Travel Planning with Redhead Paper

August 15, 2019August 15, 2019Leave a comment

I just got back from a quick overnight trip. I’d like to say it was beautifully planned and everything went as I’d hoped.

I’d like to say that, but I can’t.

The truth is, faced with the prospect of an unexpected extra day off, I decided to take a quick jaunt up to Lake Michigan. I booked a hotel room in New Buffalo, Michigan, about three hours from where I live. I did a little bit of internet searching on kayak rental, because I knew I wanted to paddle the Galien River.

It was all clear in my head: dinner at Redamak’s, hanging out at the beach, hiking at Galien River County Park, kayaking on the Galien River, more hanging out at the beach.

What I failed to realize is that the New Buffalo Ship and Shore Festival was taking place. Southbound traffic was backed up so badly I couldn’t even think about getting into the Redamak’s parking lot. There was no getting near the beach. Ultimately I ended up with an hour-long dinner wait at a place in Three Oaks, where I couldn’t see the lake. Then I took the long way ’round to avoid New Buffalo on the way back to my hotel room.

Where I sulked a little bit.

I usually do a much better job of researching and planning a trip. Here are a couple of my methods.

Travel Planning in a Bullet Journal

My preferred method is planning in my Bullet Journal, because that goes everywhere with me. If it’s a trip I’ve been anticipating for a while, there’s a good chance things will occur to me at random times. I want to be able to capture those thoughts when they hit me.

I sell a set of trip planning stickers in my Etsy store, and those are the stickers I use most of the time when I’m planning a trip.

The stickers include packing lists for categories like Medicine/First Aid, Electronics, Makeup & Personal Care, Miscellaneous, and all the outfits I’ll need. There’s also a trip overview where I put the dates, the number of days and nights I’ll be traveling, and the expected weather.

That last bit is important! One year when I went up to the Indiana Dunes, I failed to realize it was going to be just as hot and sticky there as it was where I live. I ended up at the Michigan City outlet mall to buy clean clothes!

Travel Planning with a Printable

I also have a new Travel Itinerary Printable that I’m offering here as a free download.

This printable has places to note your destination, flight information, hotel information, and expected weather. After that comes a grid to plan out several days worth of things to do and your daily budget.

It’s a two-page printable. The ten days included are all numbered. If you’re lucky enough to be traveling longer than ten days, you can always print extra copies of the second page to fit your trip.

[ddownload id=”384″ text=”Download the Itinerary Printable FREE”]

Traveling with your Planner

Once you have the trip all planned and you’re ready to leave, do you take your planner with you?

I always do. For one thing, I use my Bullet Journal as a planner but also as a sort of scrapbook. I have a little HP Sprocket printer (the red version) and I use that to print small photos that I can stick in my Bullet Journal with some recollections about the day.

Another reason to take my Bullet Journal with me is so I have important addresses with me, even if my phone battery dies. I love sending postcards to my friends–even though a lot of them don’t even bother checking their mailbox daily!

(What is up with that, by the way? I’m Gen X and check my mailbox daily even though it’s usually just bills and spiders. My Millennial friends don’t seem to remember to check the mailbox daily.)

Anyway… I also like to have my Bullet Journal with me to record expenses during the trip, write down places I want to go or things I want to do next time I visit, and so on. Maybe if I were using a traditional daily or weekly planner, I wouldn’t be as inclined to take it on personal trips with me.

What about you? Do you take your Bullet Journal or planner with you when you’re traveling? Do you have any tips I’ve forgotten to mention? Comment and let me know!

And don’t forget to download your itinerary printable!

[ddownload id=”384″ text=”Download the Itinerary Printable FREE”]

Introducing Redhead Printables!

August 4, 2019October 5, 2019Leave a comment

I’m very excited to announce that starting in August, I’m adding lots of printable downloads to my Etsy shop!

I already have a few daily planning pages and a travel packing list there, but I’m adding actual planner kits now. Two planner kits are currently available, and more will be coming.

