Happy Planner have a few inserts you might have skipped over because they only show one of the layouts in the main product photo. If you have a closer look though, there’s different designs on the backside of the page, and usually a couple of different designs in each refill pack.

Case in point: this socialite refill paper’s  featured design is a today planning page with top 3 in bright yellow. I very rarely use day to a page planners and I hate yellow. So I never considered this paper. Well when I was on the hunt for something new I took a closer look and noticed it has hot pink and blue pages as well.

Related post: Favorite Happy Planner Refill Inserts

Before the Pen

I decided to use a mix of graph and dot grid paper – a similar layout to this spread in the Mini Happy Planner.

You might’ve noticed from some of my past weekly spreads that I like things to be coordinated. I tend to use the colors that are already on the page as my guide and try and find pens in my stash with similar shades of those colors, or other colors that would look good together. I usually do some swatches on scrap paper to test the colors first. You’d think most pink pens would have a similar shade of pink but most of the time the ink color doesn’t even resemble the color of the pen body or pen lid.

Might seem OTT and a waste of time to some to do swatches… but to me the colors are important!

Related post: Pen Comparison – is there actually a difference in ink color between brands?

After the Pen

I did my usual layout – blog posts for each day of the week on the left and list space on the right. I almost never allocate tasks to each day, I’d much rather do a top 3 and once those tasks are done, I just look at my list, see how much time I have available and what I feel like working on and then get my tasks done that way.

Supplies Used

• Inklab fineliner pens (cheap knock off of the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner that write just as well)
• Monte Marte Brush Pen
• Pilot Pop’lol white gel pen
• Faber Castell Pitt brush pen from the Brights set (affiliate link)
• Happy Planner Socialite half sheet classic size inserts
• Happy Notes half sheet

I used the white Pilot Pop’Lol pen just because I have it, but after comparing a few white pens (see this post), if you’re wanting to buy one I’d get a white Sakura Gelly Roll. That pen is much more inky and you won’t need to go over what you’ve written multiple times to be able to see the white ink.

I was going to use this washi tape to divide up the page (the colors were almost an exact match for the colors on the paper) but figured washi tape with the scallop wouldn’t really work. So I opted for some small brush pens instead. The Tombow are quite fat – the Monte Marte and Faber Castell Pitt brush pens I used are about half the thickness of the Tombow.

Graph versus dot grid paper

Dot grid is still the winner for me. graph paper certainly makes it easy to draw neat checkboxes, but the page is too busy with all of those lines. They don’t ‘fade’ into the background like dot grid does after writing.

Classic half sheet versus the mini happy planner

I like both page sizes but if I had to choose, I think I prefer the Mini Happy Planner. The pages are slightly wider so I can usually fit each task on one line. For this spread in the half sheet classic size, I had to use 2 lines for most tasks so ran out of room quickly.

I like the simplicity of these inserts with a bit of color but no graphics or quotes in the corner of the page as is the case with most of the Happy Planner inserts. Even the backside of the pages is functional (checklist, more dot grid or the daily planning page). So while I won’t be using the day to a page insert in this set, I will be using all of the other pages!

Would I use this layout again?

Yes. This spread was just another version of the layout I use most of the time – blog post planning (I usually use the Monday to Friday section of a weekly spread) on one side and a to do list on the other page.

Past weekly spreads

• Minimalist black and white weekly spread in the Moleskine Weekly Planner
• Whistle and Birch Rainbow Weekly Spread using the Zebra Mildliners
• Resizing printables to A5 page size for a rainbow weekly spread in my ARC

Planning tips

• 7 Cheaper alternatives to popular (but expensive) planner supplies
• 10 Quick planner hacks you need to try (planning tips & inspiration)
• How to make a weekly planner using Google Sheets (free online tool similar to Microsoft Excel)

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