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Brandi Bradley

Time for fun with my planner obsession

Updated: Jul 23

I don’t spend a ton of time scrolling through social media or shopping, but when an account I follow on Instagram posted a video of them at HomeGoods with their hands on Filofax planners marked down to $25 bucks, I liked it, then headed to my local HomeGoods location to see what I could find.


I love planners.


It’s fun to finally have the time to follow a shopping tip for my planner obsession and dig around a store for supplies. I posted a video of my finds on Instagram and people actually reached out. Which was also fun. I don’t often hear from people on social media to just chat about a hobby.



I cannot do digital organization. I’ve tried. But whenever a reminder pops up on my phone or laptop reminding me of an appointment or deadline, I dismiss it without even reading it like some annoying website pop up ad. It just doesn’t work for me.


Back in 2014, a Filofax planner appeared on my Pinterest feed. It was one of those moodboards that was popular at the time: a blank white screen with tiny images of items that conveyed a certain aesthetic. Every item on the mood board was Hello Kitty and neon pink. These are two things that trigger my inner child, so I saved it. But what really captured my attention was the neon pink Filofax planner in the image.


At this time I was getting my Masters Degree. I needed to be able to manage my writing deadlines while also remembering appointments and other parenting things. I had purchased a spiral bound calendar from Target that year and almost immediately the spiral started to unwind and I was left with a pile of calendar pages that kept falling into lose piles around my living room.


In the past, I was always planner-envious of leather clad, ring-bound organization systems that always seemed to be pulled from the bags of fictional characters. Those cinematic moments of women flipping pages to realize their period was so late they could actually be pregnant or super type-A students poised with a fluffy tipped pin and taking notes in a large A5 system. I started browsing on Pinterest and Instagram and realized there was a whole community of people who not only still carried around paper planners, but also decorated them, color-coded them, and customized them to suit their lives.


I made the leap and purchased a personal-sized Filofax Original in fluoro pink. And I never regretted it.

Pink Filofax planner open on a while cloth.

Here are the top two reasons why the ring-bound system works for me:

  1. I need to be able to customize my system to fit my life. I need to be able to move sections around, flag important things, and add things that I don’t want to lose. Sometimes my life is less busy and I just need to see the month at a glance. Other times I am super busy and need to see one day at a time. I need to be able to make those shifts without buying a whole new style of planner.

  2. I need a system that’s going to be able to stand up to my Hulk hands kind of life. I’m neither dainty, delicate, nor precious and nothing I own can be. I drop things, spill things, throw things around, and leave things in hot cars.


However, making a planner choice is a personal one. I have gifted Ring Binders to friends and loved ones to discover that it was not a system that works for their life.


Often because getting the organizer is one thing, finding the right pages for it is another.


I order all my inserts from an online stationary company called Cloth and Paper. I also subscribe to their monthly stationary box where I have gotten incredibly cool things for my desk. I like these inserts because the pages are clean, minimal, and customizable. I have to be able to make things my own.


I’ve had friends compliment my planning system while others have referred to it as “anxiety-inducing”. Hubs frequently makes fun of my planner, while also requesting a consultation with me over its contents. He’s also listened to me discuss these systems at length. So when I told him that I found Filofax brand systems at Home Goods for $25, he was appropriately surprised over the deal.


Whether anyone makes fun of my planner life or not, it doesn’t matter. I can’t write novels, teach big dumb babies, go on vacations, workout, maintain this website, or keep up with my damn kids without a system that works for me. Other people can thrive with just their iPhone, but that’s not me.


I also love talking to people about their systems, so if you fall in line with my fellow #planneraddicts, be sure to comment below or check in with me on Instagram or TikTok!


Read Books. Wear Boots.

XOXO,

B.


It's beach read time, so be sure to check out my novel Mothers of the Missing Mermaid, about a young woman who learns she was kidnapped when she was a toddler. She hits the road looking for her biological family and answers.



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