Dutch Door Layout - Perfect for Vacation Journaling

Next week is Thanksgiving, and many of us are off work, or traveling to visit family and friends. This may have you wanting to depart from a typical "structured" weekly layout, and use something a little more flexible to help capture memories. 

A good solution in your DIY Planner is a Dutch Door Layout:

The Dutch Door Layout allows you to use a consistent header across multiple pages. Because the functional planner space is slightly less than you would normally get from a full page, it makes sense to use this for atypical weeks where your time isn't quite as structured.

I used my HP Sprocket to easily create a really fun mosaic with a picture from our trip last year. I'm even bringing my photo printer with so I can print photos each day to add them to my planner!

Where are you going on your next vacation?

MATERIALS USED (the following contains affiliate links, which do not increase an item's cost to you, but does pay me a small fee if you are so kind as to make a purchase based on my recommendations).

Planner - Leuchtturm 1917 Dot Grid Planner, Hard Cover

Brush Pens (Large) - Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pens, there is also a nice Starter Kit here

Brush Pens (Small) - Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen, FLEXIBLE TIP

Photo Printer - HP Sprocket Photo Printer, I also recommend buying extra photo packs right away, as printing is addictive 😂

DIY Planner Daily Time Blocking Layout

I recently was inspired by a blog post from one of the most creative DIY Planners I've come across: Whitney from Life by Whitney. This blog post has DIY Planner layouts for how to be more productive. 

I felt like it was the perfect layout to help organize a SUPER busy week for me

I modified the layout slightly in that I didn't give each hour an equal space. There are times of the day when I'm more productive, and times when I'm not that productive 😅. Thus, it made sense to make some rows taller than others. 

While I filled in this layout for the purposes of a video, the actual implementation involved:

• Sunday Night I outlined the grid including rows for hours and columns for days (I also made Saturday & Sunday less wide than weekday columns too).
• Each morning while I had my coffee (first thing I do in the AM) I would pencil in on the right-side of that day what I wanted to work on for each "chunk" of time.
• Every few hours I'd go into my planner and use a pen to color code my activities to show what I *actually* was working on for that time block.

That's it! My days are pretty crazy, so I would just use each morning to plan my day. If your days are more predictable, you could complete your week in one sitting and save even more time planning your productivity.

What do you think of Whitney's layout? 

Easily Add Photos to Your DIY Planner

Today on Instagram I posted a Friday Introduction Page from my DIY Planner, and I was able to add photo to really make it pop.

My Secret Weapon: an HP Sprocket! It makes adding photos to my DIY Planner so easy. It uses photos directly from my phone, so I don't have to choose between an instant photo or taking a shot on my phone. There are two drawbacks though: 1) The photos tend to print a little on the "pink" side, so I adjust the tint before I print (which is VERY easy to do) and 2) I recommend taking any extra photo sheets out of the printer when you're done. I left some in the printer for a couple weeks unused, and they were too "curled" to print properly.

I went thru my first pack of photo prints SO FAST I also recommend you order extra photo packs too - printing photos is kind of addicting 😂 .

MATERIALS USED (the following contains affiliate links, which do not increase an item's cost to you, but does pay me a small commission if you are so kind as to make a purchase based on my recommendations)

Photo Printer: HP Sprocket , uses an app to print photos quickly and easily

Photo Paper: ZINK Photo Paper, the printer doesn't use ink, so you DO need to use special paper to print photos

Brush Pens: Pentel Touch Sign Pens, FLEXIBLE TIP to be able to produce thick and thin strokes