 Well hello my friends and welcome back to my channel. Today I'm gonna be doing a little bit of a different video for you guys. I was actually at my friend Ryan's apartment yesterday. I don't know when this video is going up but Ryan has his own YouTube channel which I will link up in the card for you guys. He is a man with the plans and I brought my binder over and we were kind of looking at each other's planners and whatever and I have been decorative planning for several years now. Actually I started decorative planning when I started my YouTube channel so what like four or five years something like that and it's taken a long time for me to really understand my style and figure out what makes me happy. So we had a discussion about planner piece and if it's even achievable and all of that stuff so I wanted to kind of share with you guys my mentality of how I have gotten to the point where I feel like I have achieved the planner piece. The illustrious elusive planner piece. So a lot of my journey with planning is centered around the air and convent products. I have tried several different things and what I keep going back to is simplicity. For me I am not one of those people that can have four or five different planners. It's too much for me. My brain doesn't work that way. I have a very simple life. I am single, no kids, no partner. I have a dog like that's it. So I don't really have that much stuff to track or write down or whatever you know but there was a time where I was using a couple of different planners for different things and now everything is in this planner. What I use now is the air and convent binder system and I'm just gonna flip through and like talk to you guys while I'm flipping. So yeah but this has just been working really well for me. Oh my little my little dots are over here. Here we go. I've done several videos on this particular planner. I did put in a just cover because I feel like that helps with you know not ruining these pages but I did actually end up ordering a neutral planner because I loved the way that the neutral was but to be honest I kind of decided that neutral is not for me and you guys are probably thinking like what Emily you're like super neutral. Yes yes I am. However I'm super neutral in my like regular daily life. However in my planner is like the one place that I can be super colorful and more bold and loud and it doesn't cause me anxiety like color in general like lots of like big colors really cause me legit anxiety. So that's why my home is very neutral. My wardrobe is very neutral. I'm very neutral. However in here I actually really enjoy it because it's kind of like my little outlet if that makes sense. Anyway here are these pages. This has where I track my menstrual cycle and paydays and then like work holidays. So I mean you could track whatever the heck you want to on there. Here I actually just made this not too long ago. I had one of these in my last planner too and this is like kind of just like projects or things I'd like to do. So like I have my entryway, living room, half bath, garage, laundry, office, kitchen, dining room, loft, master bath, bedroom and then I have an extra one but just thought that you know this would be kind of cute to put in there. And then over here is my first July budget that I've done. I used to have a Aaron Condon deluxe monthly planner and that only housed my budget and that was it. I love the idea of the deluxe monthly planner when I was actually tracking every single dollar that came in and came out but I don't do that anymore. I do follow the Dave Ramsey plan and at the point that I was tracking everything I was you know paying down debt, saving up my six month emergency and saving for a house. So like that was really nice to have like a tangible place to see everything like the incoming and the outgoing but now that I've already purchased the house I'm in baby step four and six because I don't have kids so I don't not doing college savings. So I just like an overview. That just works super well for me and I decided to do that in the sheet at the very front of the month. So anyways if you guys want to see any of my budgeting videos I'll throw it up in a card for you guys but yeah and then this is the first month I just wrote down some things but I never really I don't know I don't know what to do with this page. This is this is my problem and I know that some people have actually like taped these pages together so it just flips to the month. I may or may not do that I'm not sure. I mean I might find a use for these two pages at some point but this is my month of July that's already happened and then speaking of planner peace. So for me what has worked really well especially when you're first starting is don't buy all the things and I know that's so hard to do because I bought all the things and I ended up not using all the things. This is before I discovered that people had like dedicated a planner Instagrams and people did plan with me on YouTube and I did not know any of that yet. So I had already established my YouTube channel just a little bit. I had done a few videos and I decided as soon as I started or as soon as I got my first planner that I was going to start planning videos and I did and I actually didn't do any talking at all. I mean I said like hello and then I would just you know fast forward through it and then like show you all at the end and it was like very very decorative and I felt like everything needed to have a theme because that's the only stuff I kind of saw online. It was very themy and it inevitably didn't end up working for me which really sucked but that's okay. Over the years I have established a love for two major sticker brands that have really worked for me and the first one is Coffee Break Planner which all these little scallop boxes and then all the scripty words are from her and then I also am in love with Chrissy and Designs. I feel like the majority well not the majority at least half of the stickers in each shop really appeal to me and that just I don't know works well with my brain that I can support these two shops buy the things I need and I feel like it all kind of flows well together. I hope that makes sense. For me on a normal like weekly basis usually my two