Embrace the Mess: Planners Don’t Need to be Precious

by Brooke Forry

Maybe you’ve never believed you were a “planner person” because so much of the planner industry focuses on making your weekly view beautiful, or color-coded, or infused with beautiful hand-lettering or calligraphy.

There’s a time and place for all of these things, but my Balance Bound Planner is NOT the place for getting too precious.

It’s my place to write down all of my to-dos, reminders, and brain dumps without feeling like it’s “supposed” to look a certain way or be one more thing that requires labor.

The labor has already been done: the four signature sections — work, self, others, and home — are there awaiting me, welcoming my scribbles and check marks and strikethroughs and highlights to get things out of my brain, not add more to it.

Yes, The Bachelor is self-care ;)

I need to free up space in my brain to make room for calm, inspiration, and rest.

And even as a Type A, organization-loving person, my messy, imperfect planner truly does bring me a sense of calm. Hand-lettering, I love ya, but I’ll save you for my next design client project… imperfect and anything-but-precious is where it’s at for me here.

Embrace the mess, or go all out with the color-coding/hand-lettering/prettifying method? There are no rules — what works for YOU is how it should be.

Share your planner pics on social media with the #balanceboundplanner hashtag so we can see!