I have the Live Like a Redhead Planner Kit and the Crazy Cat Lady Planner Kit.

Planner Kit Printables

The Live Like a Redhead printable kit has 21 pages to help you plan out your life, define and achieve your goals, and be mindful of your finances.

Pages include:

Cover
Yearly Overview
Monthly Overview
Monthly Calendar
Week at a Glance
Today’s Plan
My Goals
Vision Mapping
Project Planner
Budget Tracker
Expense Tracker
Income Tracker
Financial Snapshot
Health and Fitness
Meal Planning and Grocery List
Lists
Books to Read
Brain Dump
Password Tracker
Workflow Planner
Habit Tracker

The Crazy Cat Lady Planner Kit has all of those pages plus a Pet Care page…and it’s decorated with adorable cat pictures!

How to Use the Planner Kits

The Financial Snapshot page gives you a year-at-a-glance overview of your income and expenses, so you can take a longer view of your financial situation. The Workflow Planner allows you to consider daily, weekly, monthly, and annual tasks that need to be done. The Habit Tracker is a four-week tracking sheet for five different habits–because you don’t want to try to change too much at once!

Download the file and print as many as you’d like! This listing is for a digital PDF download that you print yourself. No physical items will be delivered.

Other Printables in the Works

I’m currently working on designing a Budgeting and Debt Reduction Planner Kit, and I’m planning a Write Your Novel Planner Kit. I’m also thinking about a Medical Planner Kit, since I’ve been working with a customer of mine who is a doctor to create trackers for various medical conditions.

Free Printable Downloads

Just a reminder, I have a Downloads page here at the website so you can get an idea of what I’m making. I’m also adding one more today!

This is a printable daily plan. I’m listing it in three versions at my Etsy store, but you can get the black and white one here for free!

[ddownload id=”362″]

I’m open to suggestions for other printables you want. Tell me what your planner needs are!

Redhead Paper monthly decorative stickers for April

Dusting Off the Blog

April 9, 2019Leave a comment

Wow, where has 2019 gone so far?

I can’t believe we’re more than a week into April and I haven’t posted here at all this year. I’m going to do a better job of sharing with you all from now on.

I’m in the middle of making two-page decorative sets for each month of the year. These don’t have to be used in your Bullet Journal, you could also use them for scrapbooking.

Or you could use them the way I do: I tend to pseudo-scrapbook in my Bullet Journal. I have an hp Sprocket (affiliate link) picture printer so I can add little mini pictures. I use a little adhesive stamp from Jetpens (not affiliate) to paste in ticket stubs, notes, and little things like that. Then I use my stickers to decorate around my regular daily to-do lists, weekly spreads, and so forth.

Basically, I’m a lazy Bullet Journalist and a lazy scrapbooker! 😉

Here’s a gallery of a few of the pages, but you can see them all in the Scrapbooking Stickers section on my Etsy shop!

Endure: My 2019 Word

December 21, 2018October 5, 2019Leave a comment

I’ve had a hard time coming up with the mot juste for my 2019 Word of the Year. I wanted something that embraced diligence, discipline, consistency, tenacity… but none of those were quite right. I kept circling around to ‘persist,’ which I liked partly for the political connotations of the word as well as the meaning, but… I don’t know, it just didn’t feel exactly right.

I ended up choosing ‘endure’ as the word to have put on my reminder bracelet (made by Positive Charm on Etsy), partly because I love the song “The Earth Only Endures” by the Waterboys (video below), and partly because I’ve always loved a section in Hebrews.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

endure

intransitive verb

1 : to continue in the same state : LAST
2 : to remain firm under suffering or misfortune without yielding

transitive verb

1 : to undergo especially without giving in : SUFFER
2 : to regard with acceptance or tolerance

persevere

intransitive verb

: to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of

persist

intransitive verb

1 : to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition, importunity, or warning
2 obsolete : to remain unchanged or fixed in a specified character, condition, or position
3 : to be insistent in the repetition or pressing of an utterance (such as a question or an opinion)
4 : to continue to exist especially past a usual, expected, or normal time

Pertinent Quotes

“If you persist, you will prevail.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice–if not whether, then how, they may endure.” – Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” – Christopher Reeve

“Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.” – Goethe

“What is to give light must endure burning.” – Viktor E. Frankl

I particularly like that last one, since my Word for 2018 was Ignite. It’s cool to have a quote that ties last year’s word into this year’s.