or my go-to things are these scallop boxes because I usually will write in things that are happening and then these are also which I absolutely love that they are matte removable stickers so you can actually peel them up so say I didn't you know edit that day I can pull that up and it's just so easy. I do obviously have other sticker shops too but I kind of just sprinkle those in where they go and I'm not super dedicated to one shop or another in that respect. I do like little icons like this one is a wanton and a million this one's wants more with love this little doctor guy is from plan to plan sticker co. Yeah so I mean I love like little things like that just to emphasize the event in the box also these little blobbies are super cute from oh hello stationery like there's so many fun things to put in there to kind of like zhoz up your planner if you like that if you like super basic and all you want to do is just have different colored pens like you go you do your thing you know so yeah that's kind of like my mentality like walking through how I lay my stickers down and how I choose what I choose so this is like the week of July 4th clearly because this is July 4th right here and then um here is this week um so yeah but another thing I really wanted to talk about was that I know there are some people in the planner community that get not necessarily upset but maybe like a little perturbed if other people copy their style and I feel like copying or emulating is how people find their style so I always take it as a compliment if someone's going to tag me on instagram or send me um email saying hey here's my first spread or here's a spread that I just did and I really emulated your style or I copied your style what do you think or whatever like I think that's amazing because that's how you find what works for you one of my biggest style inspirations has been gen plans and I will leave her instagram down below if you are interested she also has a youtube channel which I will link for you guys if you see her style it's very different than this but this is kind of how I came to this conclusion she has a lot more white space than I do typically in her weeks and she does do some of the decorative icons but I definitely do a lot more and I did try out her style like exactly for the longest time and I just figured you know what I love that style it really works for me I like true times of you know I work and then I put my wash in and then you know at the end of the day I cut my washi and then I put in what's going on and what's happening but for me I wanted a little bit more decoration in mind and some of you may see this and go oh my gosh this is so overwhelming I don't know how you're getting anything done and some of you may see this and go this is super boring so everyone has a different way of doing things but finding that person or that account or several accounts either on Instagram or Facebook or whatever and just kind of using those as like okay well I've never thought of doing it this way but maybe I should try this and see how it works for me in my life you know Jen and I actually know each other um we've met a few times now but you know she's a busy mom she works outside the home she is married and also has three kids and a dog so her life is so different than mine but I could still take inspiration from what she has done and what has worked well for her style so I just kind of took her style and revamped it for myself because that's really at the end of the day what you have to do you have to figure out what works for you and not necessarily worry about what everybody else thinks of your planner your planner is for you and no one else I however really like to make mine pretty I do have you know a channel online however I don't have to share this stuff if I don't want to so you know I just really enjoy sharing it and I make it pretty because I want to make it pretty you know I'm not really doing anything for the camera any longer I'm really doing it because I love it so anyways um this is another week that's all filled in um I'm going to flip a little bit more here and um show you some other things that have really helped me we're into August already oh my gosh so this is actually this week um this is today and um hopefully I'm going to get this up next week so as I went through this week so these are kind of like the Emily Leigh colors so I kind of did a little bit of rainbow and then over here's just kind of bleh whatever but what I have done and I've actually done this this is how the conversation started with Ryan yesterday is what I have done and what I was explaining to him is that I went through the majority of the weeks for the next year and just put in my work and anything else that I knew was happening so like a birthday or like right here oh I have a giveaway on Monday I don't think this video is going to be up by Monday but you never know um and I have like a girl's night with my friends Megan and Jess and you know like there's stuff in here and like my trash day there's stuff in here that I already know that's going to happen so if I lay this down it's so much easier for me to then like mentally throughout the week come upstairs to my office and then like fill in the evenings or anything that needed to happen in the daytime or what's happening in the weekend or what's coming up so that's really helpful for me to like pre-plan at least the things that I know and even if say this the day of the eighth um you know I'm off work or something I can lift this up and I can put in something else it's not a problem but my biggest challenge was just starting with a blank page and not even having like my work in there and then it's like gosh now I have to think about what I want to do I got to think about what theme I want to go with and about a month ago I ended up I think it was actually the July 4th weekend I just was super inspired and started just planning out my weeks and it's just making my life so much easier because I don't have to think about it anymore um so yeah but then like here I'm going to be on a road trip with my mom um like the last half of this but I am working over here so yeah it's just like let's just put in the things and then also like I have other things going on