Friday Find: Erin Condren Personlized Life Planner

I'm so excited to tell you about my new Erin Condren personalized life planner! I read about it online about a month back and decided I had to try it. Why, in this age of free online tools to manage just about everything, would I choose to spend my money on a [beautiful] paper planner? Let me explain...

For a couple years I've been strictly using Google Calendar, which works great when I'm able to be online regularly throughout the day and also has the benefit of easily sharing events with my husband. For me though, the online calendar concept has a couple of issues. First, I've never been able to make online task lists work for me when I'm not regularly sitting at a computer (which I'm not anymore). I also still feel this gravitational pull toward paper lists and calendars, especially happy, pretty ones :) There's just something gratifying about putting it down on paper!

So for a couple of years, I've been managing what productivity experts would call a hybrid system of online and paper, carrying around a notebook of some sort to corral lists, related papers, receipts, etc., but still using Google Calendar, which I mainly get to check and update at night. As a part-time working, full-time mom, I rarely get a chance to sit down at a computer during the day. Sure, I check my email on my phone throughout the day, but I'm not a big fan of managing Google Calendar on my phone. So as with many organizational systems, it's clear that my old system is no longer working for my new[ish] life.

Introduce my super-lovely new life planner...it's a compact, durable, all-in-one planner that can house my calendar, to-do lists, notes, papers...all in one lovely place. I think many of you would agree with me that you can't underestimate the power of pretty when it comes to productivity tools. They just make me want to get down to business and get stuff done!

Anyway, enough about me, for those of you who may be struggling with your calendars and to-do lists, here's my advice - it's ok not to go digital if it just doesn't work for you and it's definitely ok to find pretty, productive tools that make you happy! Check out ErinCondren.com for a look at the wonderful, personalized tools they make to help make your life easier. I purchased a discounted April-December 2012 Life Planner, but I believe they have a 2012/2013 version coming out in June. They also just released a great video about using a weekly calendar pad to keep all your family members on the same page! I may just have to give it a try.

Note: I have not received any incentive to write about Erin Condren products...just writing a personal review of my new planner.