So what about you? Have you chosen a word for 2019? What is it?

The Earth Only Endures – The Waterboys

New Downloads Page

April 18, 2018October 5, 2019Leave a comment

This is just a quick post today. I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve set up a separate downloads page on the website. That way you don’t have to search through the tags to find my free downloads.

Right now it isn’t a big deal because there are only a couple of printables. But I plan to start adding more printable downloads in the next few months, so I wanted to have a place to collect them.

Currently available to download are my weekly time-blocking worksheet and a two-sided printable bookmark I created inspired by The Dark Is Rising. Over time I plan to add daily dockets, a spring-cleaning checklist, packing lists, and more.

If there’s a printable you’d like to see created, I’m happy to take suggestions! Let me know in the comments on this post!

An orange cat, Eustace, lies on a desktop over a Bullet Journal spread.

My Planning Process

April 5, 2018December 14, 2018Leave a comment

I wanted to talk a little bit about my monthly planning process and share a few tips that might help someone else.

I always try to do my monthly planning a couple of days before the month ends. I don’t predate my pages more than a day in advance, because I never know just how much space I’m going to need for any given day. It can be difficult to estimate how many pages I’ll need for the rest of the month unless I wait until the last couple of days.

I can make a rough guess based on an average month, but even that fluctuates between 20 and 30 pages. For instance, in my current notebook, December 2017 took 22 pages, January 2018 took 21, February took 24, and March took 27. April begins on Page 133, and this notebook has 240 available planning pages, minus the two-page Tombow spread I always create at the end of the journal. That means I have 105 pages from the beginning of April to the end of the journal, which hopefully means I’ll be able to fit May and June in this notebook.

Oops. Squirrels!

Monthly Planning Process

Back to the point, generally do my planning in the last couple days of the month. For April, I did my planning on Thursday, March 29. A lot of times I do my planning with my mom because it’s kind of fun to lay out the coming month with a planning partner.

The first thing I do is try to make sure I have everything I’ll need: my Bullet Journal, my tickler file for the coming month, my washi tape, my pens and Tombow brush pens, my stickers. It’s no fun to have to go hunting for something you need in the middle of your planning session!

I start with the basic Monthly Log and Task List. My Monthly Log looks like the one Ryder Carrell designed, except that I color-code everything in my Bullet Journal, using four colors that indicate whether a task is personal, writing-related, main-job-related, or side-job-and-Etsy-related. (I could really use five colors, except my multi-pen will only hold four colors. The five-color pen doesn’t fit in my pen loop!)

One of the little tricks I’ve learned over the months is to fill out some of my habit tracker before sticking it in place.

I put my empty habit tracker next to the current month’s tracker so it’s easy to remember what habits I’m tracking and which Tombow colors I use to track them (that’s what the number is next to each habit). I’m just a little…um…details oriented. 🙂

Obviously, sometimes I change what I’m tracking–you can see that in March I was tracking Lent, which is over on April 1. I was also taking care of mom’s cat Edmund for a while in March, so I needed an easy reminder to give him his meds; I put it in my tracker for the 10 days I had him, and just exed out the other days.

Quarterly Planning Process

Since April begins Quarter Two of 2018, it was time for me to sit down and evaluate my quarterly goals and progress as well. I didn’t do that during my monthly planning session. I needed time to go back and review what I’d intended to do during Quarter One, what I’d actually done during Quarter One, what needed to be migrated to Quarter Two, and what new tasks I had during Quarter Two.

As part of that, I made a list of the deadlines I had coming up in Quarter Two. There are several in April, and I was starting to feel stressed about them. Putting them down on paper helped me capture them and get a realistic view of them.