so like I found out that the wild collab sale is going to be the 22nd through the 25th so I just kind of put a little sticky in here um and then these little sticky notes are from Erin Condren and then I have another planner meetup which I haven't put in here yet and um yeah I even put in like all my budgeting um things and anything that I know is in here like Labor Day, Patriot Day um I'll put in and then you know I'll just put in little page markers for the things that are kind of pending ish um like I'm going to go to state for with my mom and all that good stuff so yeah I don't know I just think like this is gonna work really well for me in the end that I don't really need to think anymore um maybe that's the theme of this video like I don't need to think about it anymore um but I just really like the way that this feels I'm putting in all my paydays I'm typically putting in laundry clearly if I don't necessarily do the laundry that day I can still lift this stuff up and I could put it somewhere else without an issue I still have some weeks that I don't have anything which is totally fine and you know I'm still consuming products I'm still buying things because I can't help myself but you know at that point I was like you know I'm not sure what I want to do for that week so I just skipped it um and then this one was actually blank until the other day and I got my simply gilded box the one with the maws and um this is the stardust washi that was in there and I'm like this is beautiful I love it um so yeah but I don't have I'm out of my little work stickers and I haven't decided which scallop boxes I want to use for this color palette just yet but clearly I haven't till September to figure it out there's also a grilled cheese festival in Minneapolis I'm really excited about that plus there's gonna be wine so you know I want to go to that um but yeah but I like got like I'm going all the way into the end um so yeah there's like another blank one here oh this is a little bit funky um here is like a little spooky one for you know October and then into the next month um I've only done this but this is like the actual Halloween day but yeah so I mean I've obviously put like my dog's monthly meds all that kind of stuff you know like this is just like helping my mind work and I hope that this might help one of you know hopefully one of you out there maybe the several of you I don't know but this is just really like working for me and yes I've already made the decisions and yes I can't really use any new stuff but that's why I left a few uh weeks blank so I think that'll work pretty well for me and then like into December I have well this is in December but it's actually the week of Thanksgiving but I have some of this written down I don't know what I'm doing for Thanksgiving probably hopefully nothing because that's just my jam um yeah and this is like the first full week of December oh also I got a question from um Ryan when I was we didn't you know we were flipping through this he's like what do these little things mean over here and they're my paydays that's what they mean um you might not be able to see that one very well but this one you can hopefully see um but yeah those are my paydays so I just keep track of that on my little thing there but yeah you know I don't have anything there this is the week of Hanukkah so I wanted to use lots of blues to celebrate um and then the lights all that good stuff this is the week of Christmas which I think is so cute and I used um this kit not a kit but like a couple of sticker sheets from wonton and a million which I thought were super cute this washi's from wonton and a million this washi's from wonton and a million and then this little green band is signifying my co-worker is off but it's actually from one of the erin kondren sticker books I think from a long time ago but it had the gold and it had the right green tone and I was like let's do it so anyway but yeah I mean I'm going all the way into everything for this so this one's really cute which I love this one's actually my birthday week so this is January 9th it's my birthday um yeah and I I'm also I don't even think I brought this up yet but I'm also trying to stay motivated with bringing my lunches to work so I got these really cute little like lunch boxes and then like on my birthday I'll probably go out but whatever so yeah this is the week of Doyle's birthday this is Doyle's birthday right there it's also my brother's birthday um so yeah but you know I just I'm loving the way that this is working for my brain and you know I hope that you guys get a little bit of inspiration from this as well so cute this is valentines even though I don't have a valentine but that's all right this is a valentine's day and then into March I've done a few things love the way this looks it's like kind of more springy and then we've got St. Patrick's Day week so I mean I don't know I just I just really like the way this looks and I hope that you guys to do as well um this one's like a galaxy theme which I love this washi it's like a sample that I had and then um I don't know I use this like kind of art deco-y uh washi as well so maybe I'm gonna just stop it there there are more weeks that I have filled out but once I get into May I really haven't done anything because you know if I get new stuff I want to be able to use it I just prep ahead and that's just been working really well for me and how this whole planner piece thing works for my brain I hope you guys enjoyed the video please let me know down below what has really worked for you to find your own planner piece or find your own planner style I would really really love to know we are all different we are all unique but I feel like we all have the opportunity to take inspiration from each other and I feel like there is definitely room for all of us as well whether it's on instagram or facebook or youtube you know I think everyone has a unique voice even if your style is still growing and still moving forward so anyway that's gonna be it for me today thank you guys so much for watching and feel free to thumbs up subscribe do all those things those youtubers tell you to do and I will see y'all in the next video bye guys well folks it's time to kick it old school