Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all have started off the year on the right foot and, to paraphrase Mark Twain, I hope you are not paving the road to hell with your resolutions already.
I'm a little behind on my half Cannonball Read. Cannonball Read is 100 books in a year. I'm aiming for 50. I've already read "Northanger Abbey" (Jane Austin.) and am halfway through "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott.
So, I know I promised a planner hack, but this could work with any kind of spiral bound notebook like journals or bullet journals. It's especially nice for information you need to carry over each week, like the kids' activities pictured below. You could use it for an intention, mantra, prayer, whatever you feel you need in front of your face that carries over from week to week.
In my old binder, I had that information posted on sticky notes to my bookmark so I didn't have to re-write everything each week. I also liked how the bookmark was clear and I could see through to anything I had written underneath.
But this year I'm using a simple weekly ring-bound planner that did not come with a movable bookmark. I didn't want to carry over sticky notes each week, or re-write (God-forbid!), and besides, sticky notes take up valuable real estate on the page when you use weeklies. I decided I had no choice but to MacGyver one of my old Day Runner bookmarks.
The challenge with this project is that the bookmark didn't fit (duh.) There weren't enough holes and the holes that were there didn't line up. I placed the bookmark over the planner and tried to line up as many holes as possible. Then, I used a sharpie to mark where the other holes would need to be to line up with the rings (not pictured).
After marking the holes, I used a single hole hole punch to punch out each mark. The top holes lined up pretty well, but by the time I got to the bottom, some of the new holes had to overlap with the old ones. That's okay.
After punching all the holes, I cut notches into each hole. The v-shape makes it easier to insert and remove, trust me. Where the holes overlapped, I cut bigger notches. Then, I snapped the bookmark in by pushing the notches between the planner rings.
When I took it out and replaced it several times to make sure it would hold up (it will), I used sticky arrows to mark each recurring appointment. I used clear tape to cover the stickies so they won't move. Now, I can move the bookmark each week and see my recurring appointments without having to re-write. Plus, the bookmark is clear so I can see if I have anything written underneath. And obviously, I can use the bookmark for its' intended use- marking the current day/week.
Planning can be expensive and time-consuming. A little ingenuity can go a long way to saving you time and money. It took more time to create this blog post than to do the actual hack and my new bookmark will save me time and irritation from having to carry over my weeklies.
