Tales of Planners Past: Moleskine, Lilly Pulitzer, and Mead Agendas

    Hello PlannerPeople! So, in our 4 Reasons to Have a Planning System post, I wrote that planners are one of the most simplistic ways of journaling. Well today we are taking a trip back into my planner past and seeing not only how I was planning, but what I was planning in the past four years as well as a review of each different types of planners. (Oh boy, time traveling back to freshman year... wish me luck!)

My planners from the past four years. (Except the school given one) 

Freshman Year: Academic School Planner. 

   Ah, freshman year of high school... full of awkward moments and memorable firsts. (Everybody remembers that first time they walked into the wrong class right?) Now, this was before I was a full blown PlannerPerson so I settled for the school distributed planner. Before the days of decoration and crazy color coding, I just used a plain old pencil and wrote down all my homework. I wasn't very in depth with my planning until sophomore year so it was a pretty boring year in the planner department.

Sophomore Year: Academic Mead Planner

Stickers!!!!

    Sophomore year was probably my favorite year of high school. The year of my first kiss, first romance, and my first planner that wasn't given to me by the school. The summer before tenth grade, on a trip to California, I was able to have my first shopping experience at a Staples Super Center. (sadly, Alaska is desperately lacking fun stationary shops and no Staples.)
    it was at Staples that I bought a pink Mead Academic agenda. It was colored, had cool little tips throughout the weeks, and even came with sheets of school related stickers in the back! I also used my handy Papermate highlighters and this was what I used for my pretty basic color coding.

Monthly View 

Weekly View (I love that every day has the same space given) 

One of my favorite weeks
Look how productive I was! :)

My Color code in tenth grade (a little smeared)

Junior Year: Academic Mead Planner, Lilly PulitzerAgenda

My beautiful large Lily Pulitzer

   Junior year got a little crazy, in all aspects of life. The first semester, I used my trusted Mead agenda that I picked up from Target or some other local store. This is when I started getting into the planner world and watching Youtube videos and starting to want to make my agenda look nice. My color code started to grow and my doodles began. :)
   By second semester, I decided that I wanted a cuter agenda and I fell in love with the Lily Pulitzers. So, come January came the changes of my planner and my color code went crazy! This agenda came with two sets of month on two pages spreads. I used the one in the front to write one thing that happened to me during that day (sort of like a journal). My Flair pens came into play and I fell in love with organizing. The Lilly Pulitzer agendas are adorable and so cute. I would highly recommend them for any female student.

First Semester Color Code (Junior Year)

Weekly Spread: First Semester

Weekly Spread: Second Semester

Senior Year: Moleskine Agenda, Filofax Metropol
   My favorite part of back to school shopping, besides EVERYTHING, is picking a new planner. After a lot of research and thought, I decided to buy a Moleskine 18 month agenda. This was the first planner that had a different layout. This moleskine had a Week on One Page layout plus notes. Surprisingly, the smaller space rarely became an issue however after a few months, I began drawing in my own monthly views as this planner doesn't include that. I LOVED the notes section, I would write lists, track my meals, and doodle. It was a great agenda... until the filofax bug bit me.

   You guys have all seen my filofax. I have been using Mickey for six months now and I love him. I make a few tweaks occasionally but I feel like I have found a really good system for me. :) If you haven't seen my "What's in my Filofax" post, click here to have a more in depth view of what I keep in Mickey.


Well, there it is. My planners throughout my high school career. I don't plan on changing from a Filofax anytime soon but I will admit that the planner bug has bit me and I have been very eager to buy a new planner. My top two wants are a Filofax Original in Dark Aqua or really any A5 agenda in Aqua. I will admit that the Erin Condren Life Planners have caught my eye too, but I am trying to avoid changing my planning system all over again. :)

Do you have any planner walkthroughs? I'd love to see/read them. And if you guys would like a more in-depth walk through or review of any of these agendas, feel free to ask and I will love to do that for you! :D 

My planning question for you all for this week, do you have troubles finishing a full planner? As we have seen, I have yet to stick to a planning system for the past few years without getting antsy and changing something.