Rae La Soul

Just when I thought people didn’t get how important and vital it is to have a planner, and a planner system, and little accessories and stationery, I find a community that gets it. There is a planner world, yall — and I’m blessing that glorious day when I discovered it.

After discovering the planner world on Instagram, I was introduced to all types of different styles of planner systems and planning. I’m more on the minimal and simplistic style when it comes to my planner. I became completely obsessed with Pascha and others with similar planning techniques. And I discovered that it isn’t too OCD to have more than one planner.

I wanted a planner that I could use to track my career. A career planner and tracker, if you will. But out of all of the recommendations from the planner community, none seemed to meet all of my needs. So when that happened, I decided to just bite the bullet and try to make my own. There was a lot of trial — and there was a lot of error. But I finally produced something that I am proud of.

I needed one centralized place to record everything and to make it easier to refer back when it’s time to provide evidence when I feel I need a raise and/or promotion. From previous years, I found myself going through tons and tons of folders trying to piece together everything for my end of the year review. I kept a sufficient system, but I knew there was a better way. I’ve watched tons and tons of #PlanWithMe videos on youtube, periscope, etc. to put together a system that would work for me. I didn’t want or need to spend too much money on supplies so I tried my best to use what I already had.

I used a plain, black, leather portfoilo binder from Office Depot, designed my templates in Microsoft Office, punched the sheets, cut decorative folders to use as dividers, and there’s my planner.

I’ll most likely bypass the use of washi tape unless it’s tape with minimal design. I’m still working on a color coding system so I dont have to write the same thing over and over for meetings and appointments that happen everyday. I mainly use Staedtler fineliner pens — red, black, and blue and a Zip Millenium scrapbooking pen. This definitely makes my life so much easier, even though initially I thought two planners would be overkill.