My Planner- Pages – DIY FISH Inserts
My search for a new planner was prompted by my need to better manage my time. For the last 3 years I had been using the week on 2 pages format of the Erin Condren Life Planner. It worked well to keep track of appointments, but I needed a more indepth system that could not only track multiple areas of my life but where I could manage my time on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily basis.
The beauty of customising your own planner, is that there are a smorgasbord of planner pages available. You can buy pre printed inserts for discbound planners but I was more interested in creating my own “hybrid” planner at home, using downloadable pages and my home printer. Etsy and Pinterest have a massive assortment of planner pages and templates for everything from meal planning to cleaning schedules. Most are dirt cheap and sometimes even free! Using this method, you can create your own personalised planner, customised to meet your family’s and your lifes needs.
Whilst on the hunt, I stumbled upon the brand DIY Fish. DIY Fish is a store on Etsy that offers a new planner page system, unlike anything I have seen before. THe “Packs” Consist of Monthly, Weekly and Daily pages. The range is MASSIVE and you will literally get lost in her store trying to work out which pack you like the best. I strongly suggest you go in with a clear idea in mind of what you need in a planner page.
What I need/want in a planner page
A Monthly Calendar
An overview calendar of the month ahead to record birthdays, swimming/ballet/soccer/tennis lessons, kindy days etc.
A Weekly Overview (peek at my week)
This is what my Erin Condren offered me I wanted something similar but in a different format. It has to have space for me to plan out blog posts, meals, Tot school, study and of course appointments.
A Daily Page (or two!)
This was afterall the whole reason I was looking for a new planner. I wanted somewhere to schedule my day, write out to do lists, plan in more detail the days activities, write reminders and basically brain dump (more on that later!)
With all this in mind I settled on
Version 2.1 – With a Day On 2 Pages (DO2P) and also bought a 3 Year Chart (for my yearly planning)
The system an be bought in 3 month packs (which is what I did) so after the 3 months if it’s not for you, your not stuck with a whole years worth of planner pages.
Words simply can’t describe how this system works so beautifully, so I have taken you for a walk through my planner in this YouTube clip.
Just after this video I bought the next 3 month pack (Jul-Sept) I bought the same version that has a new slightly different name
Version 2.2 Day on 2 Pages
It has very minimal changes. Here is a quick closer look at the pages.
Yearly
Monthly
Weekly
Daily – Day On 2 Pages
It also comes with “Charts” to help track other areas of your life. On this Monthly Chart (the Monthly Calendar is on the back) I am tracking my household cleaning zones. It also comes with weekly charts as well.
Monthly Chart
You simply purchase the planner on Etsy, it is emailed to you within 48 hours (as a downloadable file) and you print, cut and punch at home. If the whole print, cut, punch bit is overwhelming for you, I know a few kind people who will do it for you for a small fee!
Over the next few weeks I will show you a closer look at each section of my planner (starting with the Daily Pages) and how I am using it!
So what do you think, would this work for you?