! Thanks to my co-hosts Rebecca Jo and Alexandra as well.

Keep It Together: My 2021 Planner!

I had the best of intentions of taking actual photos of my new planner, but I still haven’t done anything with it – I need to start adding things and decorating- so I figured I might as well just show you really nice photos from the website!

If you know me, I’ve been using the Happy Planner for a few years now. It’s not terribly expensive – especially with sales at Michael’s – and it works well for me. For 2021, I was thinking of trying something different and I ultimately went with the Simplified Planner by Emily Ley.

I went with this 2021 Weekly Simplified Planner in Pineapple Crest. Random fact about me: I love anything with pineapples. I do actually like the fruit, but it’s mostly in honor of my love for the show Psych, which likes to hide pineapples in most of their episodes.

This planner follows the calendar year: January- December. I like this because I’m the person who appreciates starting a new planner in a new year. When they start earlier, it just feels weird to me. It’s also a weekly planner, which is good for me because I’m so used to just using the monthly spreads for everything. There are still monthly pages, but this way it kind of forces me to pick and choose what goes there and what goes in the weekly sections.

 

 

How do you use your Monthly and Weekly spreads? If you put most of the information in the weekly sections, what do you add to your monthly calendar? Just birthdays, holidays, etc?

 

If you’ve noticed from these pictures, this has a bookbound lay-flat binding. I know some people really love the rings in the Happy Planner but they often just got in my way and I never took out pages to help with that, so I thought a bookbound planner might be a good alternative. I’m excited to try it out and see what I think. I do think it’ll be easier to cart around and/or store since you don’t have to worry about rings or coils getting caught in things.

There are even 31 notes pages in the planner which is always nice! I find myself trying to find random space sometimes to write down notes, so this will be easier to keep track of for sure!

I really love the inside of the cover. It has a pocket to keep little notes, which is so handy!! It also came with some cute minimalistic stickers, and you can’t go wrong with stickers.

When it comes to decorating my 2021 planner, I plan on still using all the Happy Planner stickers that I have. I know some won’t fit as well, but there are plenty that will work just fine. No use letting perfectly good stickers and other decorations go to waste! I’m kind of excited to really start decorating and making things pretty again. I feel like 2020 was hit or miss for me when it came to using the planner – not just because COVID ruined things, but just the enthusiasm of keeping up with things sometimes.

The biggest question I had about getting this planner was the price. It’s $50. However, they did end up having a Black Friday sale and with that discount, plus taxes and shipping, it ended up being a total of $50. That might sound counter-productive, but I was happy – it meant I wasn’t going over $50 just to have the planner shipped to me. Shipping really gets you sometimes!

Has anyone else used a Simplified Planner? Do you like bookbound planners or those with rings/coils? 

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25 responses to “Keep It Together: Introducing My 2021 Planner!

  1. I always used a written planner in high school, with lots of margin decorating, etc. But now I just kind of go with the phone-based ones. I have a lot of schedule changes and it’s just simpler. But also, much less pretty.

  2. I love, love, love planners and all the cute stickers, but I find I don’t carry it with me enough to keep it up. I have found keeping up with lists and things on my phone is the best way for me to stay on top of things.

  3. I have a friend on Instagram & this is the only brand she uses & her planner spreads are always so beautiful &classic looking. Good luck in yours! I love the colors of Simplied. I almost bought one for my work planner…still not out of the question

  4. I liked the Simplified Planner! It’s been a few years since I used one but I remember thinking the layout was easy you use and well organized. The price is def a factor as to why I didn’t continue but I’m still shopping around for one for 2021 so I might have to revisit this one ?

  5. RO

    This looks really nice, and I saw a Simplified Planner while looking for stickers in Walmart the other day. I like the setup, and very cool about pineapples. That’s a great tip to save in my brain for future use when thinking about Lovely Lauren(lol) I’ve been decorating with stickers quite a bit lately because it seems to relax me. I still can’t believe the year is almost over. Looking forward to seeing more pics on the ‘Gram, and Merry Christmas! Hugs, RO

  6. Jen

    This is adorable! I bought a planner this year and was all ready to go, and then sometime in mid March with COVID, I lost it somewhere. This year I really ought to do better 🙂

  7. International shipping is absolutely brutal living in Australia, I feel that on so many levels Lauren. I’ve decided to do something a little different this year, rather than journaling, I’ve bought recipe journals and boxes and planning on organising all my recipes and writing down the ones that rattle around in my head. It’s been something I’ve been keen to do for a while and finally found the motivation. I love flat lay books and journals. It allows you to make use of not only a full page but double page spread and those who are still old school, like I am, it’s much more comfortable for writing isn’t it.

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  8. I’ve always been curious about the Emily Ley planners! I’ll be so curious to hear how it works for you. I usually do big picture monthly planning first, and then add stuff from my monthly plan to my weekly plan, and add more details. I like having both!

  9. Verushka

    I like the look of this planner. I’m pretty bad with planners – I mean I alway start with the best of intentions and then- I get in the way of myself I think. I think I tell myself I get too busy, too rushed not to have time to plan properly and then I let myself get away with not giving myself time to plan properly. I hope this all makes sense!!

  10. I love pineapples because of Psych as well! But I hate the fruit, just do not like the taste which is a little sad. Love your planner, I’ve set up my bullet journal for 2021 and when I actually use it I really am far more organised.

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