Fav Five: Planners and Organizers

Hey everyone!  So I have some mildly exciting news to share with you today, I got a job!  I am going to be a secretary/administrative assistant in a law office.  Since I have an unhealthy normal passion for organization, this is the perfect job for me while I continue with my classes.  Since I'll be taking classes for at least another year (learning a language - American Sign Language - unfortunately doesn't happen over night) I needed a way to start earning money until I'll be able to work as an interpreter.

So starting tomorrow, my schedule is going to get crazy.  I will be working 40 hours a week, going to night classes 6 hours each week, and doing my DIY/organization thing to keep up with this blog I love so much.  So yea... time will be precious.  And in an attempt to not waste a second of it (and as a gift to myself for getting my first big girl job) I finally invested in my very first Filofax!!

Since ordering it Friday, I have been running around the internet like a mad woman looking for ideas and inspiration on how to make the most out of my new planner.  And let me tell you, the internet and blogosphere did not disappoint!  I've picked out five of my favorite planners, let tell you all about their greatness :)

source

First up is the planner of the queen of organizing, Jen Jones from iHeart Organizing.  Jen has mad organizing skills when it comes to making something functional and pretty.  For this project, she fancied up a Martha Stewart planner with some vinyl from her silhouette.  Jen uses this binder solely for scheduling her family of five.  She has pages for remembering important dates as well as places for month-at-a-glance and week-at-a-glance planning.  She also color codes her schedule, giving each family member their own color.  And I absolutely love her little key for remembering each person's color.  Jen definitely sets the bar high for an organized and absolutely adorable calendar!

source

This next binder is from another organizational heavy-hitter, Becky from Clean Mama.  While her blog focuses mainly on cleaning solutions for around the house, she may be known even more for her unbelievable organizational printables.  The woman has thought of everything you could ever want to organize, and made it into a stylish and usable printable.  In this binder, Becky combined her two loves, and made an organizational binder to track her cleaning.

Since I already have my own cleaning binder, I won't need quit this much in my Filofax.  However, I do want some sort of tracking system for cleaning in the Filofax, since I'll be looking in there everyday.  Hopefully this will keep my on top of my regular cleaning :).  I'll definitely be looking to Becky's binder to get some ideas.

For the next three planners I'm going to break my own rules a little.  I usually try to draw inspiration from five different sources for the Fav Five posts, but hopefully after you see all these planners, you'll understand why I couldn't just choose one from her.  These planners all belong to Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons, and she has become my personal planner God.  She even started an awesome "Planner Addicts" Facebook group, which is almost as addicting as the planners themselves!

source

This is another beauty from the Martha Stewart office line.  Everything that woman does it just beautiful.  And Toni only adds to that beauty by working her planner magic.  In this planner she has five main sections: monthly, notes, to dos, meal planning and budgeting.  After that she divides this up in sub-sections (love sub-sections... is that weird?) for multiple blogs stuffs, checklists, school and banking.  This binder is just so beautifully set up, how could someone not be amazingly organized with this tool at their fingertips?  Answer: they can't.

source

Next up is Toni's budget planner.  Yea that's right, she has a whole planner for her budget.  Love it.  She has everything she needs to keep track of her finances right in one neat (and portable) place.  She can write down expenditures on her register, track bills as they get paid and even see every payday for the year on a handy fold-out yearly calendar!  While I don't plan to have a full planner for my finances, I do plan to have a section in my new planner devoted to this stuff.  I'll definitely be taking some ideas from this goodness to implement for myself.

source

This last planner is Toni's most recent planner.  I swear this is a girl after my own heart, I always find myself changing planners whenever a shiny new one calls my name, and turns out I'm not the only one!  There are again oodles of awesome ideas packed into this pretty little planner.  One of my favorite is putting her color coding key right on the 'Today' marker, so it's always right there when you need it!  And how cute are those Martha Stewart tear drops all lined up?  You will definitely be seeing a ton of Martha in my new planner, I can tell you that much.

And that's all folks!  That's some pretty amazing stuff right?  I just can't wait to get my hands on my new Filofax and get down my hands dirty with some good old fashioned organizing fun.  Now that is my idea of a good time!  Anyone else as in love with planners as I am?  I'd love to see how you organize yours, post a link in the comments so we can keep this planner party going!  To see some more planners I love, check out my Pinterest board on the subject.  Or follow along/join in on Instagram as I complete the #planneraddictsphotochallenge1.

What do you find necessary when making a planner?  What sections do you include and why?  Do you like having one planner that holds everything in one place, or do you break it up into multiple planners for specific needs?  Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Did you like this post?  See all the posts in the Fav Five series right here!