My 2019 Planner - The Lamare
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I hope everyone’s 2020 is off to a great start! One thing that gets me really excited every new year is a new planner. I’ve always been that person who gets really into paper. As weird as it sounds I love paper, pens, markers, to-do lists, fonts and everything that goes with stationary. I could spend hours in Paper Source or completely rationalize buying 4 notebooks and planners at the same time in the Target office section. Something about them gets me motivated.
I’m not sure if it’s the type-A aspect of my personality (take the enneagram test if you haven’t yet! I’m a 2 with a 1/3 wing - the 1 wing is where I get my type-A) and wanting to always plan, write out and think about what’s happening or the expressive side of me that loves to write and see things come together, but either way I’ve always loved paper and planning. I sometimes lose sight of it and rely heavily on my G-calendar and my planner doesn’t get touched for a few weeks, but every year like clockwork I’m yearning for that planner.
I’ve tried a few different brands, styles, colors and overall strategies when it comes to planners, but I got so excited when I saw this one and added it to my Christmas list. The Lamare is a brand I discovered recently, but the aesthetic alone of their products instantly had me intrigued. What I loved most about their planners was the intention behind them. I started noticing last year that when I had a planner with times listed or a schedule each day I was getting obsessed with it being filled, but there wasn’t any action coming from it. Great, I had a meeting reminder on paper, but my G calendar does that for me anyways… I wanted something that was action based, but also gave me other areas of life to put some thought into.
Another aspect that I loved was that the planners were not dated. They are only 6-months long and while at first I thought this was a downside, it was actually a blessing for how I personally use my planner. My previous planners had a page/section for each date, but there would be days like the weekend where i wasn’t using my planner at all. There goes 3-4 days of unused paper and a section that won’t get touched. The Lamare One Day at a Time Planner allows me to fill in days I need to and pick up where I want after that. So if my Monday-Thursday is busy and the pages are filled, but Friday-Sunday isn’t I’m not flipping ahead 3-4 pages to get to the following Monday.
The vegan-leather cover and responsibly-harvested paper is another great draw to the brand. There is intention written all over the work they are doing. The layout of the planner is great too. Each has the following:
12 week goal guide
Monthly, weekly and daily sections (not dated so you can get going no matter the time of year)
Monthly reflection
Weekly Reflection
Daily sections include:
top 3 to-do
general to-do list
gratitude section
notes section
self-care list
Goals evaluation
Project Plan section/notes
images by The Lamare
While this seems like a lot (and it is compared to most other planners I’ve used) the way that it is laid out makes it very easy to get through. I typically will start my month first and write out any important dates, blog-related deadlines and work related meetings and then move to the weekly section to breakdown any action items for them or goals that I want to focus on. From there it is give or take if I go into the daily section depending on what I have going on, but I would say that the weekly is my most used section. I also love the reflection pages because what are we doing moving forward if we aren’t looking back at what we’ve accomplished or what we need to grow in?
All this to say that I’ve been using this planner for about a month and have been loving what it has been doing for me. I feel like I’m capturing each day with intention, planning ahead and keeping myself accountable. Could be the New Year energy or it could be the cute pink cover, but either way I’m into it and want to share a brand I’ve been loving! I also linked my favorite notebook and pens above if you’re interested in those. Thanks so much for reading!
