2020 Planner Set-Up


Hiya guys! Ugh we are not starting off on a happy note because things are a little rough this week. I am behind my schedule as I have been posting in the morning, but the last few days have been rough to say the least in terms of my day job. There was overtime opportunity this week at my job and as much as I didn't want to do it I knew I had to seize it. With the way things operate at my job this is the last of the overtime for quite some time. Probably until summer. With the two concerts I got tickets for and the other one I want to buy I felt like working extra was not optional. Gotta work for what you want, right? So this week became a little wonky in terms of blogging, but likely the subject matter helped me keep things well organized. Planners. I have gone through the masses when it comes to planners in the last 3 to 4 years and once again I am changing things up. For a while I was even into doing bullet journals (I still have photos that I need to share with you on that), but it just wasn't for me in the long run. The amount of time I was taking to create my month and all the pages was taking away so much time from doing anything else. Before that it was an Erin Condren and weekly sticker kits. Although I am using that set-up for memory planning, it doesn't work in terms of pre-planning. All I would worry about was the 'correct' sticker placement and what looked good instead of caring about the actual plans I was writing down. Not effective at all.

2020 Planner Set-Up

It took me so long to finally settle down with a planning system that works for me. And I'll be honest, I don't know if this even it. But for now I feel very content and happy - most importantly I feel organized. For the first time in a long time I have - dare I say - planner peace. Initially I was nervous to even pick this planner back up, I hadn't touched this variation in years. At some point I had fallen out of love, but I couldn't even remember why that was. So I started with the bare essentials when I started using this planner back in October: just the calendar and the weekly insert. I used this set-up for about two months before I slowly started adding more things and that leads me to where I'm at now.

2020 Planner Set-Up

The planner I decided to use is a Kikki K Personal size (listed as medium for their website). I needed a good size that could easily fit into my bag and I did have this already from back in the day. One less thing to buy. As you can see I am all about being minimal with my pockets and throughout my planner you won't find any 'deco'. I want the focus to be entirely on functionality and every day use - from everything to my blog to my health. At some point down the line if I'm still doing well in this set-up then I'll add in some acetate, vellum, and other minor touches like that.

Now first and foremost are the dividers, which for me are one of the most important features in a planner. I'm using three sets of dividers for my planner with a possible fourth set coming down the line. I don't have all my dividers labeled yet, because I'm holding off until I'm completely sure on how I want to organize each section. But the top tabs are the 'main' ones that I go by followed by the clear side tabs and I use the silver ones as a sub-tab to the clear side tabs.

Personal Frosted Dividers: 3 Top & 6 Side from DividersRUs

Planner Dividers with 6 side tabs in Silver Gem from PaperCalling
Planner Dividers with 6 side tabs in Silver Gem from PaperCalling

SewMuchCrafting - Yearly Calendars & Month at a Glance
SewMuchCrafting - Yearly Calendars
SewMuchCrafting - Month at a Glance

The first section is all about calendars and I have quite a few to share with you. I have two 'year at a glance' ones that I spread out in the planner, one of them being housed in the finances section that I'll show you in a bit. The other calendar is a fold-out spread for the year and it's my first time using one like this, but so far I really like it. The main purpose of this fold-out is to mark down all the different kinds of days I have at work - vacation, sick, personal, seasonal breaks. I work for a school district so we tend to have a vast variety and quantity of days off throughout the year. So using my mild-highlighters I wrote down different labels for each kind of day and then I filled the ones out I know ahead of time.

And the last calendar variation I have is the typical one month at a time view. In this calendar I again use highlighters to label the different things I'm tracking. For the most part this calendar just has doctor appointments, vet visits, and events we are going to do (like movies and concerts). Along side this I have a "month at a glance" page that lets me jot down any other important things to remember for the month. There is room for birthdays and important dates, but also plenty of room for things I need to do that aren't date specific.

