How I Plan My Week & New 2023 Planners

Hi friend! Welcome to a brand new week! I hope you had a wonderful, restful weekend and are starting this week strong! I’m excited about today’s post where I’m sharing how I plan my week and my favorite planners.

I’m a proud ‘planning nerd’ and let me know if you are too!

How I Plan My Week

I’m still old school with my affinity for paper planners. I do use my digital calendar for all school things, appointments and birthdays, but every week, I still sit down with my paper planner and plan out the week.

Weekly Planning

Every Sunday, I sit down at my desk in my office to plan my week. It’s a time I look forward to and enjoy. I know that once I have my week mapped out, each day will go smoother. It gives me a sense of peace to know what’s on the agenda and how everything is supposed to play out.

Of course, life happens and things don’t always go according to plan, but if you have a general outline, it’s easier to adjust and course correct when you need to.

Joggers • Cardigan

Keep Goals in Mind

As I sit down to plan, I keep my goals in mind. (family, personal and work) and plan accordingly. When you set a goal, the way to reach it is to implement habits and routines that get you closer to those goals.

For instance, being a close knit family is important to me. I know that in order to have that kind of relationship with my kids, we need to spend intentional time together. Practically speaking, that may look like family dinner without electronics, “special mama/Jordan time” and late night chats with my son when he’s more open to communicating after a long day.

Staying healthy and strong is also important. So, I calendar in weekly workouts and strength training.

Being present and intentional and focusing on what matters is something I’m continuing to work on. Making time for reading, meditating/praying, and journaling helps me accomplish that goal.

My work is critical because it provides for my family, and I’m a divorced mom, so I have goals in that area too.

My paper planner helps me with all of that.

To get an overview of my week, I use a weekly spread with times down the side so that I can visually see where my time will be spent (and where I have blank space).

And I’m super particular about the pen I write with – this one is my all time fave! It’s an 0.8mm fineline pen.

Hourly Planner Inserts

I ordered these hourly planner sheets on Etsy and use them with a Happy Planner coil. I love the minimal design and the quality of the paper. I only wish the time started at 5am and went to 10pm. But, then the lines would be smaller. As it is, it goes from 7am to 9 pm.

I’m considering trying out this timed planner for next year.

I start by reviewing my monthly online calendar and transfer over anything that has a set time. Things like sports practices and games, pick up kids from school, workouts/runs, doctor appointments, calls, meetings and dates with family/friends/boyfriend.

Then, I add in what blog posts are going live that week. From there, I can make a list of things that I need to do to get those posts ready. Then, I can add in social media like Stories, Reels, and responding to DMs.

When I get to each day, sometimes I literally write in when I’ll shower/get ready and eat. It helps me manage my time.

It’s so easy to underestimate how much we can get done in a day. Seeing things written out with times next to it makes me be much more accurate with my estimate.

DAILY PLANNING

Even though I plot out my week, each day, I may still use a daily planner so I can focus exclusively on that day.

I like the Day Designer for this and there’s a little section for TO DO, that I fill in as a brain dump when things pop into my head.

REGULAR ROUTINES

A few things in my routine/schedule stay pretty much the same week after week and that predictability is good for me.

Generally speaking, for this season, here’s how it goes:

Almost everyday – morning quiet time (5:45- 6:30 am), family dinner (6 pm)

Sunday – sometimes church, laundry, meal prep, post try-on to Stories, evening face mask

Mondays – run, computer work day, homework with Jordan, football practice

Tuesday – run, Tuesday Goodies, Amazon Live, draft Wednesday post, homework with Jordan, football practice

Wednesday – weight train, try on clothes (pictures/video/edit), homework with Jordan, football game

Thursday – weight train, Amazon Live, write content for Friday’s post

Friday – long run, errands, draft Newsletter and Monday’s post

Saturday – rest day, hang with kids/friends/boyfriend

PLANNING FOR 2024

I love this time of year when all the new planners come out! I literally spend hours searching and researching and seeing what’s new. Even if I still come back to my old faithful.

Below are some planner goodies that you may find helpful in keeping your routines and schedules on track.

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I use a clear acrylic calendar in my office for content planning.

Filling out something like a Daily Plan is great for day to day.

I use the dry erase calendar in my pantry for keeping the kids/home schedule up to date.

I recently bought the weekly sticky notes and that’s a fun addition.

The mildliners are my highlighters of choice. But Tombow #772 is my absolute fave warm pink marker that I also use as a highlighter.

And I’ve used the Sugar Paper monthly calendar for many years to plan my blog and social media content.

My Dream Planner

Despite all my searching, I don’t have a paper planner that meets all of my needs and I’ve seriously considered creating my own.

In my dream planner, there would be:

• two monthly calendars – one for home/family and one for work
• Monday start
• weekly page with 5am – 10pm
• daily page with place for top 3, workout, dinner and notes
• brain dump notes pages
• pepetual calendar for birthdays/holidays
• quality, white paper GSM 120
• pretty, minimal font
• no color, just dark grey or black print

We’ll see . . .

Do you have a paper planner you love? What are the features you love about it? Let me know in the comments!

Now let’s go kick Monday’s booty!