How I Ditched Paper Clutter

or the evolution of my personal planning systems to digital planning

I’ve said it before: my planner is my brain on paper. And I’ve always preferred to write it all down by hand. Typing is good, but good old-fashioned script is better.

So much of my best thinking is done on paper or at least written down. I prefer texting over talking because I get a chance to edit.

Writing not only clears my head but also helps me get ish done. Usually in the form of my personal planner. Look at this little blast from the past!

The first planner I developed was called, Organizing Life as Mom. It was pretty deluxe in that it contained every possible printable planning page a mom could need, including a customized daily checklist.

There was just so much in my head, caring for and homeschooling six little kids, I needed a place to do a brain dump and something to remind me what needed doing.

You can still purchase a copy of that planner here.

In 2015 I was personally ready for something with much less detail. That summer I designed The Print & Go Planner.

It has a streamlined, black-and-white design that can be dressed up with stickers, post-its or markers, or dressed down with simple pencil and ink.

I fancied up my planner with stickers and pens for years while my college kids and high schoolers took pencil to their copies of the Student Print & Go Planner.

Over the years I realized that it could do more than I originally thought it could. The P&G has become a valuable tool for vision building, goal setting, habit tracking, and gratefulness journaling.

It continues to be one of the best-selling products I ever developed. This year I’ve worked with Lulu.com to sell a printed version of it for 2024.

Last year I started using my planner a bit differently. I took the plunge into digital planning via the GoodNotes app. I’d heard about this pdf annotation thing at the end of ‘22 but didn’t see a way to fund the purchase of a new iPad and pencil.

Then I saw the apple pencil for sale and for some reason got confused. I thought it would work with my 2018 iPad. Wishful thinking? Denial?

It did not.

(An internet search proved that I was not the only one to make this mistake.)

And as it happens when you give a mouse (me) a cookie, I’ll need a glass of milk, er, a new iPad to go with. Husband of the Year, aka Fish, got me one for my 51st and my life has been changed.

Not only do I have my planner housed in my iPad, synced to all my devices, and backed up on digital storage, but I’ve also got easy access to every pdf that crosses my path as well as my daily journal.

I’m able to access my planner and embellish it with all the markers and digital post-its and stickers I like without a lot of excess baggage or supplies. It’s been amazing for Bible study and taking sermon notes, too.

Bryan and two of the kids now have older iPads with the GoodNotes app. It’s indeed, been a game changer for us and our paper clutter.

When we were in Hawaii without the kids, FishChick15 and I kept up with each via a shared notebook, like the mom-daughter journals people talk about. It was a way for her to connect without sending me random texts all day. So cool!

An iPad and Apple pencil are now part of our Back to School Must Haves for High School & College.

As I sorted through 14+ years of papers and notebooks in preparation for our move last fall, I realized the immensity of this change. There will be no more papers to sort going forward!

Okay, maybe a few, but need for pencils, pens, stickers, post-its, and paper has already diminished dramatically in just a year.

I still get to write. With a pen.

But I’ve eliminated a lot of the paper clutter that slows me down and overwhelms me.

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