Most horizontal weekly planners don’t include sidebars in the weekly spread. One exception to this is the American Crafts Planner so I was keen to try it out!

Before the Pen

The American Crafts Planner has a simple 2 page weekly spread…

After the Pen

So I opted to keep it simple with just black pen:

I wrote too big and ran out of space so abbreviated ‘development’ into dev. #recoveringperfectionist

The sidebar columns are too narrow :/

I used the ‘notes’ sidebar for routine / quick tasks

And the to do list sidebar for Europe trip planning

Used a butterfly clip to hold my place in the planner since there’s no built in page marker

…But then I thought just the black pen was boring so used highlighters to quickly add some color to the page.

I don’t know what it is but whenever I write using a cheap pen my writing ends up even more messy than usual. The black Bic pen I used was in a pack of 10 for a couple of dollars (i.e. very cheap). Surprisingly, most of the cheap ballpoint pens I’ve tried write really smoothly and don’t smear when I highlight over the top. This pen also wrote over the top of correction tape really well – just like I was writing on normal paper.

I covered up the word ‘inspiration’ with whiteout correction tape and turned this into meal planning space instead:

I highlighted the text and color coded but it still looked a bit dull so I added a border to each section as well:

There wasn’t much of a color code. I used blue for business, pink for blog and mint for personal.

I don’t like planners that have the dates at a glance monthly calendar (bit of a waste of space when you can just refer to the monthly calendar), but at least this one shades the days of the current week.

Supplies Used

Bic black pen
Daiso soft marking pen in pastel (they look similar to Zebra Midliners)

Would I use this planner again?

Probably not. I thought I’d like this planner more. While I liked the idea of having the two sidebars in the weekly spread, the sidebar columns columns were too narrow for list making – even with the planner being letter size 8.5 x 11″