Review by Tina Koyama
For many years, I used to change to a different planner every year. Either the current one wasn’t meeting my needs, or I just got tired of the format, cover or paper and wanted a new view. Several times, I even changed planners mid-year because I couldn’t wait until January. After I retired and had more time to obsess about my stationery needs, I started making my own planner so that it would meet my needs exactly.
No matter how excited I was (and I always was) to start a new planner, the transition from Dec. 31 of the old planner to Jan. 1 of the new one was a jarring jolt. Even when I loved the new one, it still took a while to become familiar enough with it that it felt comfortable and right (and sometimes the right never came, which usually prompted a mid-year change).
In 2020, all of that changed: I began using an A5 Leuchtturm 1917 weekly planner (I reviewed it here at the Desk). Although it still wasn’t perfect (surely I’m not the only one whose Saturdays and Sundays are just as busy as the rest of the week, and those days deserve unshared spaces?), it was close enough.
The following year, I got another one just like it, and again in successive years. The only change I made was the cover’s color. On Jan. 1 this year when I began my seventh consecutive year of using the same planner, I thought about how comforting and familiar it is to see the same paper, layout, typeface and format – almost like turning the page of a book I’m reading.
Although the transition from one year to the next is traditionally a time for aspiring to self-improvements, I stopped making resolutions and related nonsense decades ago. I prefer to make incremental goals all along. I also see the passage of time as a seamless continuum. Using the same planner year after year is as seamless as that continuum can be in paper form.
OK, I’m done waxing philosophical about my planner, but before I go, I wanted to show my latest hack. Leuchtturm planners used to come with an old-school address booklet (sadly, it disappeared last year). In my 2020 review, I showed how I had hacked that booklet into a month-view calendar. The next year, I turned the address booklet into perpetual birthday and personal holiday lists (the latter are important occasions such as National Ballpoint Pen Day and National Doughnut Day).
I made index tabs for the months, and on each facing page I wrote the dates I want to remember each year.
When I set up the coming year’s planner, I use it for reference. The booklet’s back cover tucks nicely inside the planner’s back pocket.
Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided free of charge by The Well-Appointed Desk for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.