Mommy Plannerista

Planning. Passions. Parenthood.

Health and Fitness: 40 Things to Track in Your Planner

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My One Word for the year 2020 is RECLAIM and one of the things I want to reclaim is my health. The truth is, I’ve gained a lot of weight these past few years and I don’t feel as strong as I want to be. Since I’m not getting any younger, I figured that when it comes to reclaiming my health it’s now or never.

With that in mind, I wanted to track some things regarding my health in my planner so that I can always keep myself in check. So far, I have a medicine log, doctor visits log, and my monthly health log that includes various health routines or incidents I want to keep track of.

If you’re at a loss as to what types of health and fitness things you can track in your planner, I’ve listed down 40 of them to help you get started.

  1. Vitamin Intake
  2. Medicine Intake
  3. Health Log
  4. Skin Care Routine
  5. Hair Care Routine
  6. Period
  7. Headache
  8. Anxiety
  9. Depression
  10. Mood Log
  11. Allergies
  12. Doctors Visits
  13. Water Intake
  14. Meals / Food Intake
  15. Exercise / Workouts
  16. Self-Care Routine
  17. Pain Tracker
  18. Therapy Notes
  19. Weight Log
  20. Body Measurements
  21. Blood Sugar
  22. Blood Pressure
  23. Headache or Migraine
  24. Sleep
  25. Stress Levels
  26. Triggers
  27. Medical Expenses
  28. Medical Insurance
  29. Dental Records
  30. Vaccination Records (kids and pets)
  31. Moods
  32. Intermittent Fasting
  33. Healthy Habits
  34. Health Goals Progress
  35. Health Products Inventory
  36. Calorie Log
  37. Baby Care
  38. Cardio
  39. Meal Plan
  40. Recipes

I hope this list helps you track your health more this year. There are so many more things to track that will depend on your personal health and fitness issues. Just think about what you need and start figuring out how you can best track them in your planner.

There are many health and fitness planner inserts in many layouts and sizes available online. They come either in printed or in printable versions. However, you don’t really need them. You can just use any paper you want or any type of planner or notebook you prefer. Just choose one that works for you. The most important thing is that you be consistent in your tracking.

To see more of my planner system, follow me on my Instagram planner account, @mommyplannerista.plans.

Customized Homeschool Planner by One Stop Planner Shop (Giveaway!)

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Guess what? I have a new customized homeschool planner! Just look at how pretty and big it is!

For those of you who have been following me on my planner IG account, @mommyplannerista.plans, and on my YouTube channel, I started this school year using my Kikki.K personal size ring planner as my homeschool planner. I really had no major complaints about it. I customized it according to my liking and it worked well for me.

Why change planners then?

Well, the truth is that I joined a giveaway hosted by fellow homeschool mom, Annie of @awifenmother, on her Instagram account (follow her ‘coz she’s amazing!). The prize was a one-year subscription to the One Stop Planner Shop, specifically for a customized teacher planner. Lucky me, I won!

I didn’t mind trying out a new planner because I’m forever on the hunt for new tools or systems to use that will make my planner work better for me. Homeschooling can become quite overwhelming sometimes especially if you’re disorganized. Using planners help me lessen the overwhelm which means that my kids and I get to actually enjoy homeschooling.

So as soon as I was given access to the subscription, I immediately started crafting the perfect homeschool planner for me and I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks now.

What’s inside my customized homeschool planner?

If you want to learn how I customized my homeschool planner, please watch this flip through video that I uploaded on my YouTube channel. In the video, I explained the process involved as well as showed the specific templates I used for my planner.

If you wish to know more about how I use specific aspects of the planner, please leave me a comment on this blog post or on my channel. I’ll try to address your questions or requests on a future blog post or video.

Why do I love my customized homeschool planner from One Stop Planner Shop?

To be honest, I didn’t know I was going to really enjoy this planner because I have never used one this big before. The planner is printed on letter size paper and initially I felt it was going to be too big. I pleasantly realized that I actually like it.

Also, I have customized my planners before but I have never done one with inserts from just one shop. So, I wasn’t sure if I was going to find everything I needed entirely from One Stop Planner Shop.

Now that I’m actually using the homeschool planner I created, let me tell you what I liked about the process and the planner itself. Let me count the ways!

