Kikki.K Planner Workshop

If you’ve followed my blog for the last few months, you’ll know that I’ve been on a ‘planner’ journey. Last year I started to get involved in the ‘planner community’ on Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest and more recently on Facebook.

I’ve always struggled with using a planner to organise my life, but for the last 12 months I’ve successfully maintained a planner, week by week, to make notes, keep track of my to-do lists and essentially create a paper record of my daily life.

I’ve used Kikki.K’s Time Planners for this process, and I have a few (most of which I got on sale!), and currently use a medium, black leather time planner for my day-to-day life, plus a large, raspberry time planner for my school planner.

Last Tuesday I attended my very first Kikki.K Workshop at their Doncaster store – all about planners!

It was a really fun and interesting night, which was as much about the wonderful products Kikki.K sells, as it was about getting your planner set-up, organised and pretty-ified (look, I’m making up words again!) and functioning properly for your life.

Now, I’ve reached something approaching ‘planner peace’ – wherein my planner is working very well for me, I feel – but I do love hearing people talk about their own experiences, and I believe there’s always room for improvement.

Getting to the fun stuff first, all the attendees received a fun little gift, perfect for planners:

– Printed Notepad (Mountains collection)
– Sticker Sheet (Life Is Sweet collection)
– Felt Tip pen (I ended up with a grey pen)

On the night, our lovely host Caroline, talk about:
– the difference between a diary (a time keeping tool) and a planner (an ‘everything’ folder for your life)
– how to merge a diary and planner
– customising and decorating your planner to make it work for you
– minimising the to-do lists popping up everywhere in your planner
– how to make an accordion folder for your planner (to hold tickets/notes/etc)
– brainstorming what your planner is actually for, and whether or not you might require multiple planners to help you keep track
– … and other things that are slipping my mind at the moment!

 

My take-aways from the night:

Creating a Master To-Do List, and doing away with lots of lists all over the place.
I really loved this idea, because it cuts down on all the procrastinating “I’ll make a list for that project” that happens when you try to AVOID doing something. If it’s all in one place, you know where to find it. Also, regularly checking that list each night, adding to it and crossing off tasks that are needed/have been finished so that you go to bed with a clear head. Picking 3 to-dos for the next day that MUST BE DONE to stop from being overwhelmed.

Using a weekly planner to map out your week.
I liked this idea because I think it will help me to map out the major events for the week before I add them to  my various planners. Plus, Caroline made the suggestion for scheduling regular ‘me time’ each day so that we’re more likely to include it somewhere during the day (whether it’s reading 5 pages of a book or taking a bath, or using a face mask – whatever makes YOU happy)!

If it’s paper, you can punch it and add it to your planner.
I do this already, but it was really nice to hear someone reinforcing that concept as well. I have bucket loads of Kikki.K’s notepads, plus their Paper Books and you KNOW I punch them out and add them. They’re cute and pretty and make my planner look pretty so that I want to open it and look at it and see what’s going on in my life.

Finally, I came to an understanding of what my planner is for me. It’s my record of my life. What I do, what I write, what I like at this point in time. I decorate it and I record the little things of my life and I intend to keep these pages. I’ve never been fabulous at journalling, but this is my quick way of having a snapshot of my life that I can look back on, or one day show my kids. For this reason, I decided that night to switch from using the Pilot Frixion pens that I love (because they’re erasable, and thus I can fix any errors) to felt tips, because I’m not convinced that one day the Frixion ink won’t disappear over time. (For reference, it does disappear when heat is applied.)

We also got a discount on the night, for attending the workshop, so I purchased a few things that I thought I could use, as per the talk on the night:

– A4 Weekly Planner Pad (Minimalist)
– Round Paperclips in Jar (Gold) (link is for the silver paperclips)
– A6 Printed Notepad (Mail Multi)
– Vision Board Kit (Minimalist)
– Felt Tip Pen 10 pack

I believe the Planner Workshops are finishing up for the year (but will begin again later in the year), but if you’re interested in finding out ways to customise a planner to fit your life, I highly recommend attending a session. They also have loads of other workshops as well, covering organisation, happiness, goal setting, etc.

