my new planner + why i love ban.do

The best part of a new year? A new planner. Without one, my days are disorganized and all over the place. I am someone who relies on a planner to keep my brain focused and functioning. I have tried many different kinds over the years, but my favorite brand is ban.do. Unfortunately, there were a couple of years where I was unable to find products from the brand at my local Indigo...and I was unwilling to pay the extra money to ship a heavy planner to my home. I found other alternatives, and those worked well enough, but were not quite as good as the ban.do planners. So, it was downright thrilling to find a small stack of ban.do planners with different cover art at Indigo during the late summer months. (Maybe that is the secret...to shop for a planner in the summer instead of looking for one in the fall. Though this is a 17 month planner, I use it as a 12 month one. There were just no 12 month options available.) Ready to take a peek inside? Here is the 17 Month Planner from ban.do. 

start wherever you are and start small.

Happy New Year! There is so much possibility in front of us. That is the beauty of a shiny new year...it still feels fresh and full of hope. It is the perfect time to look back at what has been and look forward to what could be. When it comes to looking back, the past year had some highs and lows. The lows? There were some changes to my family dynamic in the last few months of the year. Those have been difficult for me to accept, as I often struggle with change. There was intrusive construction work in my home. There was the loss of a beloved pet. There was disappointment and despair over what is happening on this planet. It was a lot. The highs? This year also had vacations, concerts, and time spent with people that I care about. There were threads of good woven through all of the fear and pain. I suppose that is just how life is...a little bit of good to help navigate the bad.