Journal/Planner

M by Staples Notebook

A lot of people have planners or journals that they carry with them and I am one of those and I have finally found a planner that I like and use quite often. The planner that I use is the M by Staples Arc Customizable Durable Notebook System

Now for my planner I decided that there were some things that I wanted and I went through all the different products that there available and got the items that I wanted and then discovered that there were things that I still didn’t have. Here are the items that I purchased to help me get the planner that I wanted.

1. M by Staples Arc Expansion Discs, Black 1”

2. M by Staples Page Flags, Assorted Colours and Sizes

3. M by Staples Arc Index Dividers

4. M by Staples Arc Customizable Poly Notebook 8-1/2” x 5-1/2”

5. M by Staples Arc Pocket Dividers

My tabs

6. M by Staples Arc Task Pages

7. M by Staples Arc Hole Punch

8. M by Staples Arc Zipper Pockets

9. 1 Ream of 28 Pound white paper

What I really like about this customizable notebook system is that you can easily insert and move paper around in the notebook when you need to do that. I have actually found that just being able to move the pages around makes it so much easier for me to keep things in the section that I want them to be in. I have also found that I can have another book that I don’t carry with me with the pages that I no longer need with me all the time but I want to keep them.

So after spending some time trying to figure out what I wanted my planner to look like I started to actually customize it so that it would work for me. The index dividers are great because you can label them now you want them and they come with extra labels so you can change the label as needed.

You may have asked why I had purchased 1 Ream of 28 pound white paper and that was so that I could make some of my own pages for my planner. I found that there were some pages that were available for the bigger book but not for the smaller version so I decided that I could always make pages that I wanted using my printer and the planner would work for me. Sure other people may not like some of the pages that I have in my planner but at least with this system is is totally customizable which is what I wanted. Most of the pages that I have designed for my book were simple either word or excel sheets that I could print in booklet format. The one thing that I did do was find a two page a month calendar and after getting it as a pdf I once again printed that in the booklet format on the printer and now have a calendar for my planner.

Penholder

Now with the Poly notebook I did find that there was one thing missing that I really wanted and that was a pen holder so thanks to a friend I was able to find a youtube video on how to make a pen holder out of some duct tape so that is what I have as my pen holder and it works great. The leather notebook does have a pen holder and even interior pockets so you can decide which one you want for your system.

Well now that I have a planner that makes me happy I have also purchased the bigger binder because it is something that I can take with me to meetings and it works great. I got the black leather notebook for the bigger version and that made me happy because it looks professional and also still gives me the ease of moving pages around as I need to do that. Again I have been able to print a calendar for that notebook and it fits in well.

A planner or journal is something that can be very personal depending on what you want it to do. For me it is my to-do-list, shopping list, calendar, thoughts and ideas and a notebook all in one. Sure I might be able to use an electronic device to do some of that but this is something that I can use no matter where I am and I can customize it for my own personal use and not for what someone else thinks should work for me.