For week 29 of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks challenge I used a planner I had been waiting to use for a long time – The Plum Paper Me Planner! I was attracted to this planner due to it’s similar layout to their Student Planner but with full column for Saturday and Sunday. I love compartmentalizing planning into categories rather than just a disorganized brain dump for each day. These types of planner layouts also look pretty when color coded 🙂

Related: Plum Paper Planners Haul & Review (better than the Erin Condren?)

I requested Plum Paper leave the planner unpunched so I could punch it with my Arc. More on that in this post:  Arcing my Plum Paper Planner – everything you need to know if you’d like to try it yourself!

Setting up the week

I was a bit slack and forgot to take a photo until Monday. Never mind,  it’s a good thing to point out that once I start crossing those checkboxes off during the week that it becomes obvious which things I didn’t get time for (i.e. the ‘if I have time’ task I allocated on the Monday) which is why I’m always adding checkboxes to my planner.

Related: 50 Tips for writing a better to do list that will make you more productive

I created a top 3 section and in instances where I had more than 1 if I have time task I ordered those as well. Numbering things in order of priority really helps as I’m not wondering what project I should work on next.

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Pens & Highlighters used

This week I wanted to experiment color coding using both highlighters and colored pens. I really like how the spread turned out! I think it would’ve been a bit busy to highlight all of the text and the space to write your planning categories is a bit tight in this planner.

So instead I used the Staedtler Triplus Color 1.0mm marker pen in black to cover the ‘notes’ title box so I could convert it into my planner key. I used the ‘Sakura gelly roll’ pen in white over the top of the black. Looking at it now I wish I’d used green instead so it blended with the rest of the green already on the page.

I liked having 7 categories to plan the week. I ended up choosing:

• Blog posts
• Maintenance Tasks
• Top 3
• If I have time
• Melbourne trip planning
• Europe trip planning
• Meal Planning

Related: 50 Category Ideas for Color Coding Your Planner

Most planners only have 5 or 6 categories which ia normally sufficient, but given I’m in the process of planning 2 trips, 7 categories was just the right amount for this week.

Related: Travel Planning: 50 Things to consider when planning an itinerary 

I’m finding myself liking categorised planners more and more – I really like that you can clearly see what you have going on for each category and where you’re scheduling too much.

This planner had just the write amount of space for the weekdays. The space was a bit tight for the weekend. I’m wondering if using a 5 day per week spread and then another page with Saturday and Sunday combined could be the right planner layout. I shall have to try it in the coming weeks!

Pens Used:

• Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine for daily planning
• Staedtler Triplus Color 1.0mm marker pen in black to cover the ‘notes’ title box
• Sakura gelly roll’ pen in white (for over the top of the black)

Related: How to choose the right planner pens: what to look for when buying planner pens

The Papermate Flair come in lots of colors (including the teal I used to plan blog posts) but note that because they’re a fine tip, they don’t write well over correction tape:

Related: What type of pens write best on correction tape? (gel pens vs. ballpoint vs. marker pens)

I always add a checkbox beside each task so I can see what has / hasn’t been done. The P’s and I’ next to the boxes in the top row are for Pinterest and Instagram (to save space and time by not having to write out the entire words). You could also use letter abbreviations for routine tasks that happen every week (e.g. cleaning) or for each family member.

Highlighters Used

I used a different brand of highlighters to show you guys that the brand of highlighters doesn’t really make much difference to the ‘quality’ of the ink.

• Teal = Zebra Just Fit (this brand also has a red highlighter but the ink comes out closer to pink than red)

 

• Red = Daiso ‘Soft’ Marker pen (it’s hard to find a red highlighter – most of them look pink. Note that I tested this against the Zebra Midliner Red highlighter which looks very similar to the Daiso ones and there was literally no difference in the color)

 

• Green – Staples Hype (cheap but work really well)

 

• Blue = Smiggle Scented Smiggle highlighters are the brightest I own!)

 

• Purple = Uni Propus Window (nice but a bit pricey)

 

• Orange = Sharpie smear guard retractable (The sharpie is my least favorite orange as it’s a bit dull, other than that the colors used are much the same between highlighter brands)

 

• Pink = Tombow (this one is expensive but it has a very thin end of the chisel tip making it really smooth to highlight with – love it!)

Related: 6 Useful ways to efficiently plan your week using highlighters 

So while Instagram is going crazy over the Zebra Midliner highlighters… they’re not necessary. I bought them to compare with cheap ones I found at Daiso and the Daiso ones work just as well – the shades of colors are very close – e.g. the red is almost exactly the same.

Stickers Used

I used printable stickers from my shop.

• Weekly hydrate tracker (more hydrate stickers in my shop)
• Weekly habit tracker (more hydrate stickers in my shop)

These stickers were the perfect size to cover up the checklist sidebar of the Me Planner!

Related: How to make your own custom Erin Condren (or any planner) header title section planner stickers (step by step video tutorial)   

Would I use this planner spread again?

Yes! This was my favorite weekly spread so far in this challenge! It was similar to the week I converted the Erin Condren lesson planner into a weekly planner, but with the additional sidebar that could be used for habit tracking.

It had a good mix of a pop of color with my favorite planning supplies: stickers, pens and highlighters!

Disclaimer: If you purchase something from Plum Paper using my referral link I’ll receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you!) I only recommend products I would recommend even if I wasn’t receiving compensation for referring you.

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Catch Up on Past Week’s of the Challenge:

• Week 25: Using the Erin Condren Teacher Planner for weekly planner 
• Week 26: Using a weekly planner notepad to plan the week
• Week 27: Using the Frank Horizontal Weekly Planner 
• Week 28: Planning the entire week using only sticky notes

Related Posts:

• 5 Ways to use sticky notes for school or college
• How to store planner pens (5 ways – and my favorite method!)
• How to make planner stickers (ecourse with step by step tutorials, favorite resources, worksheets etc.!) 
• Why I plan my day using planner stickers (and why you should too!)