I’ve always wanted to design my own agenda, and this year my friends over at MacLellan Baetz (MB) Publishing House let me make my notebook dreams come true! Now I have my very own, customized, handmade, space-themed agenda. Want to know why I designed it this way? Check out the blog I wrote for MB (which originally appeared on their website). 

I’ve never been able to understand how people can organize their daily lives without a day planner. Ever since my elementary school teachers made me use one to keep track of my homework, I’ve been addicted to them. In school, I always used the free ones provided for me (who doesn’t like free things?), but since entering the real world, it’s been hard to find a day planner that I really love.

For a while I frequently bought the Peter Pauper Press day planners from Chapters. What could be wrong with a mass-produced stationary product? Well, everything. Even though they had plenty of space to write in daily tasks, they never had a full calendar layout, which was very irritating.

After a while I tried out a Moleskin day planner, thinking, “Hey, these are also mass-produced AND always have great reviews—they should be alright, right?” Wrong again. Even though I loved the full, blank page beside each vertical weekly layout, they still lacked an adequate monthly calendar layout, and the paper was too thin to write on with my coveted felt-tip marker pens. Plus, the paper is a weird off-white colour.

I know these things might seem trivial, especially when considering a day planner, but my day planner is responsible for organizing my life! It’s important that it meets my quirky requirements for superior organization and planning. From work to volunteer commitments, appointments, social gatherings, and weekly reminders to pay my bills like an adult, I have a lot to keep track of.

This year I spoke to my pals at MacLellan BaetzPublishing House and asked if it would be possible to design my own day planner, and they said “YAS!” I don’t know who was more excited, me or them.

I decided to put together everything that I loved about other day planners in order to create my ultimate organizational masterpiece. This baby, which begins in January 2017, has a two-page monthly calendar layout, followed by vertical weekly breakdowns paired with a blank page for ultimate note-taking, which cycles through all four weeks of the month. Then, February kicks off with another monthly calendar spread, the same weekly breakdowns, and so on, for a full 12 months. It’s beautiful.I can easily track important dates at a monthly or weekly glance, and write myself to-do lists and reminders.