Plan On It! How I'm Using My Heidi Swapp Personal-sized Memory Planner This Year...

By Midwesterngirl @MidwesternGirl5
Planners, planners, planners...
There are so many out there...and so many ways to use them!
Today I'm going to share one more way...
...this is how I'm using my 2016 Heidi Swapp Personal-Size Memory Planner:

Let me start by saying I've never kept a diary.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I've tried.
Over and over again.
But I'm pretty horrible at it.
I find it much easier to journal a few lines on a scrapbook page...or to write a little daily snippet about our family life in my daily Memory Planner (the bigger one - with the gold dots - also from Heidi Swapp).
But this year I've resolved to keep a little daily diary...right here in this little Memory Planner.
Let me show how I've set it up...I'll start with my dashboard:

As soon as I open my planner I see this beautifully polka-dotted dashboard. I created this page using one of Heidi's transparent  binder inserts, a gold foiled frame, a few stickers and that fantastic pink glitter alpha!
 *FOCUS is my theme for 2016...and I love that I have this daily reminder...*
Here's how the page looks when I flip the transparency...this is the front page that comes with the planner...and it's another fantastic reminder. 

Now let me backtrack just a bit...
Because, in the past, keeping a diary has been so tough for me I've decided that if I'm really going to follow through with this one, it would have to be as easy as possible for me...

So this time around I'm using Heidi's journaling prompt stickers to get me started on daily personal reflection.
I'm keeping these stickers (which come in both black & white in the same pack!) tucked right inside my binder...they fit perfectly...along with a few of Heidi's motiviational accessory cards.


OK...moving on...
One of my favorite accessories for the Memory Planner this year is this Journaling Pad. It coordinates perfectly with the rest of the Planner accessories - and it's the perfect place to keep extra notes. The perforated pages are so awesome - just tear out a sheet, punch your holes and pop into your planner!

I've used one of these pages to write down my "mission" for this year...a sort of manifesto about how I plan to incorporate my theme into my everyday.

Next up is my month-at-a-glance...

I'm using this for major dates only...as just a way to keep a record of what happened during the month...

...and finally! My actual journal pages. It's hard to tell from the photo (ugh...sorry...), but I've used the white journaling prompt stickers on the bottom of each date square to spark my writing. I drew in a few lines in each box as well...just to keep me on track.
Now, we're only a week into the New Year - but so far, so good!
I really think that with the journal prompts I'll be able to keep up...I hope. (smile)
And hopefully this will be the year I finally have a little personal diary to look back on...
Thank you so much for taking a peek!
SUPPLIES: All items shown are from the Heidi Swapp Memory Planner 2016 Collection. Planners and accessories can be found online and in independent shops everywhere.