I can’t even guess as to how many planners I have purchased over the years. I searched high and low, trying to fit the way I worked into someone else’s boxes. There are a lot of downsides to purchased planners: they’re never exactly what I needed; there were always extra pages I wouldn’t use; and I always needed to add in pages. This is especially true of my blog planner.
My Old Blog Planner
I’ve tried many different setups over the years for my blog planner. I’ve gone the route of designing my own planner and printing it (overnight) so I could put it in a disc bound notebook.
Up until two years ago, though, this is what I did:
- I purchased a spiral-bound paper planner that had month pages, and untimed week pages
- I pulled out the spiral binding and punched the paper so it would go into a disc-bound notebook
- I printed forms that I had designed for articles, KPIs, products, podcasts, etc and added them to the notebook
It worked well, when I remembered to use it. Being paper, I didn’t carry it with me everywhere, so I didn’t use it.
I Don’t Need A Planner!
Having failed at the notebook, I decided I would just do everything on my computer. I use Notion as my writing tool, and it has a calendar. So far so good.
I soon found myself massively behind because I wasn’t going into Notion every day (or week) to check to see what needed to be done.
GoodNotes It Is
I decided to give planning on my iPad a try. I dutifully researched software, and settled on Goodnotes because of the toolset and ability to import documents. So I printed my blog planner to PDF and imported it into Goodnotes.
I couldn’t figure out how to move around. So my daughter reminded me the web is a thing, and I went on YouTube to look for help.
Rina at Happy Downloads
The first video I saw was by Rina at Happy Downloads*. She gave me all the information I needed to get past my navigational issues.
She impressed me with her teaching methods, clarity of expression and how easy she made it look.
The second video was “Plan with Me” and featured her own planner. With her planner everything was linked via tabs and calendars – just like in a paper planner.
And when I went out to her site, she was offering the planner for $12.99*.
I Will Never Go Back
I use Happy Download notebooks* for ALL of my weekly and blog planning, as well as any notetaking I do.
The reason is that they are completely customizable. It is a brilliant piece of programming that lets you set up your options, choose colors from all colors out there, and then generates the file.
And the best part? For that $12.99 you can make as many of these notebooks and planners as you want.
A Closer Look
I decided to make a video so that you can see the planner generator in action:
