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I’ve tried a lot of planners in my day, but I’ve quit using each after 1 year and just moved onto the next one. While I love that I can carry my calendar around with me on my phone, I love a good paper planner to keep me focused and organized. Whether it is to help me remember something or get the mental gratification of crossing a task off, I’ve always loved writing things out. The small chunk of my life where I didn’t use a paper planner was when my corporate job took the bulk of my time. When I graduated from college, I thought I’d still use a physical planner, but I found out I worked better with a notepad. If I wasn’t writing it on paper for work, I was relying heavily on Outlook. That all changed when I was let go from my job last summer. I was sequestered to working from home on my blog, which I thought I would love. I had all day to work on my passion, but found myself feeling frazzled and never getting anything done. I tried using my corporate notepad technique, but it was really hard to do, as blogging bleeds over into my personal life as well. While I still use my phone to track events that involve me AND Nick (we have a shared family calendar) or set a reminder for a specific date, I very much live by my Savor Life My Next 90 Days Planner - I’m so thankful for it!

Keep reading for the reasons why I love this planner! ALSO, enter to win a free Savor Planner here. Winner will be chosen 05/08/2020.

In the age of technology, it may seem silly to have a paper planner, but my Type A personality would be worse off without it. I often operate under the “but how much more can I fit in a day” mentality, which can leave me feeling unproductive and like that of a hamster stuck in a wheel.

My Next 90 Days Planner | Madewell White T-Shirt | Agolde Denim Shorts | Senreve Hair City Scarf (c/o) | BKR Big L Water Bottle | Riedel Wine Glass | Emu Australia Criss-Cross Slippers

Here are some benefits of using a paper planner and why you might consider using one in general:

• Help Planning. Duh, but I had to say it. I plan out my days for maximum success, but I also like to plan out my months, so I can see everything that is coming.

• Responsible Living. There might have been a day where you could skirt by on a forgotten rent check or shown up late to your bff’s party, but life will only get busier for you. A planner is a great place to keep track of EVERYTHING, which can help you live your best possible life. I love that I have this physical reminder and that it won’t freeze on me or delete important info.

• Memory Boosting. When you write things versus type things, it is said to help you be able to recall them better. Whether it is a report due date or your boss’ birthday, you don’t want to forget those things!

• Mental Health Supporting. Whenever you finish a task and mark it off, your brain releases dopamine, which causes feelings of accomplishment, satisfaction, and happiness. If you end every day feeling frazzled, there’s not really a chance for the dopamine to even get triggered. Using a planner can help with this!

• Goal Setting. It is statistically proven that writing your goals out means they are 42% more likely to occur! Write those thoughts in your planner, baby!

So now that you’re convinced that a paper planner might be a good thing to try, why the Savor Planner? There are a lot of reasons why I like it, but the main one is because it focuses on you first and the work second. You cannot do your best work if you are burnt-out or anxiety-ridden. I’m a very direct person - I prefer to get down to the issue versus having 30 minutes of pointless small talk. All that to say, I will often write my emails and then go back and add fluff / padding, to make the email sound nicer (lol). The Savor planner is like the fluff to my workload. It prioritizes my growth and goals rather than if I completed a specific task or not. When I made goals in January, I tried to make year-long goals, but also some that fit within the first quarter of the year… the first 90 days. It is really healthy to look at the year in small chunks like every 90 days. Things can happen like a worldwide pandemic which causes you to pivot and adjust. To set goals for the whole year feels less realistic and can lead to anxiety and unhappiness if not completed. Viewing goals quarterly instead of yearly can not only help you hone in on what you actually need to do, but also increase satisfaction!

Here are some of the reasons I like the My Next 90 Days Planner:

• Start Whenever. Planners are great until you realize that it started in January or August and you have a bunch of wasted months. Obviously if you have been on the planner train, you probably purchase yours on top, but what about the rest of us? I love that My Next 90 Days starts when YOU are ready, so you don’t waste any paper!!

• Monthly AND Daily/Weekly Views. A lot of planners only have either or. When they do have both, there’s typically not enough space to actually write down everything. The Savor Life planner has a large monthly view, a great weekly page (split between 2 pages), and even a notes and weekend section. These inclusions are a must for me.

• Pillars to Actually Savor Life. The My Next 90 Days was created with 4 pillars in mind - not just the “get everything done as fast as you can” mindset.

  • Self-Care - design a nourish to flourish plan

  • 90-Day Vision - create goals that are achievable

  • Rituals - make simple routines to structure your week

  • Organize - customize and bring order to your tasks

• Vision and Plan. Before you even begin making to-do lists, the Savor Life Planner walks you through how to figure out what you actually want to accomplish this quarter. It also does a similar exercise after the 12 weeks, which is great. You can see how far you come and how you’d like to improve! Additionally, each week has an opening and closing exercise too, to help you prioritize your tasks and sort your thoughts.

• Work AND Play. In addition to the work week pages, My Savor Life Planner also has pages for planning meals, workouts, etc and pages for note taking too! There really is a page for everything. They didn’t leave anything out!

• Plenty of Stickers. This might seem silly, but with other planners I’ve used, if they had stickers, there was a small amount. With Savor Life Planners, you get plenty of stickers, which caused me to actually want to use them. I would hoard my other planner stickers and never actually use them.

If you want to see the actual pages of the planner / how Savor suggests you use them, click here and scroll to the bottom! You can click through each section.

I couldn’t recommend the My Next 90 Days Planner more! It has drastically helped me, but I wanted to include this caveat… Sometimes life has to be lived outside of plans and schedules. Don’t miss out on living just because it isn’t written in your planner. Plus, you can always write it in and check it off later ;)

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