Size does matter —- At least when it comes to planning! Today I want to talk about my journey through different planner sizes over the last ten years. And even though technically I have been planning longer than that - I only have the photo evidence for the last decade so strap in, and get ready to see how planner peace is an ever evolving thing!
2015 - I entered the Planner World with a PERSONAL RINGS size planner from Websters Pages - it was a spongey teal pleather planner. It had colorful inserts and overall just was not big enough for everything I was planning. While I like the portability of this planner, it ultimately ends up collecting dust on my shelf.
2016 - I discover the world of A5 RINGS and get my very first Carpe Diem Ring Planner. It’s teal and squishy, just like the last one, but this one is much larger AND the interior is black and white polka dot. Say less. While I love the size of this planner, the inserts it comes with are very kiddish. I start to look around for alternatives and find little available for this size so I set out and make my own. Welcome LPA!
I stay in A5 RINGS, but shift into an all Black Kikki.K which still speaks to my soul! I also give POCKET RINGS a try with a super cute gold filofax, but if I thought personal was small, pocket is TINY!
Mid-2016 Michaels releases their PERSONAL & A5 RINGS line of affordable rings planners (everything before this point was very expensive and only available online!) I dabble in a bunch of PERSONAL RINGS options at this time… Because the idea of my planner matching my stickers each week was too good to pass up. Plus these were all business expenses!
2017 - Starts with me bouncing back and forth between Kikki.K A5 RINGS. I’m a sucker for their textured and perforated leathers and I spend a lot of time in the BST groups to get my hands on planners that have been discontinued. I even get my hands on one of their VERY limited edition rose gold planners. A history lesson for next time!
I also start to dabble in travelers notebooks around this time. I get my first POCKET SIZE TN from Foxy Fix and immediately fall in love with how portable it is. At Go Wild that year I meet some new friends that are in a B6 TN (or Number 5 as it was called on Foxy at the time).
Fast forward just a few months and I’m ALL IN on B6 TN. To me, B6 is the perfect size. As a weekly box sticker user, it could fit three columns across like an A5 planner could, but it was much shorter, and therefore more square than rectangle. Its sized at 5x7 so postcards and random ephemera often fits right in. It’s my goldilocks size.
And this is love affair that lasts for years. In fact from this point all the way up until the end of 2018, I’m swapping in and out of different B6 TN set ups. The only reason I end up leaving this beloved size, is because I invent something NEW!
October 2018 - the launch of B6 RINGS, a size that myself and a fellow planner shop came up with over a delicious pasta dinner at the SGS Conference in NYC. This new size was our response to our disdain for the PERSONAL WIDE RINGS size - a story for another day. It was what we considered to be the perfect blend of size and rings functionality.
2019 is filled with so much B6 RINGS love. I try all sorts of layouts, daily, weekly, journals, you name it. I swap in and out of some of my favorite leathers and build up my collection.
2020 has me, like everyone else doing a full pivot and moving my work planner into an HP CLASSIC size ring setup. My memory keeping stays in my B6 Rings, and I continue to swap between set ups. This combo continues through 2021.
In 2022 I add a daily B6 RINGS size coil bound planner to my life, ditching the large HP CLASSIC RINGS and opting for a more portable size.
In 2023 I move back to HP CLASSIC size, but this time on a coil. And I keep this up all the way up until the end of 2024 where I for some weird reason get the itch to try A5 in the coil size. And by some weird reason I mean, lots of empty space in my HPC size planner!
Finally 2025 I am back to my roots and in an A5 RINGS planner! Once again I’m opting for rings because of how easy it is to swap in and out papers.
Where will the rest of this year take me? Probably back to B6 at some point! lol Stay tuned!
