Last year I won my first giveaway ever – I was the lucky recipient of a personalized dayplanner from Personal Planner in a contest hosted by the lovely Andi. When I posted about how much I loved my new planner, the company contacted me and offered a giveaway for my readers too! My friend Lise won and she loooooved hers just as much as I did.
Fast forward to this fall… it’s 2015 dayplanner time! Take a look at my 2014 planner, then at my 2015 planner below and then make sure to check out the bottom of the post – I have a discount code AND a giveaway AND a contest to win a $600 airline gift card for you guys from the awesome people at Personal Planner.
All about creating my planner: what I love about Personal Planner is that it’s even easier the second time around. When I started designing my 2015 planner, I simply signed into my account from last year and all my birthdays and anniversaries that I had added were already there, ready to be printed into my 2015 planner. I added a few more and set off to personalize! You get to choose SO many things, from the size of the planner to the weekly/day layout, to colors, headers, and more.
I chose new (less narcissistic?) photos for my 2015 planner covers. The front is my favorite thing in the world: SUSHI!
The back cover is a shot I took at West Bay Beach here on Roatan. I couldn’t stray too far from my underwater theme.
Inside I went with a similar welcome page to last year’s:
And I was happy to see a few more options for customizing the bottom of the pages – love that they added a ‘This Week’s Dinners’ box! – and for keeping track of work hours and exercise on a daily basis. Hopefully I’ll be using those two a lot!
My favorite part is always deciding what to put in the last 16 pages. I went with world maps, 2016/2017 overview and basic lined note pages:
I’m really pleased with the way this came out and am already itching for December 22 to get here so I can start using it. I am a total stationary/office stuff/organization nerd so yes, I get excited about using a new planner.
I have to say a special thanks to my girl Sarah for doing the ‘bring Rika’s planner to Roatan for her’ duties this year (Amanda took care of it last year for me), and to Lisa at Personal Planner who was probably the most helpful person on the planet when the first planner they sent out got lost in the mail.
Congratulations to Jill on winning a free planner!
Thank you to all who entered, I loved your stories and your under-the-sea jokes. Check back next year to see what’s happening for 2016 planners!
For those of you who order, win, or already have a planner, Personal Planner is also sponsoring an Instagram contest for a $600 American Airlines gift card. Just upload a pic of your planner and tag with #personalplanner – contest closes December 1st, 2014.
The contest is now CLOSED! Thanks to everyone who entered with their stories and under-the-sea jokes! A huge congratulations to Jill from Battered Suitcases who won 🙂
CONGRATULATIONS JILL!! You've won the voucher for a free planner!! I'm so glad you came back and entered again this year 🙂 I'll email you shortly with details!
I have been guilty of the post-it notes and little pieces of paper too! It's so much easier to have everything organized in one place, isn't it?
With lots of appointments with doctors and grand babies schedules I seem to forget important times. I have showed up at doctors two days early and then the next appointment late. I hope 2015 will be better. I hope to be more organized and forget post it notes and small pieces of paper
Yes, exactly! I went to an iPhone and then have gone back to my paper planner. And everything is color-coded!! At the beginning of the week I usually snap a pic of that week in my planner just as a reference cause I don't normally carry it with me… but I just need to physically write stuff down!
This would make a great Christmas gift! Looooved your underwater joke 🙂 I am getting so many good ones haha!
The satisfaction of color coding a To Do List, and then crossing things off said To Do List is incomparable. Except for the part when you transition to an iPhone because it's what all the cool kids are doing and forget to go to an advisor meeting. Ugh, paper and colored pens, please!!!
I'm gonna win!
Hey there – there isn't a link, they are hosting the giveaway through my blog so all the info you need for entry is at the bottom of the post 🙂 Good luck!
I want one and I know I'm bad at winning giveaways, so how do I just buy one?! 🙂
Maybe I missed something, I can't find the link.
It's so convenient, especially having the birthdays and stuff already printed in it!!
Love this! I'm always lost without my planner, and having a custom one made sounds amazing.
Oh, I hear ya girl. I used to be the worst for overdue library books when I still lived in Canada!
I'm always forgetting to return library books. I could have just bought the books with some of those fines! Yikes! Anyway, I *should* write in a planner when they are due. Maybe that would help.
I'm trying… if this doesn't do it I don't know what will 🙂
I see someone is getting very organised! Good for you! My life is a mess :D!!
Hehehe… love that one, thanks Allie!
Oh no!! I find that when I'm traveling I get things mixed up a lot, especially when you're crossing time zones!
I looooove the maps! I'm terrible at geography so it's nice to have a reference handy 🙂
What did one wave say to the other wave? Nothing…it just waved 🙂
I should've used a dayplanner on our recent trip. We kept messing up the dates and times we were supposed to be at certain places!
sellcrystal2 at gmail dot com
These look amazing!! You had me at the map part – so cool. And all of the customization. So many decisions… 🙂
Spur of the moment trip to India? You go girl!!
I was hoping some readers would have to think of new stories for this year. I had such a giggle reading them last year. Good luck!
Yep, can totally empathize! That's why I had to keep getting them 🙂
Loooove the joke too! Hope you are feeling better 😉
I had to go back to read my (unsuccessful) entry from last year to see which story I told then. Another time that a planner would have been helpful was a few years ago when my friend and I decided to take a fairly spur of the moment weekend trip to India. Our flight arrived at a weird time in the middle of the night/early morning. It gets so confusing figuring out which night you need to book at the hostel… well, no one came to pick us up, so it became obvious that I did it wrong! We called the hostel and they explained that I had booked the wrong date so someone had some to the airport the day before and waited HOURS for us to arrive. Oops. Eventually someone came to pick us up and we paid the only slightly grumpy establishment for a double pick up! I suppose consulting a calendar may have helped!
This one time, I moved to an island because I met a guy on the beach and decided to move in with him and get a dog right away. So because I suddenly became a beach bum I basically forgot about the real world. And therefore all birthdays, events, and plans that previously existed fluttered away in the breeze. Moral of the story: a planner would be REALLY effing useful so I stop forgetting about things because my mind is filled with too much salt air. I know you can empathize. Also, because I like to double-down…
Why are there fish at the bottom of the ocean?
Because they dropped out of school.
(((teeheehee)))
I use mine for all the birthdays for people who aren't on Facebook (ie. my grandpa, in the pic above!) since I usually get a FB reminder for people I'm friends with!
I'm a stationary nut (nerd?) too and am normally a dayplanner freak – except for this year while we've been travelling. I've missed many birthdays and other milestones/events that I would never have overlooked had I brought a planner around with me. Curses!
Ahhh Rachel you're so funny!! I totally remember Tila Tequila from Myspace days!
ummm, i only used my planner in college and usually it was to remind me to watch a tv show, so I guess the worst mishap was when I forgot the premier of Tila tequila and didn't have TIVO yet… ahhh #collegewasthebest
Hahaha that is a cute one! Are you gonna order one with the discount code or wait and see if you win?
I bet it's that you need to update your blog 🙂
How do you make an Octopus laugh? Tenticles!
Happy Monday! Thanks for sharing the discount code Rika!
PLANNNERSSSSS. <3
This weekend, I kept making plans but my planner was up three flights of stairs and I was lazy and now I have this terrible itchy feeling that there's something going on today but I don't know what it is.
Or maybe that's just me, realizing I REALLY need to update my blog… 🙂