My Erin Condren Life Planner

Well. It's here. It has arrived. I am in possession of it. I have purchased a brand new planner. I have selected a new brand. I have retired Lilly. I have hired a new secretary. And the winner is... Erin Condren Life Planner (ECLP). After opening it today, boy am I in love. If after reading this you are as in love with Erin as I am, feel free to use the link at the bottom to give yourself $10 off your first purchase!! Trust me, you will want it.

Last week I posted a review of my previous secretary, Lilly. So if you haven't read that, I would do it now. Here is the link for that: http://kennedysmith25.blogspot.com/2015/06/planner-series-part-1-review-of-my-year.html

Below is the video of me unboxing my planner! I was so excited to receive this beauty. And oh my gosh. THAT PACKAGING THO. It is so nice. I literally want my life to be packaged like Erin. P.S. it was so hard to open this up slow enough to take pictures of everything. I had to stop every two seconds! I just wanted to rip it open.

So what do you think? Probably not much right? Just that I was totally right about the packaging? Well now I will go into how I feel about it after an hour with this amazing work of planner art.

First of all, lets judge a book by its interchangeable cover. Yes. Interchangeable. If I get sick of the current cover I purchased, I can get a new one for just $10!!! I already have one in my cart ready to go. It may or may not be Sigma Kappa related. Anyways, the cover. They are totally customize-able, in addition to being interchangeable. I just added my name and the year. I also changed the colors... to maroon and lavender. Don't judge. I just need to rep Sigma Kappa everywhere I go. It is so durable! I am not worried about it falling off or getting damaged in the slightest. The coil holding it all together is also very big and very thick, but it isn't heavy at all! Woah. I need to chill. That is a lot just by outside appearances. What can I say, Erin is pretty!

Second of all, the layout! When I first looked at ECLP I was not impressed. This was a year ago. I was way too caught up in the beautiful Lilly prints. But now I feel like my taste in prints and covers is evolving. I was ready for the sleek style that is EC. Please note that there are also fun patterns with EC. They just aren't as... as... Lilly-esque. Anyways! The layout! I don't know how I got back on appearances... So. A year ago I didn't like them. This year I still looked at Lilly but this just caught my eye. I liked that I could really make it my own. After watching maybe 25 videos on youtube about the ECLP, from unboxings to reviews to rants, and reading probably 100 blog posts about them, I decided I needed my own Erin. So I went to the website to buy one... only to find out they launched 3 days from when I decided on buying it. So I set an alarm for June 9th at 9:00 AM (when they launched) so I could wake up, pick a color, and purchase my Erin. I'm still not talking about the layout... Jeesh. Okay. I'm just going to post a picture. Note: I know there are pictures in the video, but this is a close up and you don't really get time to see it in the video.

Here she is! So this is a vertical style layout! I don't know what I am going to do with it yet. I will probably do what the previous year planners had set up with the morning, day, night. But I know some people split it up work, school, social. Stuff like that. It really depends on how you need to use it. I love the "thankful thought" spot. I will try to write something I am thankful for at the beginning of each week and then try to emulate that thought the week. The lined section below that will be my week goals list. The lined sections below the days will be reserved for my homework. I have a to do list dry erase bookmark thing that I plan on using for... well... to do lists. I am not going to use dry erase marker though. I will probably get a sharpie and a pencil eraser stick. I hear on the EC hack blogs that those work really well. Each month is also a different color, which I love. That was one big draw for me with Lilly! So I am happy that has carried over to Erin.

Third of all, the company gives you a lot. The price for one of these secretaries is for sure on the higher end of planner costs. However, with everything that the company does, it is so worth it. I got my package two days before it was scheduled to arrive! There are a lot of freebies in the box. The planner is very heavy duty. They are built to last. I just love the company a lot. I am already for sure going to buy the 2016 - 2017 planner next year. Woah. Hold up. 2016 - 2017?! That's when I am graduating!! Oh my gosh! Sorry. Mind blown momentarily.

Finally. If you would like to purchase your own version of Erin, or even just check out the website to see all of the really cool customizations that are offered, here is the link to the $10 off for you from me! https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/kennedysmith0225

Please feel free to ask me any questions! I would love to hear what planners you are going with next year. If you have an ECLP how do you customize it? Do you want to see some more pics? Let me know! Enjoy!

Planner Series: Part 1 - A Review of my Year with Lilly Pulitzer

This is going to be a two part series. Part one is this one. It is a review of my Lilly Pulitzer planner. Part two will come soonish. It is sort of a surprise, but as you can see, it is planner related. Enjoy!

So my roommate at school and I had this cute thing where if we wanted to plan something with each other we would say something like "You'll have to check with Lilly." OR "You'll have to check with Vera." I always sort of thought of Lilly and Vera as our own personal secretaries. Mine was Lilly and she had Vera. I loved this and I can't wait to continue it next year.

Lilly was short for my Lilly Pulitzer agenda. Gosh, I wish I had my own personal secretary though! Life would be so much easier! But I am obsessed with this kind of stuff... is anyone looking for a personal secretary? Okay. Anyways, I am kind of going to go through what owning such a fantastic planner is like and how I utilized my Lilly.

So here is Lilly. Isn't she pretty? She has definitely aged a bit, but she has a lot of passion for her work and is still as good as new on the inside. Now this specific agenda is the large jellies be jammin' pattern. I love jelly fish, so this is perfect for me. However, there are TONS of patterns available. I was looking at the 2015-2016 line up and there are a lot of good ones. These run $28.

