Project Life Planner

So you all know how much I've been loving Project Life.  I love the idea of being able to capture and record the small everyday memories.  For me, the best part about Project Life is taking those little pieces of normal life and putting them in a beautiful album to enjoy for years to come.  Life isn't just about big events and milestones, so why should those be the only things recorded?  I cannot wait to be able to look back in my albums 20 years from now, and truly remember what my everyday was like right now.

Unfortunately, documenting the everyday of practically every day, can be very time consuming.  I started doing the weekly approach to Project Life at the beginning of 2014, and I already find myself five weeks behind!  We're not even two months into the new year, and I'm already playing catch up.

Now, whenever I sit down to work on my album, instead of having fresh memories from the week prior to work on, I find myself trying to remember exactly what we were doing three weeks ago.  I would remember the big stuff, like why I took a picture, but I was loosing the tiny memories and tid-bits that get lost in the shuffle of life.

I wanted to remember those small moments, that one little thing that made me smile, what I was thinking when I took that picture.  I knew there was a better way to keep track of the memories I wanted to record and cherish.  So I decided to make myself a Project Life planner.

I used the Martha Stewart Home Office by Avery mini binder to make my planner.  When I shared my Etsy Planner a couple of weeks ago, I hinted that I had a few more projects in mind using these binders.  I am just imagining about five of these beauties lined up on my desk chock full of organizational goodness.  After seeing how my Project Life planner turned out, my wheels are already spinning thinking of another excuse to run out and buy a third binder.  I know, I have a problem!

I have seen a couple of Project Life planners out there, but none of them worked perfectly for me.  So I decided to make my own inserts, so that I could include everything I wanted to be able to plan and organize.  I designed these pages to coordinate with my other planner inserts in case I wanted to include some of those in this planner.

On the first page is the bulk of the layout planner.  I have a spot to write in the week number right at the top, so I can easily keep track of that.  I have also been writing the dates included in the current week at the top, so I have all that information right away when I look at my page.

Under the week number are two large squares to help me plan my layout.  I'm planning to use these to sketch out the design of my pocket pages, and quickly plan out where I want which pictures to go.  I decided to leave the squares blank instead of filling in pocket lines so that I am free to use whichever pocket design I want to each week.

Underneath the layout squares, I have a simple to do box.  This is for helping me stay on track with what I need to do for each layout.  I pre-listed some basics like printing out pictures, selecting which cards I'll use and embellishing.  I also left a few bullets blank so I can add in stuff as I go.  Since I'm still figuring out my Project Life style, and my process for creating a layout, the things on my to do list may change as I become more experienced.

The rest of that page, as well as most of the next, is filled with spaces for each day of the week.  This is the meat of why I created this planner.  Somewhere I can easily jot down notes and memories from each day.  I want it to kind of act like a journal, but more of an at-a-glance snap-shot version.  I have been mostly jotting down snippets of information to help jog my memory when it comes time to work on that week's layout.

Since I am an organizational girl at heart, I couldn't just leave it at that.  I had to take it a step further and set up a color coding system for my notes.  So far I have colors for memories from that day, pictures I want to include and memorabilia I collected.  This way, I can easily glance at a week and see how many pictures I've been taking, or remember to include that random piece of memorabilia I would have otherwise forgotten about.

I am absolutely loving having my Project Life planner to help me stay organized when working on my layouts.  It takes a lot of time out of the planning phase.  It has also easily allowed my to jump in and out of my current spread whenever I have time to work on it.  I can simply pull out my planner, and remember exactly what I was working on.  I feel like I can truly remember and record all the happenings of my daily life.

And the best part is, this Project Life planner is just the basic beginning of what I have in mind for this binder.  I'm already planning some new additions to this planner in the future.  I am also hoping to make this my one stop reference binder for Project Life.  I have all the reference files from Becky Higgins for the kits I own downloaded on my computer, ready to be printed out and added into my binder once I get the chance.  That way, when picking out cards for a layout, I won't have to sift through thousands (yes thousands...yikes!) of cards to find the perfect one.  I can simply flip through the couple of pages per kit in my Project Life planner!

I am so excited I finally have a place to help me organize and plan my Project Life-ing, and I'm so excited to keep adding to this binder.  But for right now, I am so pleased to have a place to help me stay on top of recording the good life I am cultivating.  If you love what you see and can't wait to start making your own Project Life planner, head over here to get the pages I used.

How do you organize your Project Life?  Do you have a Project Life planner?  If you do, what sorts of things do you include in it?  I would love to hear of some more ideas to add to my planner!  Leave us your ideas and suggestions in the comments!