My friend De got me a subscription to these Silk + Sonder planners, and I have fallen in love. They are gorgeous, and have monthly themes (July is Passion), and prompts, and a very nice balance of guided material and open space to play with. Plus, there’s a Facebook community to help generate ideas – and maybe enable you to buy more pens or washi tape.

I’m not necessarily trying to review the planner, it’s more that I want to share some of my thoughts on it, and why I’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

So, I didn’t think a mood tracker would be helpful, though it might be entertaining. I also wasn’t sure what to put down for moods. I ended up finding a nice little circle of emotions and going from there. I tried different words this month – we’ll see how that goes.

Here’s what I really like about the mood tracker: I can easily see at a glance, how I’ve been feeling, more or less. While this month was pretty good, I can see looking at it, noticing a trend I don’t like, and can use that to uncover what’s going on and what I need to fix. Also, whenever I go to the doctor for my checkups, they do an anxiety assessment. I always panic a little bit (ironically), because I’m afraid that I’m missing out on something. What if I have actually been super anxious, I just can’t remember it on the spot?
This is a nice little way of helping me keep track of that. I really only had two days where I had discernible anxious feelings. That’s pretty good!

Clearly, cardio is my short fall. This surprises me not even a little bit, only to point out that I’m actually worse about it than I actually suspected.

But I like being able to look back on it, celebrate my wins, take note of my losses, and with meaningful feedback, calibrate how I want to move forward. What were my expectations for cardio, and what kept me from following through? What was it about Spanish and Reading that kept me motivated? What can I learn, and how can I set myself up for success?

(Also, I feel the need to tell you that it’s not that I didn’t do anything the 19th and 20th. I didn’t track anything that weekend and felt weird trying to remember what I’d done that weekend. It felt dishonest.)

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This is one of the wide open spaces in the planner. I decided to use it to track the movies I’ve been meaning to watch. I have a similar one for books – I’ll attach that here in a bit – and one of keeping track of who I wrote letters to. Making these little trackers are both fun for me, and give me tangible evidence that I’ve done something, which gives me a mood boost. Maybe you would find it better to make your grocery lists, or random journaling. Me? I like to make lists and cross things off, bonus if there’s pretty paper and pretty pens involved.
As you can see, I don’t watch a ton of movies, however, this is more movies than I’d watch left to my own devices. I tend to err on the side of not doing fun things for myself if I feel like there’s work left undone. So this is unspoken permission to watch a movie I enjoy. I need that.

Just for kicks, here’s my book tracker this month. I LOVE documenting what I read, so this is a real highlight for me.

This month, I’m also going to track the books that I acquire, not just read, so that I can make sure I’m reading more than I take in. Because really, that to-read shelf needs to shrink. I’m also tracking our eating out, because I want to do less of that, and, ideally, only eat out when we plan on it in advance – like for date night.

I have nothing to offer you, no coupon codes or referral links or anything of the sort. But if you think it’s interesting, go and check them out. Maybe you’ll find something there that tickles your brain as well.