While many people now use their phones to manage their schedules and to do lists, there’s a massive movement going old school with paper planners and planner accessories. Companies like The Planner Society have more than 145,000 followers on Instagram and their Facebook group has more than 27,000 members. Today on Fox 2 News in St. Louis, I talked about the stress relief benefits of creative planning with planner stickers and accessories and the different options you have (click here to see video of my segment). Below is more info and links to get your planning and relaxing!
Why get into creative planning with paper planners?
It takes something that might otherwise be tedious and overwhelming and makes it fun. It’s a lot more fun to work through a to do list that’s colorful and surrounded by motivational phrases like, “You’ve got this” and “Today will be great!”- It relieves stress, because it promotes mindfulness (being in the present moment) as you focus on decorating your planner, so it’s great for your mental health.
- It’s a creative outlet that doesn’t require you to be an artist so anyone can get into it.
- It’s quick and easy or be a hobby you can really dive into when you want. It brings in elements of scrapbooking without you needing to sit down for hours at a time. You can lay down a few stickers in just a few minutes. And yet you can also play for hours when you have the time.
- It’s also a great way to connect with others and be part of a community with common interests. There are tons of planner groups on Facebook to share and chat with, as well as groups you can meet up with like the St. Louis Planner Ladies group (I just met up with this group over the weekend to work on my own planners).
Planner Basics. To get started, you can take most any paper planner (I picked up the Kate Spade one below at T.J. Maxx for less than $20) and start decorating it with planner stickers and washi tape, which is a decorative tape that comes in a seemingly endless number of designs. Washi adds a lot of personality to a page at a great price (just a few bucks a roll or less if you buy a set).
Michaels is a great place to start. They have tons of planners to choose from, a whole line of planner stickers from their Recollections line and they carry The Happy Planner line from Me & My Big Ideas, which makes the super popular planner value packs with 30 pages of stickers for planners. Recollections and Me & My Big Ideas both also make awesome washi tape (available at Michaels stores and at michaels.com).
Advanced Planning. Once you get into planning, you’ll probably want to go to the next level. There are lots of shops with really cool, unique planners and accessories. Here in St. Louis, Lara Smith runs the online shop The Ink Road, which has beautiful planners and accessories and her own line of Ink Road stamps that can be used in planners and for making cards (available at theinkroad.com).
Subscriptions. Once you get bitten by the planner bug, you may want to get a monthly fix of planner kits. Cocoa Daisy has a stunning line of planner kits and accessories with new kits every month. They’re unique because they provide pages for that month that you can put in a ring binder with monthly, weekly and daily planner pages, as well as matching papers, notebooks (aka “doris”), washi tape, embellished paperclips, pens, notepads, sticky notes, die cuts and stickers each month (available at cocoadaisy.com).
Planner Subscription Options:
- Full Planner Kit with A5 or Personal Ring-bound inserts or Standard, Personal or Mini Dori notebooks:
- Three-month minimum subscription $27.99/month
- Six-month minimum subscription $25.99/month
- Planner Add On Kit – accessories, not specific to a particular planner type:
- Three-month minimum subscription $17.00/month
- Six-month minimum subscription $15.00/month
- Planner Inserts Only – A5 or Personal Ring-bound inserts or Standard, Personal or Mini Dori notebooks:
- Three-month minimum subscription $10.50/month
- Six-month minimum subscription $8.50/month
- Planner Dashboards – Set of six A5 and six personal cardstock dashboards:
- Three-month minimum subscription $8.95/month
- Six-month minimum subscription $6.95/month
Shipping rates available on their website. Multiple subscriptions ship together for one flat rate. Public release of our new line is at midnight Eastern on the 1st of each month. Subscribers get early ordering privileges, beginning on the 28th.
The binders shown below are available on their site, subject to availability, and are from the Carpe Diem line by Webster’s Pages.
Planner Society is perhaps the most popular of the planner kit clubs. They feature unique feminine designs with new papers, stickers, stamps, die cuts, and goodies like beautiful pens and accessory bags every month. They also offer optional subscriptions to their monthly washi tape, sticker and box sticker kits too (available at www.theplannersociety.com).
Sign ups are done from the 2nd-14th of the month. All of our information of how to do so is on their website. Costs are (USA pricing and they also ship internationally):
- Planner Kit $30.90
- Any add-on kits with a purchased planner kit will have free shipping. Add-on kits include:
- Washi $13.45
- Box Sticker $14.95
- Sticker $11.95
Do Tell. Are you into creative planning? What are your favorite planners? What are your favorite places to shop for planners and accessories? Do you subscribe to monthly kit(s)? Do tell.
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