Journaling and Planning: April 2017 update

Super busy month but full of progress and evolutions thanks to my planner!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner, November review, October review, September review.

Maybe you remember how I absolutely praised the advantages of the disc bound system that I used to transform my Quilter's planner... its flexibility, easy to customize, add pages, remove pages...
Well...
I changed my mind and I don't like that any more :)
I think it's like when you start sewing... first you start with whatever fabric or thread you have in your hand... then you start going to big box stores and buy only nicer things... then you want to step up your game and you start buying all the tools, designer fabric, etc...

That's where I am with my planner.
I enjoyed using the Quilter's Planner but it starts to bother me the unused layout that I have to erase to create my own... and it's hard to write with those discs... and it's a bother to take the page out every single time...
Long story short, I will move into a (smaller) bound journal. I found a fantastic one (pretty cheap) at Micheals... it has thick paper, which means I can play with markers and be more creative... having less pages it's also good because I can finish it in few months and if I don't like it I can change system again :)

So here are the last pages in my Quilter's Planner... I will keep using it to track Quilt projects that have no time constrains, so it won't be abandoned :) but I am so excited to work on my blank pages of the new journal!!!


Below you can see the daily tracker (quite sparse, but not too sparse), with my "TV bike" exercise tracker and my weight tracker... I didn't put any number on that tracker because I do not care about the number per se... I want to be healthy and lose weight in a relaxed way, so I use the tracker just for tracking the trend :)

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

I kept it up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread, decorated with the artist of the month... see below to see who it is :) each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog... it is very interesting to practise all these designs in small spaces and see if I like making them or not: no thread or fabric wasted :)

The weekly/monthly todos (with the songs of the month and the three habits that I decide to focus my attention on... simple things, but so fulfilling when I can check off those boxes!!

A new spread... to track my allergies... and what works and what doesn't work... I am new to these allergies and I do not remember what worked or didn't work last year... so I want to be prepared for next year :)

The week-by-week daily activities (with the Weekly Specials recipes meals at the bottom),

The Fitness Mandala (split between steps and water)

And the "Doodle an Artist" spread

This month, in my "Doodle an Artist" I picked Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist that will be my inspiration for a second piece I will make for the Art with Fabric Blog Hop (coming in just few weeks!!!).

As usual I tried to "Steal like an Artist" and extract part of her pieces that spoke to me and that I will be able to use in my piece for the Blog Hop. In the meantime, if you are curious to see more about Yayoi Kusama you can check this link  or this other link.


I am all set up for May: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!