I love writing things down. Following our old school way of life in this house, I keep a paper planner. Last August I decided to downsize my planner and leave my beloved Lilly Pulitzer Large Agenda behind. Then in January, I tried to downsize even more and have been forcing our hectic schedule to fit in an inadequate (and not my colors at all) planner.
It worked for a while, but then I went to Target and saw all of the new academic planners available in their beautiful colors and designs. The wheels began turning. I’ve always been a fan of the academic calendar because in my head, summer wraps up the year. Plus, when you have kids in school, everything revolves around when they’re in class and when they’re not. The wheels kept turning.
I went back to Target and bought the same size planner that I had but in a beautiful hot pink, my favorite color. The interior layout wasn’t all I had hoped for, but I thought I could make it work and it matched my daily to-do Lilly Pulitzer notebook. (Only deranged people consider such things.) After a few days, I decided I needed to go big again, as our family tries harder each year to do more in a day that I did in all of third grade.
Back to Target I went to do the planner exchange. The new, bigger planner also was hot pink, which meant that it too matched my Lilly Pulitzer to-do notebook. The problem was that it didn’t start until July, and I wanted to revamp my organization system now. Seriously, the eagerness that I had to do this could be compared to how some people can’t wait to go on vacation — or retire. Maybe if I went on a vacation, the idea of a new planner wouldn’t seem so exciting, but then it’s kind of cool that I’m excited about planners because they’re much cheaper than flying to Paris or New York even. (I need a vacation.)
I kept thinking about my July conundrum more and suddenly had a genius thought. The Lilly Pulitzer agendas have been out since August, so they must be on sale now. I went to one of my favorite boutiques (The Perfect Home & Gift), which happens to be in the same shopping center as Target. I found a Lilly Pulitzer Jumbo Agenda in a pleasing Lilly pattern and discovered that it was now 50 percent off. Goodness all around!
I paid for it and started counting the minutes until I could truly make it mine by writing every single thing down that I need to do, from going to the grocery store to filing invoices to taking The Tots to the dentist.
My first planner transfer strategy was to rip all the months out and start with April, but that just didn’t feel right. I needed proof that January through March had indeed happened, so I ripped out August through December 2018 and began transferring the first quarter of 2019 over. To many, in fact all of humankind most likely, this might seem like a colossal waste of time, but I was having more fun than people have in Disneyworld (those who really want to be there).
I loved writing down all of the times I’ve worked out so far this year, as well as how many times I’ve taken my children to tennis and served my parents dinner. As I flipped through the pages of my old planner, I could see the days that were amazing (hanging out with one of my best friends at the local yacht club, riding the Swamp Rabbit Trail with my family and reading on my hammock on a sunny February day) and the days that were gut-wrenching (sitting with my parents in a hospital room, learning my mother-in-law had cancer and watching my son struggle with severe anxiety). In three months, we had done so much, and I didn’t remember hardly any of it until I started reading my planner.
As I finished the transition to my new, larger command central notebook, I felt grateful and energized. Grateful for all of the experiences that so far have made up 2019, even the rotten ones (like Carolina losing to Auburn in the NCAA tournament) and energized for what will fill the remaining pages.
Transferring planners (or even having a planner) isn’t for everyone, but if you want to examine your day-to-day life up close, this is the way to do it, and fun fact, I’ll never stray from my Lilly Agenda again. I love my new planner, but I love the insight that filling it out gave me even more. Here’s to 2019 — again.