SewMuchCrafting - Week on Two Pages in Vertical Layout w. Checklist
SewMuchCrafting - Week on Two Pages in Vertical Layout w. Checklist

For my weekly set-up I wanted to keep it to just daily to-do lists and minimal habit tracking. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sold on this layout for my day to day needs. The space is a little cramped and I'm finding myself running out of space at least two days a week. On one hand I feel like I need to focus on narrowing down important to-dos and not try to conquer too much. Like spacing out my tasks so that they feel more manageable. Since I have the year's worth of these inserts I'm going to stick with them for at least six months to see how I feel.

The next main side tab is 'finances', which houses all my expenses and savings.

AlibiDesignStudio - No Spend Tracker | SewMuchCrafting - Bill Pay Checklist
AlibiDesignStudio - No Spend Tracker | SewMuchCrafting - Bill Pay Checklist

I haven't started to use the no spend trackers yet, but I'm hoping to once I recover from the holiday spending. January is usually spent trying to recover and heal the wallet sounds. Anyway the other insert is what I use to track my bills for the month and the due dates. Once a bill has been paid I simply put a check in that column. I found myself having difficulties keeping up with my banking balance a few months ago. I would check back to the insert to see a bill was paid and I would think I had more money then I actually did because it hadn't processed. Now I'm keeping better track by highlighting a bill on the insert once I know the money has completely processed.

Large Checklist from Peanuts Planner Co | To Do List from Kikki K
Large Checklist from Peanuts Planner Co | To Do List from Kikki K

This large checklist, I have been using quite a few times in different sections throughout my planner. For this particular section I'm using it to track monthly goals I'd like to accomplish. Like for example paying off a credit card (which as of 1/15 I totally managed to do!). I use the other insert as a breakdown to help me visualize what I should focus on. I have quite a few of these breakdown pages in this section. And it's very detailed, for example there are the concert tickets that I had purchased for the end of the month. I used a credit card to initially pay for the tickets and then use the insert to break down where the money would come from to pay these off within the month. This way I know 'ok I need to work 10 hours of overtime to pay for these' plus put down whatever extra from my fun fund. That's the gist of it pretty much.

SewMuchCrafting - Savings & Debt Tracker
SewMuchCrafting - Savings & Debt Tracker

These two inserts are very self-explanatory - one to track my savings account and the others to keep track of my debt payments.

The next main top tab I have labeled 'wellness' and, as it suggests, it has all to do with me and my health.

SewMuchCrafting - Year in Pixel
SewMuchCrafting - Year in Pixel

One of the things I loved about having a bullet journal a few months ago was making trackers for my endometriosis and moods. Truth be told I probably need to add another one of these pages in here to track my gluten intake since I do have an intolerance to it. A lot of pains and mood swings end up overlapping with one another although it doesn't seem like it at the time. So by having these trackers we can see the pattern and narrow down things a bit and even have something to show my doctors. As someone with a various health problems - both physical and mental - it's super important for me to track these things to refer back to.

Plan with Julie B - Skin Care Routine & Sleep Tracker
Plan with Julie B - Skin Care Routine & Sleep Tracker
Plan with Julie B - Skin Care Routine & Sleep Tracker

AlibiDesignStudio - Period Tracker
AlibiDesignStudio - Period Tracker

All the trackers are simple and help me focus on my self-care as part of my daily instead of my 'once in a while'. Side note: I originally started using a highlighter to mark the hours slept, but it really smeared the ink badly. So instead I'm keeping it even more basic and using a line through the hours I sleep... which I know aren't looking too good there, haha.

The next part is a sub-section to the 'wellness' tab is 'fitness'. I tend to keep my tracking in this planner very basic when it comes to my workouts and stuff. Most of the core tracking (calories burned, workout length, calorie intake, food I'm eating) happens on my FitBit.

 Goals + Rewards & Large Checklist from Peanuts Planner Co
 Goals + Rewards & Large Checklist from Peanuts Planner Co

The Goals & Rewards insert is straight-forward and is just a way to track my goals and give myself motivation. I have little rewards getting bigger and bigger as I aim for higher weight-loss targets. For the rewards I like to make sure I am picking those that align with self-improvement and my self-image (which is something I am always striving to focus on). The Large Checklist insert I use to jot down simple little tips and things to be mindful of during my journey. Like I shouldn't drink any soda or have too much candy - or any at all really - just stuff like that.


