{Planner Review} My Month with Scattered Squirrel
I finished all of October using the free Scattered Squirrel printable planner pages. While it was hard not having my Bullet Journal (I ran out of pages in my 2021 Bullet journal) I got into the swing of things fairly well with Scattered Squirrel and think if I HAD to use something other than a bullet journal this might work just fine.
The picture above shows the two different versions of the monthly planning sheet. I loved them both. The page on the left was a bit more detailed for planning. The page on the right had a dot grid section on the bottom for me to make a menu plan which was really helpful. (Please excuse the picture quality, I’m working on getting better at lighting and making them more clear.)
I also love the weekly planning page options. The one above was a more simple view, which I liked the best. But if you have a lot of appointments to keep track of, my second favorite weekly page below might work better for you.
And this very simple daily page (on the right below) ended up being a winner for me. I love the time block down the left side and then 4 sections on the right, along with a “top three” at the top of the page. It was very versatile for lists, projects, etc.
Overall, if you are on a very tight budget but want to be more organized and better at planning, Scattered Squirrel is awesome. All of her pages are available for free, and they all have full size and half page options. Working in a binder was NOT my favorite, but if you printed out the pages for each quarter or half year and had them spiral bound, it would be very affordable.
And now, the time I’ve been dreading… you get to see how I did on my habits this month. They STUNK. I have no excuses other than I just didn’t want to do most of them… sigh. But, November is a fresh new month, and I can try again. Progress not perfection, right?
Let me know if you’ve tried Scattered Squirrel and what you thought. Or what works best for you. Later this week I’m going to introduce you to the planner I’ll be using for November. And I have to say, it is BEAUTIFUL! It’s a Hopefuel planner and I am excited to share it with you!
I have used Scattered Squirrel! I incorporated lots of pages and printed it all out. I am *terrible* about using planners, so I can’t give a great review, but I love her color choices. I’ve often used her half-sized monthly calendars in my bullet journals. I do the best with a bullet journal over all though.
I love my planner from Christian Planner. Each two page weekly spread had the “top 3” and a space for the daily habits. I appreciate the space for sermon notes, budgeting and monthly planning too. I’ve bought them for a few years and they keep getting better 🙂
I love the idea of a DIY planner. My one BIG complaint about diy planners is the assumed “print it out” experience that I seem to over complicate the process… but back to back printing of a planning calendar is not the same as “just print it out” in my experience… I want to make sure the entire month is laid open to plan on and not have on part of the month print on the same back to back page🙄. Maybe this is just me… but a as a teacher, I cannot take that risk of time use and paper resources!
This system was too fussy for me. Overwhelmed with all of the choices and having to print out pages and put them all together in some semblence of order just didn’t work for me. I have been a Franklin Planner gal for many years. The structure is built-in and I can easily add pages for art and various other things as I have want or need. I also like the ability to switch out the pages with yearly refills and reuse the binder. =) I guess I’m a creature of habit and not very advetureous!
Kari, I often think the more I read your blog, the more we are alike! Habits are something I have been working steadfast on lately. The key for me is baby steps. Too many habits to start with leads to not getting hardly any of them done. I wish I was more like you in the doodle skills. If I were, I would probably like the bullet journal more. But, I find I spend too much time thinking about the placement and aesthetic appearance than making it work for me. I took a look at the Scattered Squirrel, but was overwhelmed with choices. Since I seem to be a collector of planners, I was inspired to go back and make one work. I’m using the SOS Planner, by Anchored Women. It has already been organized so that I can just PRINT and it comes out with proper open layout. I’ll be watching to find out how the Homeschool Self works out. Its something I always wanted to do after finishing with my boys.
hahaha, that is the exact planner I’ll be using and reviewing next month! I used it successfully in 2017 when I was homeschooling all three boys and it was perfect. I see that she has updated it since then and has lots of options, which is again kind of overwhelming, but I’m looking forward to trying it again!
The SOS Planner may seem overwhelming with 10 choices, but if you have a preference, you can easily eliminate those that won’t fit the criteria. I only need a weekly layout, so immediately eliminated several of the options. I also find “Inspired to Action” and “Planner Obsessed” have good options for some.