hi guys welcome back to our channel the number one place for people who love design art and all
things creative i'm jacqueline and i'm an interior architect and designer here at D & B in today's
video i'll be showing you guys how i use planners and notebooks to organize my life and what i feel
is the most productive way to organize all my thoughts in my head down onto paper if you're
like me and you're overly organized and love using planners on a daily basis weekly basis and even
to plan out the whole year i hope that this video is really good for you guys who are beginners but
also for you guys who've been using your planners for a long time i really love this quote by
benjamin franklin which is by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail think about that for a
sec and there was actually a study done by harvard business that revealed that 83 of the population
do not have any goals 14 have a plan in mind but the goals are unwritten and 3 percent have their
goals written down the study found that the 14 who have goals are ten times more successful
than those without goals and the three percent with written goals are three times more successful
than the 14 percent with unwritten goals writing your goals down sets you up to be exponentially
more successful which is one reason why i honestly do believe that having a plan and a schedule not
only sets you up to be more productive but also for more success over the years of continuously
building up my collection of notebooks and trying out so many different variations i've discovered
some unique things that work for me some things that haven't worked and also just some useful
tips that i wish i'd known in the beginning when i started using planners in this video i want to
talk you guys through what i've learned over the years and i want to talk about bullet journaling
because we kind of have to the planners that i'm using at the moment the system i use and also just
general planner tips to help you guys out i also just want to quickly say thank you to all you guys
who subscribe to our channel over christmas i hope that you're well and i truly wish you
the best things for 2021 so if you want to start using a planner in 2021 let's jump into the video
so as a quick glance the panels i use are the collins 2021 a5 essentials diary this
wirebound lined a5 notebook from redbubble this a5 otigami pro vegan leather notebook
this small skin limited edition hardcover notebook as well as some notebooks i've used in the past
and i'll go into more detail about each of them soon i can honestly say that over the past seven
years i have tried any kind of way to organize my life i've tried bullet journaling i've tried
calendar blocking on google calendar i've tried all kinds of fancy one notes and all kinds of
planners and notebooks under the sun so i kind of feel like i know enough about what's good and
what's bad in the world of planners one that i use all the time is a weekly planner i recently
bought this collins a5 essentials planner and i've been using that every week every sunday i
sit down and i plan the week ahead i don't know i just feel that it's kind of relaxing and my mind
can just have a complete reset before the week begins that's how i like to think of it i've
only been using this for two weeks but so far i really like it the only negative i would say is
that there's some ghosting on the pages which isn't great the paper is thin too but honestly
that's to be expected as the diary was on the cheaper side and the reason why i wanted such
a simple week to view planner was because i was using this one last year the rhodia a5 perpetual
planner and i found that i just really didn't like having to put the dates into the margins
and i actually thought that i'd like filling it up and personalizing it to how i want it to be
but having a planner with no dates kind of defeats the point of having it in the first place
if you ask me so yeah i just wanted one that had pre-existing dates for this year just so i could
save time and not flip to my calendar on my phone i also realized i didn't really use this page on
the left and it kind of was just a wasted page at the end of the day initially i thought that i
would use it for additional notes and to-do lists that kind of stuff but i just didn't which is why
i opted for the double page weekly spread just simple classic and quick to write down my schedule
the next thing i used to pan out my life is a to-do list i recently got this gorgeous wire bound
notebook from redbubble which i cannot wait to use i had some pages left in this rodeo one as well so
i've just been using that at the moment i simply use this every day to write a list of things
that need doing there's nothing like taking off a task on your list after you've completed it right
i like to do this every morning and then i have it with me by my desk all day long i was previously
using this a5 rodeo staple bound book which is much simpler but i was having to clip the pages in
order to make them stay open all day which is why i prefer to use a wire-bound one just because i
find that it is more practical when i have it open all day another notebooks which i have for work is
what i like to call my ideas notebook it's nothing fancy it's just a brain dump of any creative ideas
content planning that kind of thing personally i don't care about writing neatly in this one it's
just so i can scribble down any ideas and write freely in i was using this a5 sketchbook that i've
actually had for a couple years it's just a plain simple one but now it's completely full i bought
this really cool limited edition mold skin one but unfortunately it hasn't arrived yet but seriously
when i saw it i just had to get it i love the year of the ox pattern gold indentations and low-key i
thought that maybe if i buy this it will bring me more luck for this year is anyone else crazy like
that however surprisingly i've never actually used a moleskin before and i know that i've heard a lot
of people talk about the paper quality being quite bad now so if you've used a moleskin recently let
me know what you guys think about that now on a personal level i use this otagami a5 notebook
as my journal if you're into manifestation and law of attraction i use this to write down my goals my
intentions for the month future scripting and also as a gratitude journal i'm really into mindfulness
meditation and spirituality so i like to use this book for all that good stuff i found this
on amazon and what i would say is that the paper quality is fantastic i believe it's 150 gsm and
