Planners Are Great, Actually

I was given my first planner in sixth grade. It was not a gift given by bumbling, confused parents unsure "what the kids were in to", but instead a tool of villainy presented by the homeroom teacher who mandated its use in our classes for the first few months. At least I think so? I definitely remember a couple of teachers pointedly asking for us to write down homework assignments in the book, while some others didn't bother. Eventually, nobody bothered halfway though the school year, so I chucked it in the trash with relish. Nobody was gonna tell me when and how to catalog homework.

fast-forward . . . seventeen years . . .

I yearn for even a small portion of control over a small thing I can change in my life. When so much else of it feels like the inside of the aggressively gargling mouths in a Listerine commercial, I relish any chance to just stop the ride or control the railway (Barbie reference, zing!).

So my return to planners was kind of funny actually.

After (not purposefully) derailing my life, I suddenly wondered if maybe a more . . . guided approach wouldn't help. So I bought a Star Wars guided journal, and a planner from Five Below. The journal I haven't touched yet, but the planner has been seeing some action. I never realized how nice it would be to fill these little things out! I put a lot of thought into the whole thing, too. I bought those thin slips of color tab stickers- you know, the kind you can use to differentiate sections- and attached them to each page that announced a new month. The months, or at least an abbreviation, were carefully printed onto the colorful tops with a needle point sharpie. I looked through the pack of gel pens I'd also purchased at Five Below, focusing only on the swirled ink ones, and pre-planned which colors would go with which months. Then, as each month came, I would go through the realization that planning the colors meant nothing if I never remembered what I chose, and then just went with what was best. I just . . . really like having something physical that I can hold, touch, flip through, and see my own diligent notes and handwriting. Makes me feel just a little more . . . official. I don't know, it's my lowball version of romanticizing my life, by pretending like I've got Things To Do. I'm not an especially busy person because I dislike going out most of the time, thus my social calendar is pretty sparce . . . but I do use it for three important things:

Deadlines

This nearly exclusively applies to writing deadlines. I've been submitting to online journals/magazines (I wrote an article about that progress here) and there's a lot of different places to read and offer up pieces of my heart/spleen to. I need a way to keep it all tracked! And no, I don't want to put them on my Google calendar. Don't ask why, I just am getting to an age where I relish having one or two things that aren't always digital. Ugh, God, that's terrible to read.

I digress! Usually I'll take my planner and open up Twitter (yeah, TWITTER) to go through my bookmarks where I've saved posts from mags that intrigue me, showcasing their submission periods. Opening the planner, I'll flip to the opening page of the month and go to the calendar page. On the right hand side of the page, there will be a lined column meant to write down the goals of the month. I mean, you can also write them in the medium-sized blocks of each day, but that's too cluttered for my tastes. I'll check each post, and on the lines write the name and the due date, skip a line, repeat. Chronological order, old fashioned, quietly satisfying.

When I've written a piece for that journal, I'll submit, delete the bookmark, and then strike it through in the planner. Got to keep it all consistent, you feel me?

The only other deadline I'll bother writing down is the due date for my work projects each month, not because I'll forget, but because it seems a waste to not fill up a planner's month with what you can. Reminds me that there are consistent things after years of "what-the-fucking-fuck!"

Bill Paying

It's clockwork, the way I get paid, so on the day I know the check will drop, I'll put in big capital letters "PAYDAY!" And in a neat column right next to it is a list of my biggest bills. Rent, medical, etc. These get the corresponding bill amounts set against it, and it's a nice reminder that life in this hellscape is more expensive than hell has any right to be. They're humbling, the flip side to the deadlines on a coin thick with green patina.

Well, it's not all that bad. I'm also getting a nice reminder of how much more money I'm saving than I ever did before, but- well, you might say that I'm just writing any old thing in this planner to fill it and hell yeah I am, man, that shit was five dollars plus tax. The whole point of the planner is to create a space of intention and structure in my life, so I am going to detail what I see fit.

My Hopes/Dreams/Goals

Oh if you thought I had run out of useless shit to put in that planner, then think again!

Let me offer some examples: for about a solid three months, I would input the total ounces of water that I drank, the minutes hours I spent writing, and the hours I worked for the week in the daily habit tracker. I primarily wanted to see if my life would change if I finally drank, like, the medically *advised* amount of water. It didn't and I ended up having to pee every fifteen minutes- but I did achieve validation/vindication after being told for years that I wasn't drinking enough water, but I couldn't anyway because there was no chance any manager at my previous gigs would have ever allowed for so many bathroom breaks! So suck it!

Then there's a column on the right hand side of every page in the daily sheets where you can write things you're grateful for. I'll put silly things, mainly, to remind me that the smallest pieces of life are the sweetest- cheesecake, free parking, clear nostrils, yadda yadda. On the left hand side are two sections for "week's priorities" and "shopping", where I do add in little things as they pop up. Doctor's appointments, car maintenance, bills, etc. The planner even came with a whole sheet of stickers to emphasize all this! Little sticker dollar signs, exclamation points, smiley faces. I don't know, I've just become such a sticker person ever since I turned twenty-seven.

Now is this an article persuading you to buy a planner and get into it? Could be, if you wanted it to be. Is this an article purely to talk about how my planner did a little more psychologically than it has done materially? Sure. Is this article really a covert entreaty to treat yourself gently, and don't sweat what you don't get to because everything has its turn? An article about the beauty of simplicity, and taking care of yourself, and how great it is that you're trying your best?

Yeah.

Season's turning gently, and we're moving into a new mode. So, you do what feels good for you. Not right, not efficient, but really and truly good for yourself- outside of what you have to do to keep this Wheel of Fortune turning. If your motivation happens to be . . . stickers . . . enamel pins . . . spreadsheets . . . planners? Love that for you!

Happy hauntings, lovelies. See you in Halloween!