The Happy Planner from MAMBI

Planning is awesome, right?
You know where you need to be, you know what you need to do (and you know where you've been and what you've done!). You can feel organized, you can feel more in charge of your life, you can, uh, decorate it (because why not have it pretty if you have to look at it every day?) and you can get more done (because, well, you know what needs to be done!).

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Since the middle of October, I've been using The Happy Planner from MAMBI (Me & My Big Ideas). It's discbound, which I never really thought I would enjoy, until I got some of the ARC notebooks from Staples. It's larger than an A5-sized planner, which I never thought I would enjoy, until I tried it. And, it's kinda cute - so that's cool.

Doggy-driving-a-boat image not included - I found that in a Country Living magazine and had to add it to the inside cover!

I've been decorating it, as one does, with washi and stickers and colored pens; and since the pages are larger, there's enough room to not worry about taking up too much space with more stickers and washi. Some weeks, depending on what's going on, space can be tight, but that just means I need to write a little smaller, and it all works out.

Overall, it's great.

It has tabs for each month, and a month on two page spread, though they aren't useful for me as I don't plan anything by month (since, you know, the whole year is in here, any forward planning can just go straight to that week). I was using monthly sheets in my Filofax and traveler's notebook, but only because I only had so many weeks in it at one time.

I traced the discpunchholes from a page onto a Project Life card and made a page maker on the cheap. It is definitely showing some wear and tear, but I think covering it up with some packing tape and re-cutting or punching the slots should make it last a little longer.
I do feel, though, that the planner would have benefited if it had come with something like this. They sell them as extras, and I understand they wanna make money off of all their accessories, but one page marker wouldn't hurt!

There's a column for notes on the left hand side of each week, which I use for, well, a note or two if necessary (mostly not) and for my meal planning - I write down what we will eat for the week, and then plan for each day when I have a better feel of what the week will be like (since I am doing my main planing one week at a time).
The style that I have only has the "morning," afternoon," and "evening" labels on Monday, so they aren't taking up space I could otherwise use (and, if you put washi across the top of each of the boxes, it covers it up!). I have tried planning using that by-part-of-day breakdown, and it works much better than I thought it would, but it's not my favorite.

The days are just about the perfect size. I can write my to-dos, as well as everything else that I've done for the day, just about no problem. This past week, I've had to write extra small, though, because of how I had arranged things for myself, and because I've gotten a ton of stuff done. If I had sorted myself out better while plotting everything out for the week, I wouldn't have been so tight on space.

I also keep track of my spending in my planner, with a note of where and how much (and a note for what, if it's not groceries), so that, at a glance, I can see how much I've spent in a week.

I'm pleased with it, I really am.
And now that I have the Levenger punch, I can add whatever I want to it - because, ya know, it's discbound, and it needs a special punch. I have yet to actually add anything to it, but the option is there, so that's nice.

However, and this is simply me and my own issues, I do have a few problems with it.
Mainly, no lists, no reminders, and nowhere to put anything that is open-ended.

For example, I had to make a phone call last week about my health insurance. The information that I was given was that everything is where it needs to be, they are just backed up, and I should be receiving my packet o' stuff in a couple of weeks.
Where would I write that in a weekly planner? Every week, that I need to be on the lookout for it? A sticky note that I move from week to week until it arrives? Instead, I'm keeping it in the back of my mind, and have a note in my Filofax for it (which, yeah, is holding all of my lists right now).
I do my grocery lists outside of this planner, and instead in something that can actually leave the house with me, so that's not the kind of lists I'm needing. But things that I want to make, or a list of photos that I wanted to be sure got added to my Snapfish order, all of my Christmas planning - it's all in my Filofax. Simply because I don't know what to do with it in the Happy Planner. It's all things I want to keep track of or keep an eye on, ideas for projects to start at some point, but nothing that is stuck to any one time or place or thing, just notes that I want to have handy.

I have added a loose-leaf list pad piece of paper into the week, of things that needed to be done, but since it wasn't attached anywhere (and it was full of tasks I didn't really want to do, I just flipped it around a lot and never really looked over it. Because, well, I'm fantastic at avoiding things.
And at one point, I debated setting myself up with a task list sort of booklet or something or other, similar to a Bullet Journal, that would be better suited for lists (or longer lists, even), but that would have made the Happy Planner obsolete, as all I really plan is tasks in the first place.

I could add a section in the back (or front!) for lists, I have the punch, but it just doesn't seem right. Though, I will admit, it took me writing all of this out, for me to realize that I could put the section in the front, and am now debating trying that out - because I know that if it was in the back, I wouldn't look at it, especially for tasks I don't want to do.

The whole set up, to me, seems very geared towards, well, planning and planning alone. Where you need to be, and what you need to do, as said above. It doesn't seem geared towards any other kind of planning - projects and goals and reminders of things without a date, etc.
All of that, though, could be my own hang ups with the system, and I'm sure plenty of people have found ways around it. I'm just not one of them. Which is why I'm glad that the majority of what I need to plan is day or week specific, and that nothing floats around too much!

What would you do for lists and reminders without a date?
Have you used The Happy Planner? Or do you think it's a weird system?

~Havok

If you liked this post, check out these posts!

A New Set Up For Mr. Finsbury

Planning in a Traveler's Notebook

"Planner Peace" is a Funny Thing

P.S. One thing I would like to note, is that this is a big and heavy planner, but I'm guessing you may have picked up on that (it's 18 months of week on two pages, and it's larger than A5 size). It does not leave the house with me. It barely leaves my desk. I would not recommend this to be something you do anything with other than keep around the house, simply because the size would be ridiculous. Unless you're into that kind of thing!