Monday, June 2, 2014

Planner Love Revisited

I've written several times about feeling like I need to LOVE my planner. I've used planners I've loved, and I've used planners just out of necessity. Obviously it's better when I love my planner, but that doesn't always happen.

A friend of mine is struggling to find a planner she loves, and during the course of our conversation I realized sometimes I love my planner after the fact, when I've been using it for months and have written a lot in it. It contains my life, which makes me love it. This gives me hope that even if I don't feel a love-bond with my planner immediately, it could develop over time.

Unfortunately I've also had the opposite situation, all too often: when I LOVE the planner at first, but it just doesn't work well enough for me to continue using it and I have to tearfully break up with it. This has happened to me a lot. I love a planner because of its interesting format, or its beautiful design, or its soft leather cover, or nostalgia from when I used the same planner during a different time in my life. But then when I use it, it just doesn't work. It doesn't love me back. This is very disappointing and can be a struggle to move on from. ("Maybe if I try it again it will work this time!")

So if you are struggling with a lack of planner love, give it some time. You might feel the love eventually. And if you realize, despite loving your planner it just doesn't work for you, let it go. It just wasn't meant to be.

Do you struggle with planner love?


  1. Hmm.. I wonder if this a gender thing? I've never had any amorous feelings towards any of my organisers/ planners! Admiration of the suppleness of the leather - sometimes, respect for the design qualities - often, appreciation for helping me be organised - frequently. But LOVE??

  2. I think Tim's right, maybe it is a gender thing. Right now my super functional little FC compact Aurora which is just so perfect, everything I really need right at hand, experientially feels like a over-tight undergarment. Perhaps men are not so optimistic about their actual size & so never know the feeling of wearing something that may look really good but feels - really bad. I've just today set up the Uncalendar and it feels soooo goooood.

  3. Oh yes, I've definitely experienced planner love in all of its forms, good and bad. It's like casual dating vs. marriage: Some planners look good and give you some of what you need, but the one you stick with and eventually love is the one that gives you everything you need (or almost), makes you feel safe and comfortable, and is there for you for better and for worse. Like a good man, if you find it, you have stick with it! ;-) I do also appreciate what you're saying about content. Sometimes even a crappy planner evokes good memories from that era, and the content is more important than the container.

    - Tina

  4. My mum always kept something she loved for best, in the wardrobe, or on a shelf. So there was the best Filofax and handbags for important meetings and conferences and the everyday baff around stuff, the cheaper imitations, not kept *for best* Similar to *the best china* mum's lily tea set and cake stand coming out for the most highly esteemed guests. My dad and I are the opposite. If we love something, it is used immediately, treasured and used daily until it falls to pieces!! My dad's JETS baseball coffee mug is his very favourite and no matter how scruffed it is beginning to look, he will not have his coffee out of anything else. Mum bought it for him as a surprise gift when they were on holiday in the States, because he loved the baseball game so much. I suppose it reminds him of mum and comforts him. He won't even let me wash it up and yet the transfers have rubbed off so much you cannot see it was a JETS mug in the first place!!! So if mum liked something, it was hidden away to be treasured. If dad and I like something, it is out and used. So I always know if dad has taken a shine to a gift, because he uses it straight away, every day and often..... and he knows I am the same!!! xxxx

  5. PS... My new Raydori, an early birthday gift, has been used straight away. You can work out that I love it!!!