Once I had my list of deadlines, then I broke each project down into action steps that needed to happen in Quarter Two. From that list, I added a few items to my April Task List. Some of those steps won’t take place until May, but that’s fine–they’re recorded on the quarterly list so they’ll be easy to migrate.

Sometimes I have help. Eustace decided I was definitely in need of help with the quarterly planning!

What about you? What’s your planning process? Do you have any tips or tricks that make it easier for you? I’d love to hear them!

March spread with monthly log and task list

Plan With Me: March!

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018Leave a comment

Happy first day of March! I’m excited to share my March spreads with you.

First off my monthly log and task list.

This format works well for me, so I rarely change it up.

Then come my habit tracker and writing tracker.

Thanks to an Instagram comment from my friend James, I’ve been doing a better job with my habit tracker in February–he suggested I keep it on my pillow, and I modified his suggestion a little. Now I keep my Standard Memorandum Book (by Word) on my nightstand until I’ve filled in the habit tracker. Then the notebook goes on my desk until morning. It helps remind me to spend time with the habit tracker.

Next is my prayer calendar by Kelly O’Dell Stanley and my prayer list, updated throughout the month.

The next spread is a new thing this month!

I’m going to try to do a small workout every day for the month of March, so I made up a little calendar to track that. On the page facing are printouts of prompts for the Boho Berry Challenge and the Plan With Me Challenge. I want to do a better job at posting consistently on Instagram, so hopefully these prompts will give me ideas!

Then I start my March daily stuff on the next page.

I’m really happy with how these came out. These spreads make me happy when I look at them–and that means I’m more likely to look at them often, right? 🙂

Why Aren’t You Bullet Journaling?

February 21, 2018February 27, 2018Leave a comment

On the face of it, Bullet Journal is a simple system. Done the way Ryder Carroll devised, a Bullet Journal is just a rapid-logging system that involves making a monthly log and a daily log. But once you wander away from Ryder’s website into the far reaches of YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram, you’ll see there are lots of ways to Bullet Journal. And sometimes you run into some obstacles.

Today I want to talk about a few of those obstacles to Bullet Journaling.

Intimidation

I don’t know about you, but when I look at some of the intricate and artistic spreads a lot of Bullet Journalists post on their Instagram or Pinterest accounts, I want to find something to hide my super-minimal Bullet Journal pages!

I’m not an artist. I like to doodle, but I’ve never had the discipline to really work at the craft of drawing. If I’m going to decorate my planner, I use stickers and washi tape…but there are times I just don’t have the time to do even that.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people in one of the Bullet Journal Facebook groups I belong to ask, “I’m not really artistic. Can I still Bullet Journal?” Or another version of that, “How do I get started Bullet Journaling?”

The answer, of course, is that you don’t have to be an artist to Bullet Journal and that you get started Bullet Journaling by writing a log in a notebook.

That’s it.

Your Bullet Journal is yours. It can be as fancy or as plain as you want. It can be artistic, functional, sloppy, scrapbooked, text-only, or a combination of all of those things.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best thing about Bullet Journaling is how flexible and forgiving it is.

Don’t be intimidated by the elaborate spreads and gorgeous lettering you see on Instagram or Pinterest! You don’t have to post pictures of your BuJo if you don’t want to. You don’t have to let anyone see it.

Expense

Bullet Journaling can be expensive, no question. If you’re into fountain pens, fancy notebooks, Tombow dual brush pens, stickers, and the like, you can spend a small fortune on your Bullet Journal habit.

But I’ve also seen people Bullet Journal in a $1.50 composition notebook using a Big Stic pen.

This point kind of goes hand-in-hand with my point about intimidation. Your Bullet Journal is yours. If you can’t afford a Leuchtturm1917 notebook and a set of Tombows, you can still keep a Bullet Journal.

For me, the sole purpose of a Bullet Journal is to keep me productive and on-task–and to make sure I’m productive on the right things. What that means in practice is that anything which helps me stay productive is good, and anything that derails me is bad.

