Using Your Planner to De-stress
Planners are such a wonderful tool to incorporate into your daily routine. We use them to keep track of our monthly dates, our important deadlines, and if you’re using a Golden Coil planner, to track anything and everything under the sun. There is space for grocery lists, workout plans, assignments, and to-dos. And while we focus a lot of attention on how our planners keep us organized, we can forget how our planners can also help us de-stress and relax. Today we’re discussing ways your planner can help you relax and focus on the fun.
Small Victories
Thinking about our small, everyday victories can bring us contentment and remind us of the gifts we experience in our everyday life. Find a way to record your victories, daily or weekly in your planner. One way to record these is in the post-it box on some of our weekly planner pages. Use your post-it box to jot down a favorite memory or win of the week. Maybe it’s jotting down a successful recipe or noting a victory at work. Maybe your child hit a milestone or you met a goal you’ve been working toward. Celebrate it! Add the date to your note and watch your victories accumulate through the year.
Gratitude
Similar to recording our small victories, noting the things we are thankful for can help us tap into a level of peace and contentment with the lives we live. Think about starting or ending your day by recording a moment of gratitude. Our Month At-A-Glance page is a fantastic spot to jot this down. If your weekly pages include some blank lines, use this space to note some things you are thankful for.
Pens & Stickers
Never underestimate the feeling of uncapping a new pen or trying a new highlighter to freshen up your old routine. Breathe new life into your planner with some new tools. We’ve compiled a list of our favorites here. Adding color, tabs, and stickers are not only fun touches but they can also help keep you organized. One of our Golden Coil Insiders likes to assign each person in her family a color and uses that color to record their activities and events into her calendars and planner pages.
Comfort List
Have you ever considered making a comfort list? When my mother was recently diagnosed with cancer, we were suddenly swimming in a muddle of uncertain days. There were moments when feeling paralyzed by indecision or overwhelmed by uncertainty took hold. It was like drowning and standing frozen in time all at once. One tool that helped us dig out of those feelings was making a list of things that brought personal comfort. No matter what difficulties you might face in life, jotting down a list of things that bring you happiness and comfort can help. This list might include the movies you can watch over and over again (Pride and Prejudice for me! The Keira Knightley version, please!). It might include your favorite smells or foods. Maybe there’s a special soap or candle you like. It could be a favorite clothing item. Or maybe it’s comforts like a fluffy towel or a soft blanket. It might be a book you know by heart and still read over and over again. Maybe there’s an album you can listen to on repeat. Choose a place in your planner to make your own comfort list. When you are having a bad day, you can refer to your list and try something that will lift your spirits.
Brain Dump
If you’re a planner person, you might be super organized. You might prefer things that are perfect and orderly. You might like your penmanship in your planner to be neat and tidy. Does this sound like you? I’m going to urge you to consider letting go of a little of that perfection and think about adding a brain dump to your routine. If you’re not familiar, it is exactly what it sounds like. A place to simply dump your thoughts out. Consider adding a few lined pages to your planner each week for brain dump pages. Brain dump pages don’t need to include complete sentences or even coherent thoughts. You can simply let your pen move across the page. It may turn into a list of to-dos. It might turn into something deeper. It doesn’t matter what it is, and you may not refer to the pages or read them again. What matters is exercising that muscle of pouring out your thoughts. The process can help bring clarity and focus to the rest of your day or week or something you’re struggling with. And who knows? The process might reveal a buried idea that could lead to bigger things.
We want to hear from you! How do you like to use your planner to de-stress?