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As much as I love digital tools for keeping myself organized, I’m a sucker for paper planners. And for the fourth year in a row, I’m using the Passion Planner!
I first started using it in 2016 when my friend Angela recommended I try it out. I had been using a cheap planner from Staples up until then, and I’ve been a loyal member of the #pashfam ever since!
One thing that I love about the Passion Planner is how customizable it is. It’s set up with a few basics, like daily timelines, to do lists, and monthly spreads, but there’s so much room for customization! In fact, many pages have their own “Infinite Space of Possibility!”
I’m still working to fully utilize my Passion Planner and figure out how I want everything set up (it’s always evolving!), but I wanted to share a peek behind the scenes of how I have it set up at the beginning of 2019. Here we go!
P.S. if you use my link to order your own Passion Planner, you’ll get 10% off your first purchase of $30 or more!
Monthly Spreads
I’m going to skip past the Passion Roadmap and intro pages, because some of the stuff in there I’m not quite ready to share with the world! So first up is the monthly spread. There’s one for each month, and there’s plenty of room to do what you want with it!
In the past, I haven’t been great about using the monthly spreads, because I can’t decide how best to use it. Right now, I’m utilizing the projects section for my monthly goals, the personal and work focuses for the month, and the rest of the calendar as an overview of major things happening.
I’m also still debating on how best to use color in my Passion Planner! In 2016 and 2017 I went a bit crazy with color-coding, and I scaled waaaaay back last year and pretty much exclusively used my black felt-tip markers. I loved that, but I’m ready to bring back a little bit of color this year. I invested in Zebra Mildliner markers, and my goal is to using one color per month. At first I thought the fine-tip side of the marker would be small enough to write out my goals, but I’m not loving it, so I think in February I’ll switch back to the black felt-tip marker and use the Mildliner as an accent.
Weekly Spreads
Next up are weekly spreads! I use these as more of a log than a planner—I want to know what I actually accomplished, not what I was aiming to do. Because of this, everything in my weekly spread is logged after the fact. I hate having to scribble things out when my plans change!
(clearly I took these photos last week during my lunch break)
Right now I’m using the Mildliners to fill in my work time, and black felt-tip markers for the rest. Like the monthly spreads, I’m not the best at using all of the extraneous stuff on the weekly spreads. You can tell because the to do list and space of infinite possibility are completely blank!
Back Pages
The back pages are where the magic happens in my planner. I utilize these for all of the fun things I want to keep track of—basically, I use this how many people use a bullet journal!
For the most part, the back pages help make my unproductive habits, like television and movies, feel much more productive. 😊
Television Tracking
I started this last year and absolutely loved it, so much so that I actually ran out of room! This year I devoted an entire spread to it. 😊
Every time I start watching a TV show, I write out the title and create boxes for each season. Once I watch a season, I color it in with that month’s designated Mildliner color!
For shows that I’ve watched in the past, like A Series of Unfortunate Events and Travelers, I marked off the progress I made before 2019 in grey. Both series have 3 seasons, and I watched seasons 1 and 2 in 2018, so they’re both colored in grey.
Movie Tracking
New this year is movie tracking! Sean and I have AMC Stubs A-List memberships, which means we get to see up to 3 movies per week in theatres for one monthly cost. That means we’re seeing a lot more movies now! Because of this, I decided to devote a whole spread to movies—one page is for movies in theatres, and the other is movies we stream online.
Similar to the TV tracking, I’ll write out the name of the movie, and color in a box next to it based on the month we saw it in.
Podcast Tracking
I came up with this idea at the end of last year when I was listening to Serial seasons 2 and 3. I felt so accomplished after finishing both, but I didn’t have the satisfaction of crossing something off! So naturally I decided to make something where I could cross off podcast listening.
For podcasts that don’t have designated series, I’m creating blocks for increments of episodes. With Happier, for example, they just recently published episode 200, so I divided it up in chunks of 25 episodes, and I will cross off a box once I finish every 25th episode.
This is especially useful because I’m a crazy person who goes back to the beginning of a podcast and listens from episode 1 all the way through. 🙈
Fingers crossed this helps me get through more of the podcasts that I love!
Book Tracking
On the other side of the podcast tracker is my book tracker. I used this in 2018 and I loved it! I set a goal at the beginning of the year (this year it’s 25 books) and mark that many boxes at the top of the page, starting with the highest number and working backward. I then have a column of numbers, again starting with the highest number and going backward, where I can write out the books I finish that year.
What I like about this is I can see how many books I have left! Counting down instead of counting up seems way more fun.
Blog Course Tracking
I have a really bad habit of joining free blog courses (or worse, purchasing blog courses!) and never actually finishing them. To combat this, I created blog course trackers in the back of my planner!
I’ve divided up free and paid courses, so I prioritize the courses I’ve actually invested money in. Some, like Create. Profit. Party! Live, I’ve completed once but I really want to redo.
As a long-time CoSchedule user, they gave me a free year of CoSchedule Academy Pro, and last year I only did four of the 12 courses in it! I only have until May 1 until my membership expires, so seeing how many I have left keeps me really motivated.
House Wish List
Now that I own a house (!!), there are so many things I want to do and buy. To keep it all in one spot, I created a spread just for my house wish list. One half is for things we want to buy, and the other is for things we want to do.
Any time Sean or I mention something we’d like to buy for or do to the house, I’ll write it down. And once we buy an item or finish a project, I’ll be able to cross it off! I’m not sure one page for each will be enough, but we’ll see.
101 in 1001
Oh man, this one was literally a pain to create. I devoted two whole spreads to my 101 in 1001 list! It’s such a fun project I have going on, and I really love it, so it was worth the time and hand-cramping to write everything out. I’m so happy it’s in my planner!
Because I’m keeping my list relatively fluid, I left plenty of space at the end to write out new additions that may come up. For example, I already know that I’m (unfortunately) going to have to remove my Adult Aerial Silks goal, because I don’t have aerial silks classes near me any more. When that happens, I’ll draw a line through that item and create an Additions section at the end, where I’ll write out whatever I decide to replace it with.
19 in 2019
And finally, a new list for the year! (Can you tell I love lists?) I’ve been really wanting to try my hand at more DIY projects, so Angela and I decided to make a 19 in 2019 list. My goal is to start and finish 19 DIY projects throughout the year, and Angela’s is to bake or cook 19 recipes in 2019!
I set this up very similarly to my book tracker. There’s nothing to write out like my 101 in 1001 list, because I’m allowing myself to create whatever 19 projects strike my fancy throughout the year. I’ll write out the DIY projects I complete and cross off the boxes at the top!
I realize that this probably isn’t very exciting because I haven’t logged much in my planner yet, but I’m really excited to start working on my 2019 planner and get more things filled in!
Would you be interested in a check-in later in the year to see if I’m sticking with it? I can’t decide, so let me know in the comments if that’s something you’d like to see!
Is there a way to see a quick snapshot of what your weekly and monthly pages look as we are half way into the year? I struggle to keep up with planner cause I constantly forget to use them or carry them with me. I appreciate the fact you like to use the weekly after the fact as more of accomplished goals. Thank you!
Yes! I’ll add that to my editorial calendar for June. 🙂