Simply Plan: A Beautiful, Easy Way to Get Organized

Disclosure: this post is brought to you by Simply Plan!

I have a confession: I am a planner addict! When we received an email asking us to check out the Simply Plan planner review purposes, I raised my hand right away to be the one to review it. I am so glad I did, because my Simply Plan planner has become a staple to help me get organized!

One of my goals of 2014 is to get organized. It’s a goal every year, but this year I’m actually taking the steps to make it happen. As the editor-in-chief of both OurFamilyWorld and My Kids Guide as well as the owner of Pretty Opinionated, I do a lot of writing, editing and scheduling. I’m also mom to an 8-year-old boy, girlfriend to a man with two children of his own and “mom” to three dogs, three cats, two guinea pigs and a parrot. Between writing, birthday parties and vet visits for the pets, I never know if I’m coming or going!

Bottom line, I needed a good planner. Something that not only had enough space to keep track of my many different roles, but also was pretty enough to make me want to use it. Finally, it also had to be easy enough to use. Simply Plan is all of those and more.

Using Simply Plan to Get Organized

The Simply Plan planner is a big, beautiful hardcover spiral-bound planner that features large blocks for tracking your life. That is a must for me in a planner. Now, I usually keep track of our editorial calenders online because we tweak it often and I need to be able to make changes. Still, when I’m doing the weekly scheduling, I don’t like to keep too many unnecessary tabs open because I already have a ton of necessary ones going. I’ve started using Simply Plan to get organized by writing down our final calender for the next week at the end of each week. That way, on Sunday, I can just open my calender up and start going. I’d show you a picture of that process, but it’s a secret! No, not really, it’s just that my notes probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone except me.

The Simply Plan planner has each day broken up into AM, PM and Evening. I actually use half of each block for blog planning. That leaves me plenty of space to note other things, like appointments and birthdays. At the beginning of each month, there is also a full-month calender with space for small notes. This is handy for jotting things down like birthdays and holidays.

Another thing I love about Simply Plan is that it has three other important features that make it so much more than just a day planner. These include:

• A page at the beginning of each month to note down your projects and overall goals for that month.
• A menu planner for each week, including breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a spot for ingredients that you’ll need. Perfect for planning out your easy healthy recipes!
• Weekly budget page to track your spending and help you stick to your budget.

I also love that Simply Plan was founded by two very real women who were tired of trying to make a traditional planner fit their needs. What they’ve created is a planner so complete that it helps you get organized in the ways you need. It’s easy enough to adjust different sections to your own needs. For example, I really don’t plan my weekly budget, as it doesn’t really change much month to month. So instead, I can use that great page to write down ideas for content. That’s the beautiful thing about Simply Plan, it was created with our many versatile lives in mind.

Grab the Simply Plan planner online. It typically retails at $40, but is currently on sale for $34. Keep up with news by following Simply Plan on Twitter and Facebook.

Giveaway

Ended. Congratulations to Piroska B!