A Look Inside: Passion Planner
It’s no secret I love my Passion Planner. I use it for absolutely everything - life and business especially. From keeping track of my personal goals to managing my writing life and social media presence, this planner is my life saver. I’ve got this sucker on my desk and open constantly, helping me stay focused on the things that matter.
How do I use it exactly? Well, I’ll walk you through some of my spreads!
Here are two of my release day spreads, one complete and one ‘before the pen’. Above, you’ll see the release of Star Collapsed which takes on a minimalist time blocking theme. My work tasks for the week were listed in the bottom left to keep me on track for the things that needed to be done that week. You can also see the time blocks where I was writing (denoted TCOBS for the project I was writing at the time).
The next spread in green was another release day spread so I kept on theme with green! These are two of my most art-filled spreads. I don’t often have my pages so busy but for release week, I like to do a little more flare.
Another ‘before the pen’ spread that is a little more reflective of what I do each week in my planner. You can see my work tasks are there to remind me that I have a WIP snippet to release on Wednesday as well as the instagram posts lined up for the week. Because during pregnancy I’ve had a lot of fatigue and less energy to get work done, I try to keep my tasks to a minimum. That means I don’t write the writing project goals I should accomplish. Instead, I allow myself the freedom to work on it when I can and forgive myself when I can’t. Seeing an unchecked box at the end of the week would really disappoint me so I only add them when I’m able.
Here is that same spread completed! At the end of each week, I go back and reflect to see how I did and use that information to help plan the next week. As you can see, I actually got a lot more done with writing than I expected. However, all that blank space is likely filled with ‘rest’. To me, that’s reading or napping, so I allow myself the freedom to do what I can do. Blank space doesn’t scare me anymore!
I also have a daily Passion Planner that I use! This one conveniently uses a book to disguise the right side of my planner where I write out the chapter points that I’m writing at the time. Mostly I use this to post my spreads without giving away spoilers.
On the left, I don’t have many tasks to complete. I also took this photo in the middle of the day so I hadn’t quite reached my writing goal.
Not only do I use this to track my work goals, but also my personal goals. Exercising for 55 minutes is one of the first things I do in the day but I also build in time to meditate or do other restful activities like reading.
One good example of a ‘lighter’ day for me. Because my energy levels were low, I spent a little more time decorating my planner to hide some of the white space. On the right, you can see an example of how I plot out my books. When I need to write a new chapter, I like to bullet the main points that need to be hit during the scene.
The other thing I took advantage of this month was a lettering challenge and an affirmation challenge, both of which are seen on the left page. These two positive things really helped me get through the tough days!
And don’t worry about marking things in spaces that are labeled differently. I very rarely use the boxes as they are intended. Sometimes I just do what I do, other times I’ll white out the titles and fill in with my own. Other times, I just leave them blank because I don’t need them!
Finally, there are a few ways I use my back pages. Not only do I have a (1) project tracker - where I mark how far along I am in getting a book published (writing progress, editing, cover design, promotions, marketing, publish date, etc) - (2) a fitness tracker - where I use pixels to track my walking, biking, and yoga workouts - and (3) a blog post tracker - to schedule posts and have writing ideas - but I also have these two.
On the left, I have my books read tracker, where I list out all the books I’ve read. The left page is what I read in 2021 (I severely underestimated how many books I was going to read last year) and the right is what I’m doing this year. Once I’ve filled out that page, I’ll add a new blank one and keep going!
On the right is my ‘mood board’. Any time I need a little inspiration, I’ll take a look at these photos. Some of them are of my characters, others I found online and it fit my theme. It’s a good place to relax and get the motivation back to write.
That’s how I use my planner spreads! I always get a little jealous when I see other planners who do a much better job than I do, but this is functional and does what I need it to do! You can see how I plan each day/week on my YouTube channel.
You can get your own Passion Planner to your preference (daily, weekly, undated, dated, or digital) but if you’re not ready to commit, they also have free downloads you can find on their website to test it out.
Happy planning!
