Getting organized: my new favorite planner

To know me, is to know that I have a serious soft spot for oversized bags, washi tape and planners. It takes all kinds of self-control for me to pass up an aisle of calendars and monthly agendas without at least taking a peek. Because one never knows when The Planner She's Always Been Looking For might have finally been created. 

When it comes to keeping track of my days, appointments, kids, meetings, I'm equal parts technology and pen and paper. The only way I can get a sense of my day and the things I need to accomplish, is to write it down with pen and paper. 

Generally, the new year is my favorite excuse to go planner/calendar shopping, but my new favorite planner is actually open-ended, with blank calendar and daily pages. This means that when my planner itch struck early this fall, I was all over it. And despite my love of the planner, I've stuck with this one for several months and have yet to find something that meets all my needs like this one does.

My world changed pretty drastically this year. I sent my first kid off into the big wide world of traditional school, and I picked up more hours of social media work with BabyCenter. And while I originally thought sending one kid off to school, and having one less brain to homeschool each day would be easier, it turns out it's just one more thing to juggle, with a LOT of things that I need to remember to do. 

When I look for a planner, I need room for three things: a month-view calendar, a place for daily to-do lists, and a place for random notes, lists, and brain dumping sessions. 

And hallelujah, I found all those things in the cutest planner ever from MochiThings.com. It's called the Moment planner, it's about the size of my moleskine journal (perfect for tucking them both in my bag) and it has everything I need in a clean, modern, no-frills design. 

The front of the planner is month-view calendars, followed by a place for short daily lists (which fits perfectly with my list of three, which is more like a list of 8 these days), and there's room in the back when I need to take longer notes. 

I added these tabs to it so that I can find my place quickly and jump from one section to the next, and I take it with me everywhere. 

The only big change was that I had to switch from my usual favorite bold pen, to a mechanical pencil or fine point sharpie, but I've actually liked the change to a more precise marker in this case. (Pens are something else I'm a little too particular about as well.) 

And now that I've written a whole post about my planner, I realize that I do indeed have a problem. I even held back some of my enthusiasm so as not to see like a total nerd. But I guess it can't be avoided.

**I follow Mochi Things on Facebook and just noticed they are running a sale. 25% off everything. Consider yourself warned. It's a very dangerous place to shop for us planner-addicts.**