This week I wanted something quick. Over the year’s I’ve found the best way to do that is to grab some highlighters!

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Before the Pen

I considered using different border styles like I did in this weekly spread. But decided to keep it very simple and just repeat the same banner for each list.

If you wanted to make it more decorative, you could add some washi tape (like this thin rainbow washi) and a box sticker or a header sticker.

I used the Happy Notes version with the raindrops cover. The reversible side is a floral pattern that I don’t like, so I reversed the covers to see the rainbow raindrops.

The dot grid paper with the rainbow stripe is a printable I made. You can download it for free here, existing subscribers can login to the library to download it here.

I used the highlighters for the title and to create the checkboxes. I like that the checkboxes stand out better than just using pen – the thin end of the highlighters is just the right thickness!

After the Pen

You’ve probably noticed there are no days of the week on this spread. It doesn’t really matter to me if a planner has the days of the week or not as I prefer to work off lists. If it does have days of the week I’ll use it for blog planning but for this week I just numbered 1 to 5.

The lists I used this week were:

• Don’t forget
• Blog posts
• To do
• Europe trip planning
• To do’s for my ecourse How to make printables in Microsoft Excel
• End of month tasks (which I plucked from my master list that I blogged about in this post)

I used the Tombow Kei Coat rainbow dual tip highlighters. They have a bit plastic that goes down either side of the chisel which prevents fraying and keeps the highlighter much straight than highlighters that don’t have this.

I used the Pilot Pop’lol gel pens which write really smoothly and have really nice colors… except for the green. There’s a few different shades of green and I don’t really like any of them! The apple green (that I used) is too bright making it hard to read what you’re written). The leaf green is darker but a dull shade of green.

Using highlighters for the headings worked ok for most of the colors, except for orange – way too neon so I wrote over the top of it with the pen…

Which did help make it a bit easier to read

Supplies used

• Free printable Happy Planner classic size rainbow dot grid printable (download here, existing subscribers can login to the library here)
• Happy Notes (the raindrops cover version)
• Happy Planner classic punch
• Tombow Kei Coat rainbow dual tip highlighters
• Pilot Pop’lol 0.7mm gel pens
  • Light blue (BL-PL-7-LB)
  • Orange (BL-PL-7-AO)
  • Apple Green (BL-PL-7-AG)
  • Pastel Pink (BL-PL-7-PP)
  • Grape (BL-PL-7-GR)
  • Aqua Blue (BL-PL-7-AL)

Shop the supplies used this week in my Amazon shop (affiliate link)

Would I use this layout again

The Happy Planner is about 7.25″ wide x 9.25″ high which I’ve found is the perfect page size for me!

As for whether I’d do the highlighter banner thing again, I might if I don’t have much time (like I didn’t this week) but it’s a bit plain so I might alternate between different headings for each list or adding some stickers, washi tape etc.

Past weekly spreads

• Setting up a new month in my bullet journal (minimalist style)
• Bullet journaling in the Scribbles that Matter Notebook (is it worth the hype?)
• Bullet journaling in the Rhodia Goalbook

Bullet journal tips

• 50 Themes for your planner or bullet journal spreads
• Buying a planner versus DIYing and making your own (pros and cons) 
• Overwhelmed by the planner community? Read this post 

Download the printable dot grid paper I used this week from the library (click here). Existing subscribers can login here.

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