If I’m so hung up on purchasing just the right tools that I don’t actually sit down and work in my Bullet Journal, I’m missing the point.

I’m not saying fancy pens and notebooks and stickers are bad. I’m just saying that they’re only good until they become a hindrance to me actually working in my BuJo.

My first attempt was in a wire-bound notebook I had lying around because I’d never stuck with a planning system for a long time, and I wasn’t sure this system would even work for me.

Don’t let an empty wallet keep you from starting a Bullet Journal.

Fear of Doing it Wrong

Another question I used to see people ask on Facebook: “I’m afraid to start because I might do it wrong.”

My thought is that it’s really hard to do it wrong when the system is designed to be as flexible as you need it to be. Bullet Journal is a system of logs and collections, organized by the index at the front. If you need to draw a calendar each month because you’re a visual thinker, do that. If you don’t, that’s fine. If you need to have a weekly spread, do that! If not, that’s fine.

What it boils down to is this: Your Bullet Journal is yours. There’s no wrong way to do it.

If it keeps you on-task and organized, it’s right. Even if your way wouldn’t be right for someone else.

Don’t let a fear of doing it wrong keep you from starting what could be the best organizational system for you.

Chronic Illness

I know a lot of people with various chronic conditions. Some of them have had trouble with traditional planning systems in the past, and they were worried that Bullet Journal wouldn’t work for them either.

As someone who suffers from chronic depression, I get it. One of the reasons I didn’t do as well with systems like Franklin Covey or monthly/weekly planners is that if I stopped using it for a while because I was going through a difficult time and couldn’t manage much more than getting out of bed and dragging myself to work, I’d have a huge blank space in my calendar.

Those blank squares glared at me accusingly, telling me I couldn’t even keep up with a calendar, so how could I expect to actually do anything that matters?

I think one of the reasons Bullet Journal works so well for me is that it doesn’t have those accusing blank spaces. If I have a bad spell and don’t get out of bed all weekend, guess what? I just pick up again on Monday without skipping a beat!

I would argue that for people with chronic depression or illnesses that require them to measure their energy in spoons, Bullet Journal is a much more forgiving and flexible system–exactly what we need!

Work Situation

I know there are people with complex work situations. Maybe you’re required to keep things confidential. Maybe you work two jobs. Maybe your work situation has so many moving parts that you can’t imagine how to make Bullet Journal work for you.

I think there are various solutions to these issues.

If you have to keep client information confidential, you could start a work Bullet Journal that never leaves your desk and gets locked up every evening when you go home.

If you work two jobs, you could color-code your tasks and collections and appointments. Personally, I work two part-time jobs, I write fiction, and I run an Etsy store. I definitely use the color-coding to keep things clear! I also have a separate project collection for each job. I take staff meeting notes in my Bullet Journal so I have those to refer to as well. I considered keeping my staff meetings in a notebook that I leave at work, but I always ended up transferring things from my staff meeting notes to my task and project lists, so I decided it just made sense to keep them in my Bullet Journal and, when I move into a new notebook, to migrate just what I need.

If that would be too much work for you, you could always keep a separate notebook at work and only transfer current stuff to your personal Bullet Journal.

Say it with me: Your Bullet Journal is yours. You can do whatever you need to in order to make it work for your unique situation.

Planner Peace

I use Google Calendar for my future planning. I have a calendex in my Bullet Journal because I like it, but if I need to know for sure when something is happening, I check my Google Calendar.

But for everything else, for dreams and goals and projects and plans and daily to-dos, I rely on my Bullet Journal. Someone on Instagram called her Bullet Journal her external brain, and I don’t think that’s overstating it.

I’ve finally found planner peace with my Bullet Journal. I’m so glad I didn’t let any obstacles stand in my way!

Have you had obstacles crop up in your Bullet Journal journey? If so, what were they? How did you handle them?