Plan with Julie B - Fitness Tracker
Plan with Julie B - Fitness Tracker

These two inserts are just "30-day challenge" type of things that I aim to do. One was from Blogilates that I scaled down to fit in my planner, and the other one was either purchased or printed from Pinterest but I cannot remember. The third one is a way to keep a log of how many steps and miles I reach on a daily basis. Although I aim for at least 10k steps I don't always get there especially not on Sundays, haha. And even though I track it on FitBit it's kind of a pain to scroll back so here I just have it at a glance.

SewMuchCrafting - Workout Inserts
SewMuchCrafting - Workout Inserts

I'm a huge fan of following workout guides on YouTube. Some of my favorites coming from the amazing Chloe Ting, definitely recommend checking her out. So for these inserts I'm tracking down what videos to watch on what days during the course of a challenge. I'm purposely not dating these inserts however so they can be re-used at a later date when I cycle through the different programs. I feel like at some point I'd like to tackle on a more fitness oriented planner to have a long side this one to track what I actually end up doing on a daily basis. But that's a whole different story for another day and post, haha.

Another sub-section under Wellness is this more 'miscellaneous' side where I can keep track of random things that don't quite fit anywhere else. From movies releasing this year that I want to watch to books I'm reading. I need lists for two of my favorite authors and all the books they have in their series that I would like to get to. I also track my online orders and my Twitter group orders that I join occasionally for BTS merch. At some point I'd like to add a page for wish list items - both household and personal.

Inserts: Books Read & My Online Purchases from SewMuchCrafting, Movie Watchlist from AlibiDesignStudio, and Grid inserts from Michaels.


My last section in my planner I have labeled as 'projects' in the main top tab. This section includes everything having to do with my blog and social media.

Large Checklist from Peanuts Planner Co

The starting page to this section starts out by using the large checklist once again to keep the different labels color coordinated. On the back-side of this same page I have an Instagram posting model I like to follow for each day of the week. Like for example Mondays I like to post a quote or a mood board.

SewMuchCrafting - Month On Two Pages
SewMuchCrafting - Month On Two Pages

This is by far one of my favorite ideas I came up with in order to use this style of a 'month at a glance' insert. So here is where I pre-plan what blog posts I'll be posting on what dates. You are getting a sneak peek at the rest of the month basically, haha. Everything is initially written on a page flag, that way things can be moved around as needed. I don't write it down in pen until I have decided on the post and at least taken photos. Then I don't highlight the title of the post until I have typed it out and scheduled.

Blog Post Insert from FifteenPril (shop closed)
Blog Post Insert from FifteenPril (shop closed)

Filming Schedule from Sweet Kawaii Design
Filming Schedule from Sweet Kawaii Design

Again very straight-forward inserts! The blog posts one I use to write down ideas that haven't quite made the cut to become posts yet. And the filming schedule is to try and get myself organized for YouTube videos. The nail one is a template I found online years ago and again scaled it to fit into my planner.

Kikki K - To Do Lists & Notepad
Kikki K - To Do Lists & Notepad

Finally we have the end of the planner, which has some extra blank to-do pages for whenever I need to pull some in. I also have a notepad at the back for random scribbles or notes to myself to remember for later.

And that's it you guys! This is my official planner set-up for 2020 and I'm fully in love with it so far. I'm living for the simplicity and hopefully it continues to help me stay focused on my daily tasks. Sorry if this post is a little long, actually I know it's a lot of long haha. But of course I hope you enjoyed it all the same. Please be sure to share and let me know your planner set-ups for the year or what you're looking to get into. Catch you next time xoxo Moonbaes.


1 comment

  1. I love all of the inserts you have for this planner. Definitely a way to stay organized instead of making the planner al “pretty” if you get what I mean lol.

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