I’ve finally got around to setting up my final planner for 2020!

This post contains affiliate links. They will be marked with a *.

I love using Filofaxes. Sadly, I love using Hobonichi planners more! When I first made the switch to Hobonichi a couple of years ago I ditched rings pretty much completely. The only rings I still used was my home planner, which is in an A5 Original*. This home planner is more storage of important documents, so doesn’t really count.

Anyway, after the excitement of having everything in my Hobonichi Cousin wore off, I realised it wasn’t practical. There’s some things that don’t change too much from year to year and so need to live in something like a Filofax, where pages are easily moved and removed.

My Personal Original* in burnt orange is my favourite Filofax. I just love the style of the Original planners and this colour is beautiful. 

I don’t go big on decorating my planner. I think that’s why I like the set up of the Original; not too many pockets that I feel like I have to fill with decoration and pretty things.

Front pockets

The theme for this planner is coral and pink, and so when I picked up the blue Frixion for my Hobonichi Weeks, I also purchased a pink version*. I don’t use this pen a huge amount in here, but I like having a pen in there just in case I need one.

I’m not a big user of paperclips, but I do like using this elasticated band in the Original for a paperclip and couldn’t resist this panda one*. 

The clip on this actually lives on back of the panda, rather than underneath. For using in the elasticated band like this, I much prefer that style of paperclip.

In the pockets I just have a cute rabbit die cut that came with washi, and some sticky notes. I always like to keep sticky notes in my planner. This size is perfect for doing some forward planning in my Hobonichi.

Dividers

I’ve always made my own dividers but for this set up I found some I liked on Etsy*. I used my trusty label maker to label the five sections.

Calendar

This section is pretty self-explanatory. It opens up to a yearly plan and all the things that are due each month. Anything that occurs several times and moves goes on a post it note, like haircuts. Next, I have a perpetual calendar* with birthdays, anniversaries and key dates logged. I like these simple printable calendar pages*. I was tempted to washi over the days of the week but instead I just don’t pay attention to them.

I refer to these pages at the start of every month when planning out my month in my Cousin. I also flip to the month ahead, to make sure there’s no birthday cards or anything I need to buy in before the start of the month.

Money

There’s not a huge amount I can share in this section, but this is basically where I track my savings and regular outgoings.

The post it note is where I log my total savings each month. The page on the right hand side is all my direct debits and the amounts. I refer to this when building my monthly budget plan. After this I have separate pages logging how much I have in each of my savings accounts.

Personal

This section is mainly my addresses. I generally don’t need to know many addresses anymore, but the ones I do are in here on Filofax inserts. Next up are some password logging inserts*. In here I don’t write the full password, but just enough to remind me what it is. 

Blog

This section contains any useful information needed for the blog, including a stats log. Here’s the set up page ready for the start of 2020.

Shop

It’s the same for the shop section. Here I have useful information such as fonts used, suppliers, costs and things like that.

All the paper used in these sections is really nice cream dotted paper from Etsy*. It really puts into perspective how poor and thin the Filofax paper is.

At the back of that I have more post its, and some pockets for anything I need to store in the planner. I use the card pocket to store all my old business cards. It’s nice to see the progression of my business over the years.

I never seem to use the back pocket of my Originals once I’ve used up the notebook. I think this will probably become the place I keep receipts that need to be saved.

I love this simple set up. It’s a perfect place to keep lots of little bits of information that don’t need to be written out again at the start of every year.

Do you have a similar kind of planner?