A photo of Lent stickers designed for the Redhead Paper Etsy store

Observing Lent With Bullet Journal

February 7, 2018March 1, 2018Leave a comment

Lent is coming up soon–Valentine’s Day is also Ash Wednesday this year, so it’s just a week away! I love the observance of liturgical seasons, including Advent and Lent, and I want to make it more intentional this year.

I spent some time over the weekend thinking about how I want to observe Lent this year. I haven’t made any decisions yet, but thinking about it gave me some ideas for stickers to create.

Last year I gave up alcohol, which was a big deal because I was drinking a lot (more than I should have) last year. In the time since I have pretty much stopped buying alcohol for home. When I visit Indiana wineries with my mom, I tend to buy a couple of bottles, and I’ll probably still do that. I might have a beer with my burger when I eat out, and this Friday I’m taking a friend out for margaritas to celebrate her leaving a toxic work situation.

Aside from that, I’m just not drinking much, so giving up alcohol wouldn’t be that much of a sacrifice. And Lent is supposed to be about giving up something that you’ll actually miss. I can’t give up caffeine because I want my coworkers to stay alive. So maybe chocolate. We’ll see. I’m still thinking. Maybe I’ll give up spending money for 40 days!

Anyway.

I designed some stickers for the collections I want to create: “What am I giving up and why?” and “Lenten Scriptures and Readings” I made some stickers for the specific holy days of the season: Shrove Tuesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday. I also have a few decorative stickers with symbols from Lent, like palm branches, lilies, and crosses.

I’ve thought about making a Lent tracker, but I haven’t been able to come up with a design I like. Maybe I still will, but for now, I’m going to list the stickers without a tracker–and if someone buys the Lent stickers and I’ve made a tracker I like in the meantime, I’ll send them the tracker too!

Do you have Lent traditions you enjoy? Share them in the comments!

Photo Post: February 2018

February 1, 2018March 1, 2018Leave a comment

I wanted to share my February spread with everyone. I’ll be honest–I don’t switch things up very much with my spreads because I’ve found what works for me.

In my life, Bullet Journal is less about being artistic and creative (I have other outlets for that) and more about doing the bare minimum to keep me productive. Lots of people get super creative with their BuJos, and I love seeing their spreads and doodles and gorgeous lettering! But that’s not really where I want to spend my creativity.

So with the caveat that this new feature might get repetitive or boring, I’m going to try to share photos of my Bullet Journal spreads every month.

First my planning setup. I only get this elaborate when I’m doing my monthly spreads. Weekly spreads aren’t as involved, so I usually work at my desk instead of the kitchen table.

My February spread before I put anything on it:

Then the monthly spread filled in.

After the monthly log and tasks comes the habit tracker. In this picture, you can see what I tracked in January on the right and what I plan to track in February on the left. The numbers are the color of Tombow Dual Brush Pen I use to mark each habit.

The final spread in my monthly pages is the prayer prompts and prayer request list. I’m only showing this spread before I transfer ongoing prayer requests from January since I try to keep those private.

The Prayer Prompts calendar on the left is designed by Kelly O’Dell Stanley, a writer and speaker I love. She describes herself as a graphic designer who writes (or maybe a writer who also does graphic design) and her book Praying Upside Down (affiliate link) is wonderful. She sends a free prayer prompt calendar every month to her email subscribers, and I print it at 65% to fit in my Bullet Journal.

The pen in this picture is my TWSBI Mini EF filled with Noodler’s Ottoman Rose, which is what I used to write the headers for these pages.

And that’s it! After these pages, I start my daily logs. My weekly log for this week is back in January since the week was mostly in January. I just transferred the things I still needed to do to today’s daily log.

What does your spread look like this month?

Travel Planning in a Bullet Journal

Travel Planning with a Printable

Traveling with your Planner

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Planner Kit Printables

How to Use the Planner Kits

Other Printables in the Works

Free Printable Downloads

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Pertinent Quotes

The Earth Only Endures – The Waterboys

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Monthly Planning Process

Quarterly Planning Process

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Intimidation

Expense

Fear of Doing it Wrong

Chronic Illness

Work Situation

Planner Peace

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