Setting up my Blogging planner in my Kikki K Gold A5

Hello Batlings!

I hope your 2015 is looking really lovely! I have settled back into work, and into my studies and my home hobby business for the year and it feels like I had never had a holiday!

Today's post is about my new Kikki K gold planner and how I set it up to keep myself organised with my two blogs! Empress Bat's Journal (this blog) and Apothecary Greens (my blog about herbalism and alternative therapies).  If you are interested in my other planner related posts and my free printables, please have a look at the page where I have put all my planner related post links.

Note, I have not yet 'prettied' up the planner as I have only just set it up! I will do an update to this post once it is all pretty with stickers and washi and doodles!!

Personalise planners to work for you!

Remember using planners, binders, notebooks, diaries, and sticky notes, is all about what works for you! So work out a system that makes sense and that you know you can use to be more productive, less stressed, and organised!

I use multiple 'planner binders', but they are not all used as diaries/calendars.  They are used as conveniently sized project binders, each has a different use, and each works well for me, with my diary as the 'hub' of operations!

Blog Planner Set Up

1. I took everything out of the Kikki K planner, I sold the refill papers to another planner fan, and started to sort the A5 ring binder in the manner that makes sense to me. 

gutted the Kikki K planner

2. On some scrap paper I worked out what I needed in a blog planner book. I ended up with needing seven sections: schedule, information, blog 1, blog2, to do, inspiration, and tools.
Happily the Kikki K planner came with seven dividers, I just need to change the tab titles!

3. With my trusty Dymo Labeller, I made labels on some cool silver metallic tape.  Then as I was telling myself how cool the labels looked, I realised I had made them too big...so I altered the font to small and tried again!!

Making my own tab labels

Newly labelled dividers back in the planner

3. For the SCHEDULE section, I used the Kikki K month to two pages, I will write in the boxes when i need to draft a post or load up a post and other important blog type things i need to know dates of.

For Apothecary Green is use a green pen, and for this Empress Bat's Journal I use a purple pen. (my colour key is on the right hand side of the page)

4. Using some file cards in large size, i punched holes in them to fit in my planner, and wrote my sites and what they are on them. Example '' @empressbat | twitter | social media"

These cards will be in my 'Information' section, as they contain the sites I use for blogging and social media, and any guest bloggers and their blogs. Basically handy information I can get at a glance!

file cards to use in my planner

5. the next two sections are called Blog One and Blog Two and are for Empress Bat's Journal and Apothecary Greens respectively. In this section I use note paper with holes punched in the sides.  My brain dump for my blogs goes in these two sections. Blog ideas, what aims I have for each blog or post, how to increase my audience, drafts of future posts, all that kind of stuff!

6. To Do: the to do section has things I need to get done, a memo section of things i need to do, for example: contact my guest blogger..hint hint Madame Monstrous of Zentangle Creations, and fix up my templates... notes of things that once done can be discarded.

7. Inspiration: In this section I have pages with pockets, I stash magazine pages, and stickers and all sorts of items that inspire me for my blog posts! I also have printouts of information I may wish to refer to later when composing a blog.

I make the pages with card stock and washi tape to create pockets.

one of my pages with pockets! Some inspiration cards are in this pocket

8. Tools: this has pages about how to make a blog sparkle (like the Blog Ready Challenge by Raine of Lime Tree Fruits); as well as information on search engine optimisation, and HTML and CSS for formatting websites.

9. Page Lifter: I used two pieces of metallic gold card, cut to A5 size, and washi taped together, to create a page lifter for the back of my planner pages, to stop my pages curling up when I shut the binder.  The card stock was doubled to ensure it is thick and heavy, and I made the holes larger than normal so it can move freely in the binder. This helps it to act effectively as a page lifter.

Page lifters stop your pages getting all curled up when you close your binder! They are easy to make form stiff card stock, make sure you make the holes for the rings larger than usual so the page can move freely.

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