A Student and a Pen Walk Into a Planner Bar…

It’s FINALLY that time of the year- the Erin Condren Academic Planner will be available to order on Tuesday, June 7th! If you’ve been following me on Instagram or YouTube, you’ll know that I was introduced to Erin Condren planners through the Academic Planner. I was drawn to it since the bigger spaces for weekdays are made for students and it has a price tag to match.

The summer is great not only because I’m spending some time out of the classroom, but it also means starting fresh in my LifePlanner and moving into my new AP. Since I’ll have some decisions to make on AP launch day, I thought I’d take a look back at my school planning from 2019 until now.

Sometimes I like to think that my planning hasn’t changed much in the last few years, but then I flip through my old planners and realize I’m in a different place when it comes to life and organization.

I’ve probably got a similar story to most everyone that’s reading this- I used the generic agendas I received for free throughout grade school to keep track of all of my homework assignments, projects, and extracurricular activities. (Yes, this was always necessary since I was just as hyper involved in all the clubs and activities as I am now.) Once I started undergrad (GKCO!), I had to start finding my own agendas and really started thinking about what I liked in a planner. Being that I was still a student, even $20 for an agenda for the year felt like too much to spend. I just needed a space for my daily brain dumps. I knew how to study, but was still forgetful about the day-to-day things. And brain dump I did, as you can see.

My planner circa 2019-2020 school year

Horizontal planning is love, life, and liberty for my busy mind. I was never really one for an agenda with lots of frills in the individual pages since they could be distracting from my big handwriting in my even larger 8.5” x 11” planner. It’s so crazy to think about, especially since using a 7” x 9” agenda feels perfect for me now. Towards the end of the year of pharmacy school that started off with this Mead agenda from Target, I started thinking about going out to get a new planner as usual.

At this point, the COVID-19 pandemmy threw the whole world’s plans for a loop and you know all the things that happened next. You were either baking a new flavor of bread each week, organizing a (much needed) BLM protest, or just trying to keep it together at home. I took the third route, turning to various areas of self-improvement including planning to keep my sanity during such a strange time.

My first Erin Condren Academic Planner with watercolor cover

One Google search led to a blog, led to a website, and I had my Erin Condren Academic Planner with a watercolor cover headed my way in two weeks. I didn’t even know at the time that I was ordering soon after the ECLP launch day. Trying a slightly different layout on paper that felt good to write on and flip through with understated page designs and personalized cover had me sold.

From that June in 2020, my planning has continued to evolve as I’ve needed for that specific quarter of school or even the week. I was now using my agenda in a way that helped me better leverage my daily planner and combine all my to-do list stragglers into one organized place.

These days my Academic Planner doesn’t get as much screen time on my social media since I keep it fairly plain Jane with a stronger focus on productivity than trying to keep up with the planner Joneses. Even with it being more straight to the point, I really wanted to connect with other EC AP friends and decided it was time to have a space for all the AP talk and sharing ideas on how to make it work best for you. Then came the Facebook group I created for this purpose.

The Erin Condren Academic Planner has been a great beginning to a wild ride into virtu-meeting planner friends, joining the #ECSquad, and holding my life together with a Pilot G2 pen and 180# paper. I can’t wait to continue the journey on 6/7 when the new agendas go live on the EC website.

What keeps you coming back to the EC Academic Planner each year? What’s something you want to know or need to help you make even better use of EC AP? Share your thoughts in the comments here or over in my Erin Condren Academic Planner Inspiration Station group.