Do you use a planner? What planner do you use? What do you find most beneficial about using a planner? Let me know in the comments.

I’ll also be filming an updated look in my personal planner tomorrow, along with a closer look at the items I purchased from Kikki.K, so keep your eyes peeled for that on my YouTube channel.

If you’re interested in seeing regular updates on my planner journey, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

An Assorted Update

Wow – two posts in one day. This won’t become a habit – I can promise you that!

Still, I have a couple of things to share with you, so I’m going to do it now, while I remember. Because chances are it’ll be next weekend by the time I can sit down and post again! (I tell you what, this start of year has really knocked me around a bit – hard to believe we’re already at Week 5 of a 10 week term!)

Today I made another batch of coloured pasta in six different colours – red, yellow, pink, blue, green and orange. It was absolutely beautiful weather outside (we’ve had some ‘cold’ weather the last few days) and it all dried completely in about an hour. Now it’s currently sitting all mixed up in some large ziplock bags ready to be carted in to work.

I really love the bright colours I got. I mostly used liquid food dyes (although the blue and the red both have some gel colour in there, too). I find that I get brighter colours from the liquid food dyes, probably because you can add more and it swirls around a lot in the bag. But there you have it.

To make coloured pasta you need: pasta (any kind –  be adventurous!), food dye (go with your preferred food dye – liquid or gel, whatever floats your boat!), ziplock bags to mix it all up in, and about a capful of rubbing alcohol per bag of colour (Aussies, you can get this in the medicine isle of your supermarket – I use Isocol, which comes in a bright green bottle!).

This year I am DETERMINED to be on top of all my records, especially with such a heavy focus (thank you State Government) on assessment. So, this is my plan – an anecdotal records notebook with a few pages for each student.

This is my Term 1 notebook, which I made up all pretty yesterday (because, believe it or not, I actually use things that look pretty as opposed to things that are just PLAIN. I don’t know, it’s a quirk!). It has sections for Reading/Writing/Maths/Social and I plan on using sticky notes to keep everything in place.

I have these fabulous reusable plastic sticky-note flags for each student section. The great thing about these flags is that I can move them from one notebook to the next without having to use another 22 flags next term. They’re like my ‘go-to’ for sticky-note flags (find them here at Officeworks.)

The other really nice thing about this book is that it’s SUPER LIGHT and skinny and will slide right into my bag at the end of the day, which is another bonus.

And, of course, I attacked it with washi tape to add to the cuteness of it! (Seriously, I have to use the tape I have… it’s getting slightly ridiculous!)

Finally, I thought I’d check in with my Erin Condren planner. I bought this at mid-year last year and have been using it.

OMG – the thing I said above about using Pretty Things… this is what I mean. I never used the standard teacher planners that my school used to supply because they were NOT pretty and were not sturdy at all.

But this? This is working for me.

Not only is it bright and gorgeous, but it’s fully functional, too. This planner has been dragged to and from work every day for the last six months and the laminated covers have lasted really well. I love the monthly overviews and the attached note pages (which I use for to-do lists). The weekly overview (in the pic above) I use to keep beside my while I teach to keep my on track. I only use it as an ‘overview’ – I do have electronic planners (maths, literacy and another overview), but I actually only update this every few days as things come up (as they do in teaching). That way, if an activity needs to be carried on over another day, I can add it in without too much scribbling out.

And yes, I’m attacking it with washi-tape, too! The bright pink strips are specialist classes (my kiddos have ICT, Sport, Art, Science and Japanese each week). The multi-coloured strip is Prep Investigations and this week I have PD on Monday so I just picked out another fun tape to highlight that.

I use the purple band (along with the ruler/divider) to keep track of the week I’m up to, but I do pull it off to use the checklist pages at the end. This year I’m going to be better with using the checklists and so far I lists for homework, spelling test results, Achievement of the Week/general, and handwriting/lowercase letters.

I do need to get myself sorted with a blog/TPT planner (and I have purchased one), so I’ll update on that later.

So… that’s been my weekend. I’ve plugged away at my to-do list and OMG I think I’m nearly through it! (It’s a miracle!)

Don’t forget to leave a comment – I’d love to hear what you’re up to, or how you use your planners!

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!