Moleskine Notebook Planner Hack

I need organization in my life; like plants need the sun. It is always void. I am always losing my keys, my wallet, forgetting appointments and I count my kids continuously  On our recent vacation Hubs kept having minor panic attacks thinking we left one behind somewhere. 1…2…Where’s the third?! OF course they were always in the stroller we were pushing; nevertheless no matter how much I try I am always misplacing something. So I am forever on the lookout for a planner that suits all my needs to keep me organized.

I am a great googler. I pride myself on my skills for being able to locate things on the internet. I am great with coming up with the key words to use to search. So I started looking at making my own planner. I was tired of having to wait until the fall for school to start and new planners and products to come out. I would often find in about January the need for a new organizer. But since most planners start in Aug/Sept, I was already a few months into a brand new planner and still paying full price.

There are a few products I will always buy no matter the price. I used to believe that cheap was good and cheap was what I could afford. But after I grew up a little I realized that sometimes quality is better than cheap; and cheap often equals poor quality. And buying something over and over again because the quality would not hold up equals no longer cheap. It’s the little things that make you feel more grown up and in control.

One of the products I will continue to purchase is Moleskine. The quality of the paper and binding lends it for a long lasting use. For this project I choose the Classic Soft Cover 3.5×5.5 size ruled. Its size was small enough to fit in numerous purse sizes, diaper bags and pockets. There are enough pages for a entire year and spare pages for notes and phone numbers.

Supplies

Classic Soft Cover Ruled 3.5×5.5 Moleskine notebook

Ruler

Washi tape or another other craft supplies for decorating

Sample Paint Chips

I took two pages for a month over view. On the left side I listed what holidays (legal and school) there were. This way I could quickly look and see what was coming up. On the right side I took a paint chip from my collection and attached it to the page. I layered a calendar on top and wrote in the days. I kept it very simple and clean for easy and quick reading. And if you haven’t already, I suggest you go to your local home improvement store, or even big box store in their home improvement department, and start stalking up on their FREE paint chip card samples. I always feel so guilty, but I off set the guilt by picking up what I need off my shopping list. These paint chip samples come in handy for a variety of projects and because of the cost I can’t pass them up. And they are so pretty in  my clear acrylic storage box; like a bucket of rainbows in my craft room.

For the weeks I divided each week between two facing pages. There are 23 lines for writing so I broke each day into 7 lines and three days per page.Start two lines down and draw a line for Monday,(7 lines down) Tuesday and (7 lines down ) Wednesday on the left side. Count down two lines again and list Thursday and (7 lines down) Friday on the right side; for the weekend, I took the remaining slot across from Wednesday and split it into two sections for Saturday and Sunday.

Once I got all my months and weeks straightened out, I went back and started making tabs on my “months” in order for easy location when I was trying to make a appointment.

Done and Done. only took a few days because with Hubs being gone and alone with three kids I don’t have much leisure time. And when I do; I like to shower.