  1. I like that the portal is very organized and user-friendly. Everything is properly labeled. Plus, there are tutorials or how-to videos that will guide you throughout the entire process.
  2. There are numerous cover design choices. I also love that there are matching dividers, plus spines for binders too. Plus points for the tabs!
  3. Most of the elements on the planning pages can be easily customized according to your needs. You can change the type, size, and colors of the font. You can add or delete rows and columns on the tables. You can rearrange things. The only things you can’t edit are the decorative elements, which are based on the two styles that are available – Modern and Whimsical.
  4. Editing was easy for me. I edited the pages using Powerpoint but there’s another option using Google Slides as well.
  5. You can bind it any way you want. I just chose to use a binder because it was the easiest and fastest option for me.
  6. I chose to print my entire planner but you can also go all digital if you wish.
  7. The planner pages aren’t just for homeschooling. In fact, there are many templates available that can be used by teachers from regular schools too.
  8. You can save all your planner pages on your laptop or computer. This means that you can print or use them again multiple times.
  9. For my fellow sticker addicts, you’d be happy to know that there are digital stickers that you can use on the planner too.
  10. There are monthly freebies available for all subscribers for as long as you are subscribed.
  11. The subscription is good for one year. So, if you choose to change something in your planner at some point, you can just keep downloading other templates to try.
  12. There’s a Facebook group that you can join. The members there regularly share photos of their own customized planners plus tips on how they did things.

Suffice it to say that I am loving my homeschool planner. I highly recommend homeschool parents to at least check it out if it’s something that will work for you.

It may sound like it will take lots of time and effort to customize your own planner. To be honest, it is but the product is a planner that is created around what you need to make homeschooling a bit easier for you. It has truly helped lessen the overwhelm I sometimes feel in homeschooling. I can relax knowing that I have everything I need in my planner. So, I think it’s so worth it.

How can you get your own customized homeschool planner?

I can give you two ways.

First, you can subscribe to the One Stop Teacher Planner Club. The subscription fee is only $30 for the first year and then just $12 every year after. The annual membership fee includes:

  • Access to the membership website
  • Over 1,500 pages to help you customize the perfect planner
  • Exclusive “Monthly Bonuses”, for club members only
  • A library of How-To Videos to help you get your planner just the way you want it.
  • Access to their Planner Community for support and inspiration

Members get access to new and updated planners every single year! So, I assure you that it’s definitely worth it. Just click here to go to the site and sign up! (Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of the One Stop Planner Shop, which means I will receive a small percentage if you subscribe using this link.)

There’s a second option, though, and that is to join my giveaway!

Kristin, of the One Stop Planner Shop, was so generous to sponsor one (1) winner a teacher planner subscription! That’s good for one year. Yay!

I’ll be hosting the giveaway over on my main Instagram account, @mommyplannerista. Click this link now to learn how to join.

Good luck! Happy planning and happy homeschooling!

Weekly Planning Process

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For about three years now, I’ve been sharing photos of my planner set up on Instagram and on my YouTube channel. But how my planner looks like does not show you my actual weekly planning process. There’s more beyond using stickers to prettify my planner. The most important thing for me is to have a planning system that actually helps me manage my hectic mom life better. So, I thought it’s high time I show you the steps I take whenever I do my weekly planning.

As a work-at-home homeschooling mom, I do have a lot to consider when I plan. So my process usually involves checking several parts of my planner first such as my:

  • Inbox
  • Important Dates
  • Hubby’s Work Schedule
  • Monthly Goals
  • Work Tasks
  • Blog and Social Media Tasks
  • Scheduled Events
  • Errands
  • Chores

It is only after I consider these things that I am actually able to lay the stickers down and write on the pages of my planner. The truth is, I use stickers not just to prettify my planner but also because they highlight certain parts of my pages that are important to me.

If you’re interested to learn more about my weekly planning process, do watch my latest video on YouTube (please subscribe if you haven’t already!), which I’ve also posted below. I’m really happy with how this system has been working for me so far in organising our family life.

I hope this video helps you in your planning process too. If you have any blog posts or videos about it, please let me know in the comments. I tweak my process every so often if things start to not work anymore so any input from you guys will be appreciated.

Happy planning!

One Book July 2018: Pocket Kikki.K Time Planner

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Hi,guys! I’ve been MIA here lately and that’s because things have really become more hectic now that we have started another homeschool year. But I’m so happy I was finally able to film and upload a new video on YouTube sharing what I’m using for One Book July 2018.