that's the main reason why i bought it because i wanted to use my fountain pens and i already knew
that the notebooks i had wouldn't be able to handle the ink i don't actually think otagami
is that well known but this is my notebook with the best quality by far i think that it would be
really good for bullet journaling as well because the thick paper and the dotted lines so that's
something to look out for if you're into bullet journaling as you can see from my planner system
i kind of like to delegate different notebooks for different purposes my mind kind of works like
computer files and i just feel more organized when everything's in its own specific place
obviously it's completely up to you and i do think that different methods work for different people
it's just a trial and error kind of thing you know just see what you like best and stick with it
so those are my planners that i'll be using in 2021 that i feel let me be my most productive
so now let's look at some other planning methods that i've used in the past and also i want to
give you guys some tips so that you can decide which planner system will work best for you
what i learned works best for me is by using paper planners rather than digital ones i find that when
using digital formats it just takes me 10 times longer to actually complete the plan than it would
to using pen and paper especially when it comes to using an ipad to write notes and plan out your
schedule i think the planning on ipads has become really popular within the past two years and i
thought it was really cool i would see on youtube and instagram and that actually led me to do the
same and what it seems just as practical as using pen and paper i just found that it really wasn't i
just spent a huge amount of time erasing mistakes and on the whole it just took a lot longer for me
to complete my weekly plan but i know that a lot of you guys like using ipads for sketching and
planning so you know by all means stick with it if it works for you in the same light i started using
microsoft onenote to do all my weekly and monthly schedules as well as plan my goals really because
i thought it'd be a good way to have it on my computer and just be able to flick back and
review it when i needed to do in a quick and efficient way and although that seemed like
a good method i just didn't use it that much and creating tables and elements like that in one note
i just found was really time consuming i actually still use it today for just jotting down any kind
of youtube stuff but i would say that's more of a brain dump than an actual planning system on the
digital side of things i also want to talk about google calendar i use this method called calendar
blocking which i learned from amy landino's channel if you don't know what it is it's
basically blocking out your day by using different colors on google calendar to make sure that you
stick to only spending a certain amount of time on a particular task in other words it makes you
less prone to procrastinating and it's supposed to hone you in on what tasks need accomplishing
at that exact time in your day again seems like a great idea right so what i found with this is that
i'd be constantly looking at my phone but i'd also be writing down my traditional to-do list
so i was actually doubling the amount of planning but halving my attention span if that makes sense
i was spending so long flipping back and forth from each one and yeah it was just annoying also
on my phone it would give me loads of reminders at the top of what i needed to do at that exact
time that also annoyed me as well but one app that i actually use a lot is microsoft to-do
it's just a simple app where you can manage different to-do lists all in one place
i use this for any personal stuff around the house or at the weekend that needs doing nothing
extravagant unfortunately honestly i found that this is a really good app and i use it
all the time so if you're someone that likes to do list then i would really check that one out
so yeah after faffing with all these planning methods i just realized that pen and paper is what
really makes me productive and what works best for me but i know that the methods i talked about are
loved by so many people which is why i thought to mention them i think it's really important that we
talk about bullet journaling as well seeming that it's such a huge topic this was something that i
started as well a few years ago because in my head i love planning obviously and i love art as well
so i thought the two combined would be a match made in heaven the one i got was this light
trim 1917 which is in this emerald color and has squared lines inside if you follow me on
instagram then you'll know that i love watercolor painting as well so i thought it would be a great
way to combine both things that i love together yeah i was wrong if you've done bullet journaling
and also not been a fan of it then please let me know in the comments so i know that i'm not alone
and what i noticed is that it just took me so long to actually get two pages complete
that doing a monthly spread would take me at least a couple days to get done i'm just spending too
much time on it and i also didn't like the fact that there was so much freedom when deciding a
style and how you should lay out your planner it was more of an art project for me than planning
which i didn't necessarily want it to be and i think that all of these amazing you know
really refined bullet journals that you see on youtube and instagram really puts that pressure
on you to make yours perfect as well what one i just did not have the time for that kind of and
two it i just didn't find it fun but what do you guys think i'm really interested to know if
you're like me then january is the planning month it's the month about getting back into work and
just being productive again rather than me moving like a sloth and eating mince pies off of my sofa
if you're new then welcome on this channel we talk about interior design architecture illustration
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by doing that you really do help our channel i really hope i gave you guys some useful tips when
it comes to creating a productive planner system like i said this is just what works best for me
leave a comment below on what your favorite way to plan is and also which planners
you bought for 2021 okay guys thanks for watching and i'll see you next video bye
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