I had never kept a planner before Lilly. I owned them, but I was so bad at keeping up with it. I knew with my crazy schedule, I needed something to keep track of it all. Enter Lilly. I am going to run through some of the specs really quick then I will dive into how I utilized each one.

This is one of the first things you open up to. There is a plain white double sided folder and a sticker sheet! AHH! STICKERS! 

Here are some close ups of the stickers, but what I really wanted to focus on are the colored tabs. I'm going to be a bore and list them off really quick: 2015 & 2016, Months, Dates to Celebrate, Holidays & Horoscopes, Notes, and then it goes from Aug 14 - Dec 14. I will go over all of these after a few more pictures!

This is at the front of every month. It kind of sets up the theme for what you will be looking at for the next four weeks. EACH month is different. Even if there are two of the same months. For example, August 2014 and August 2015 are both VERY different. I love it. I also love the colors. It really helps add color to my day. 

After the adorable cover page for the month, here is the actual month at a glance. On the side is a to do list and a tiny month at a glance of the previous month and the next month. 

Here is the layout of what you would actually be writing your days and schedules and stuff in. As you can see, it's keeping with the theme, too. 

Here is my color coding system. Just to list off again: Black is for classes, red is for things I need to do, blue is for when I need to work at the honors college, green is for EMU stuff, maroon is for appointments, teal is for my deskie job, purple is for Sigma Kappa, and pink is for any friend related thing. 

So that's finally done. Now I am going to run through how I utilize everything.

The folder and the stickers: I kind of shove everything and anything in there. I still have stuff from when I went through recruitment in there. Right now the biggest thing residing in there are plane tickets and stuff from my recent trip to Arizona with Logan. As for the stickers... I don't really use those either. I kind of just give them out to daycare kids when they help me clean. Not the booze related ones though. Obvi.

Tabs: the 2014 & 2015 tab is nice. It just kind of shows you the years at a glance. I don't really do anything with that though. As for the months, I don't do anything with that either. Especially because I use the months at a glance later in the planner. All I have written in the dates to celebrate tab is "celebrate Emily's birthday all month." I didn't even write it. Hmm... EMILY??? The holidays & horoscopes tab is really cute! It gives you a list of all the holidays on one page. You get a lined page titled party planners notes on another. On another page are horoscopes. It was fun, but not useful. Now the notes tab?? I used that constantly!!! Color codes, lists, passwords, you name it. I had it on these pages. You get quite a few, too. 

The big month at a glance: As you can see I do use this. I mark when there is a Sigma Kappa event or meeting, when there are EMU events, when I get paid, when the NMU payment is due, when we don't have classes (breaks), when I travel, birthdays, and stuff like that. But I NEVER actually "write" anything. I just put indicators. 

The week at a glance: I try really hard to keep everything in order. I learned second semester that it is best to write in classes an work, two things that normally remain the same. one month at a time. That way if something changes, I don't have to use white out. I hate putting white out in my planner. Something that isn't shown in the images above is if something does change. If that happens I will highlight it. It kind of just reminds me over and over again what changed because highlighter draws my attention.

I hope you enjoyed this little review. I totally recommend Lilly planners to any newbie or anyone who just likes the layout! Even though I love Lilly with all of my heart, I think it is time for her to retire. I am ready for a change. A new secretary, if you will. I would love to know what planner(s) you use! Comment below! I may be scouting for a new brand. 

I May Be Too Excited for School - Binder Organization & Note System

So I love school. I love learning. I love organization. There is only 91 days until the new semester so I have already started preparing.

Last year I tried a folder system with loose leaf paper for notes. I loved this system. However, it wasn't practical having to search for all the folders I needed for the day. This year I have decided on the two binder system. This means I will have one binder for M/W classes and one binder for T/R classes (R means Thursday at my university.) This could be modified if you have weekend classes or MTW classes, or anything like that. This especially works for me because I have the same amount of classes in both binders.

"But Kennedy... How are you going to organize all of your classes in two binders???"

That's a good question. I have a fairly good idea that I will share after some trial and error. Yes, I do experimentation on my school note/class organization systems. 

I do know that I will have a folder full of loose leaf blank lined paper permanently in my backpack. That is where I will get my paper for notes. The notes will then go into the designated binder to the designated class behind the designated tab. I'm quite excited.

"But... Kennedy... What is the point of this post then???"

That is also a good question. I just want to show off the covers of my class dividers and the cover of my Sigma Kappa binder. Enjoy! Let me know if you want the sites to get similar stuff! The site I used has both Lilly and Vera patterns.

This will go 2nd in my T/R binder. 

This will go 3rd in my T/R binder. This is only a Tuesday class though. So happy it is also last in the binder. I just feel like that worked out perfectly.

This will go 1st in my M/W binder. I chose this pattern because I am hopeful that it will be inspirational.

This will go 1st in my T/R binder. I love classic Lilly. 

This will go 2nd in my M/W binder. 

This will go 3rd in my M/W binder. This is only a Monday class though so I'm really happy that it worked out to be last. 

Obviously this is my Sig Kap binder cover. This is its own binder. I am going to use it to keep updated calendars, notes, handouts, etc. I didn't like my system for SK last year. It was so unorganized and I lost dates and everything. I'm so ready for year two.

I hope you enjoyed! If you have any tips, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to comment!! <3