For those of you who don’t know, One Book July is a planner and journalling challenge that started four years ago. There are different challenges per year but the main premise is for you to take a hard look at your planning system and take this month to tweak or experiment on things to see if they work better for you.

The initial challenge was really to use just one book (what we call “planners” in the planning community) for all your planning needs. But the organizers have said plenty of times already that there really are no rules. As long as you take this chance to better your system, you can really do whatever you want.

Before the challenge this year, I was using a pocket size travelers notebook as my Homeschool Planner and a B6 size travelers notebook as my main planner. I’m very happy with my homeschool planner and don’t plan on changing anything on it. So, for this challenge I decided to just change my main planner especially since I have been feeling frustrated with it lately. It’s mostly due to the bigger size, which I don’t think is portable enough for me.

What I decided to use is this pocket size Kikki.K Time Planner. So many planner girls here in the Philippines went crazy last month trying to get one of this because National Bookstore decided to put it on sale at 80% off. I was so lucky to be able to snag one right before it became sold out.

Anyway, I was initially apprehensive about using this as my main planner because I haven’t used a ring planner in years. Plus, the pocket size is really quite small. But after watching so many set up videos on YouTube, I finally decided on how to set up mine.

Let me show you through the flip through video below what I was able to do.

So, what do you think about my set-up? I think that it’s really functional and that it has most of the stuff that I need in a main planner. It’s not as decorative as my other set-ups but I’m really liking the simplicity.

Anyway, I’ll be testing this set-up for the rest of the month. After that, I’ll let you guys know my thoughts about it. Watch out for it!

Forward Planning in My Planner

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I’m finally back with another planner-related blog post. I’ve been meaning to post one at least once a week but life usually gets in the way. Anyway, for this week I thought I’d share with you how I do forward planning in my planner.

Forward planning, in the planner world, refers to scheduling or plotting important dates or events for the next month or so. It’s a process I normally do every end of the month to prepare for the following month. I do this so that I can already see with one glance which weeks will be busy. This helps me plan each week more efficiently.

Now, I’d like to share with you how I actually do forward planning. If you’ve been following me for a while now, you’d know that I use a travelers notebook as a planner. However, the materials I use and the process I follow can be adapted to any type of planner.

I normally use a monthly insert for forward planning. This one is an undated week-on-two-pages printable insert that I got for free at Wendaful.com (the site has lots of free printable inserts!). I chose an undated one because I can use it year after year after year.

Aside from the insert, I use other materials as well not just to plot our family schedule for the month but also to decorate my monthly pages as well. I use pens and highlighters, stickers, washi tapes, and sticky notes.

In the beginning of the year, I list down what I want to plot on my monthly pages. This year, I decided to color code them too so that it will be easy for me to see them on the page. I decided to use dot stickers in different colors for this and I set aside the last page of the insert to make a legend for all the things I wanted to plot. I include school events, personal and family events, appointments, holidays, my husband’s vacation leaves, etc. Here’s what I came up with.

Now, let me show you what my typical monthly planner spread looks like. I normally cover the sides that I won’t be using with washi tape. I record birthdays with stickers. I write all the schedules with their corresponding colored dot sticker. Then I use a highlighter to mark the days when our two daughters are here with us (they stay at their dad’s house most of the time).

As you can see on the photo above, I plotted my son’s MAPEH class schedule every Tuesday of January in red. This reminds me to not schedule anything else important on that day because going to and from his class already takes half our day.

Here’s my April monthly spread below.

You can just see by one look on the spread that April was a hectic month for us. We had a LOT of school events to attend to, which left me with not much time for anything else.

Anyway, I’ve been using this system for about three years now and it really works for me. I’ve tweaked my system a bit over the years and for sure I’ll tweak it again when the time comes that something is no longer working well.

Please bear in mind that I don’t think everyone should decorate their planner spreads like I do. It’s just something I do for fun. I like opening up my planner and seeing pretty stuff. So, feel free to not do the same if it doesn’t work for you. My hope is just to inspire you to make planning a habit if it’s not already. It really makes my mom life feel less overwhelming. If you’re not yet convinced, do read my previous blog post on the 10 Reasons Why Moms Need to Plan.

How about you? How do you forward plan? Do share in the comments.

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