Planners

In grade school, we called them Diary. In High school, we had organizers. During college, I don't know what they are called or if they ever existed, but I made my own monthly calendar. And a few years ago, with Starbucks and other glamour-coffeeshops mushrooming in the metro, it became the planner.They were dead useful to me.

I realised that I've been using planners for almost 20 years, now. Grade school diaries were used in lieu of homework notebooks and doubled as excuse letters (and I really get to use these sheets since I used to vomit and nosebleed frequently). Teachers would also make a note on my diary whenever I was late for school. And thank God, they did not feel the urge to write on mine about needing disciplinary actions! Haha

Organizers in high school were really used to the last sheet. It was also the time when "customizing" the organizer to your taste became vogue. I had mine decorated with post its. I loooove post its! Not the 3M brand because they were so expensive. We used to trade post its in school and put stick them in the dividers of the organizer. And since I was studying in a very special school for very special kids, my organizers were really "bugbog" since we had a lot of homeworks and quizzes and other activities in school.

Since there were fewer classes in college, I only saw the necessity of a planner in a monthly view, just like in MS Outlook. I'd just design a plain one using a spreadsheet and just fold it to fit my bag. The problem with it was that it was easily crumpled because of the absence of a hard front and back materials.

When I was in my previous work, I didn't see the need of a planner since everyday was redundant. But when BF and I started planning of returning to school late last year, we saw the need of using planners again. BF settled to a small weekly planner and I to a planner made by Belle de Jour. I got to actually used mine during the first half of the year. The thing with the BDJ planner was that it was heavy so I didn't really feel the urge to bring it to work. So I would just look at it in the morning, leave it at home and update it at night. I also didn't get to use much of the vouchers included in it since I don't really shop in the stores that were listed in the planner. I also realised that I prefer light-weight planners since I risk developing shoulder and back problems with a heavy one.

So last week, while buying some things at National Bookstore with BF, we chanced upon a very thin, datebook by Hallmark. We thought that we preferred this over most of the kind of planners available there because it was in the monthly view and we do not necessarily write in it everyday. So much for wasted untouched and unwritten pages. And the best part of the planner is, it was only 18.50 pesos!! I got the one with flowers and BF had the one with caricatures since flowers were too feminine raw. Ow, and it also comes with a sticker set!!! Talk about deal-makers!! I'm already excited to use my new planner!!