Wasted 6 months on fancy layouts until I tried the minimalist approach

I was spending 45 minutes every night decorating my journal with washi tape and doodles, but then I stripped it down to just dots and lines and my actual task completion rate doubled. Has anyone else found that simpler spreads actually work better for staying on track?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_bailey12d ago

The "45 minutes decorating" part hits hard. I spent a whole weekend once cutting out little magazine pictures to make a vision board in my planner and then never opened that planner again. It's funny how making something pretty can actually make it harder to use for its actual purpose.

derekjenkins12d ago

Ha, yeah that's fair. But I'm actually gonna push back a little here. I think the decorating part is half the fun for some of us, and it doesn't have to ruin the planner's usefulness. The key is to keep the pretty stuff contained to a few pages or a separate section so the main planning space stays clean and easy to use. I do my decorating on a cover page or a monthly spread, then keep my weekly layouts bare bones. Doesn't that let you have the best of both worlds?

jamie_white12d ago

Yeah, the "best of both worlds" thing sounds good on paper. My buddy Tom tried that approach, spent three hours making a cover page that looked like a Wes Anderson movie set. Then he got busy at work, skipped a week, and the whole thing sat there like a failed art project. He said looking at the bare weekly spreads just reminded him of the fancy stuff he didn't have time for. Guess it works for some people @derekjenkins but Tom's planner is still collecting dust in his glove box.