I know you know; I love a planner. Especially a new planner. I love a new planner more than I love planning in it. I just don’t want to mess it up. The crisp first page. The smell. The perfect pages. The promise that this is the year…

Ah, the optimism.

Then I sit down to plan, surrounded by my favorite pens, markers, highlighters, and tabs, and I stare at January as if it owes me money. What fixes that for me is the buddy system. Planning and starting is easier for me when someone else is doing it at the same table, even if it’s virtual. So this year, I looked for planner brands and paper people who opened their doors and said, “Come plan with us.” Here’s what I found:

Passion Planner: three free virtual sessions. Passion Planner runs community events all season, and almost all of them are free. Start with Celebrate Your Wins: An End-of-Year Reflection on Thursday, December 10. Then try Your 2027 Roadmap, where you name what matters most and turn it into goals. It runs twice: Thursday, December 17, and again Thursday, January 7, for those of us who don’t get around to it until the confetti’s swept up.

Cultivate What Matters: This one makes me sad. Cultivate What Matters is closing in early 2027, and the 2027 PowerSheets are their final goal planners. If you’ve ever worked through those prompts, this is your chance to do it one more time with the community that grew up around them.

Jane’s Agenda: The Annual Planning Marathon. Three sessions, 90 minutes each, printable workbook. Get instant access and work through them on your own schedule.

Cloth & Paper: Planning Ahead for Your Busiest Season. The best advice for making the next few months a bit easier and a lot more fun. And with Cloth & Paper, planning always looks polished and pulled together.

The Next First Step

Whether you plan with a crowd or alone at the kitchen table, start the same way: get everything out of your head before you write down a single goal.

I give it ten minutes. Every worry, errand, half-idea, and my to-do list goes on paper, in no particular order. Then I sort it into three piles: what belongs in January, what belongs someday, and what I can let go of. The goals are almost always hiding in the first pile. You just can’t see them until the rest is out of the way.

This year, my brain dump lives on the “Things I Need to Overthink” notepad from the BINDER Shop. The name just makes me laugh every time I see it, and laughing is a good way for me to start planning a year. I only have six remaining, so if you’re interested, they are $10, and you can get yours here.

Prompts Matter

If you’d rather plan on your own schedule, Focused Mind posts excellent prompts all season long. Here are the ones worth checking out:

From Focused Mind on Instagram:

Set up your calendar and your week

• How to organize your entire life with one calendar system (a 7-step setup)

• Create a weekly system that runs your life

• 5 days’ worth blocking out every single month

• Having goals vs. having systems

• The “Black Notebook Rule”, for those of us who still trust paper most

Reset before the year ends

• The November 30-day reset plan

• A weekend plan that resets your year, starting Friday night

• 5 simple steps to get your life together before the year ends

• 7 steps to hard reset your life before 2027

Watch the clock

• 9 weeks, 63 days left in 2026

• 70 days left in 2026

Your Turn

Here’s a scary thought: When Focused Mind posted on October 21, only 10 Mondays remained in 2026. By the time you read this, even fewer remain. So, no more “I’ll start next week.” Next week is one of the last ones we’ve got!

Don’t plan 2027 alone. Pick one event, watch one video, call a friend, or let’s sit down and plan together! We can even do it right here in our chat. Leave a comment and let me know if you’re interested.

Or feel free to try one of the suggestions above. You can’t go wrong. They’re some of my favorites!

Be honest. What’s holding your place in your book right now? A receipt? A folded corner you’re pretending you didn’t fold? We’ve all been there.

Below is the very scientific quiz for people who live life on paper (it is not scientific). Grab your favorite pen (you’ve got it nearby), answer four questions, and keep track of your letter answers.

1. It’s Saturday morning. You’re…
A. Baking something from scratch, cookbook propped open on the counter
B. Halfway through three different books, with zero plans to pick just one
C. Laughing out loud at a book in a coffee shop, as people turn to look
D. Already rearranging your planner for next week
E. In a bookstore “just to look.” (You are not just looking.)

2. Your to-read pile is…
A. Mostly cookbooks and cozy reads
B. Wildly unpredictable: a thriller, a memoir, a book about mushrooms
C. Anything that makes you snort-laugh
D. Color-coded and in order
E. Taller than you, honestly

3. Your friends would describe you as…
A. Warm and comforting
B. A little unexpected
C. The fun one
D. The one who makes things happen
E. The one who always has a book recommendation

4. Pick a snack:
A. Toast with a lot of butter
B. Something tangy and surprising
C. Whatever you’re laughing too hard to finish
D. Whatever’s fastest so you can get back to it
E. Tea, and one more chapter

Mostly A’s: Your perfect bookmark is a Stick of Butter.
You make everything better, softer, and a little more golden. You read cookbooks like novels and novels like a warm kitchen. Your bookmark should be as comforting as you are.

Mostly B’s: Your perfect bookmark is a Pickle.
Unexpected, a little zesty, and impossible to put in a box. You’ve got a book going in every room, and somehow you remember every plot. Nobody else would choose a pickle. That’s exactly why it’s yours.

Mostly C’s: Your perfect bookmark is a Silly Goose.
You don’t take life too seriously, and thank goodness. You’re the one who reads the funny part aloud whether anyone asked or not. Your bookmark should make you smile every time you open your book.

Mostly D’s: Your perfect bookmark is a Whisk.
You’re always stirring something up: plans, projects, ideas. Your planner is your happy place, and your bookmark works as hard as you do.

Mostly E’s: Your perfect bookmark is a Stack of Books.
You’re the friend everyone texts for their next read. Your to-read pile isn’t a problem; it’s a lifestyle, and you deserve a bookmark that understands.

Couldn’t pick just one? Same. That’s what the Reading List bookmarks are for.

👉 Find your bookmark in the BINDER Shop!

Paid members get 15% off everything, every day.

Tell me in the comments: which one are you? I’m a whisk, and I’m not even a little surprised.

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We’ve all been there. We buy a planner (or three) in a rush of January hope. We love the cover, the pages, the possibilities! We write our goals in our best handwriting, without a single mistake, and spend hours setting it all up. We love it! And now it sits under a stack of papers, just looking at us. (Ask me how I know!)

Not every planner lasts. Our lives change, and what we need from our planners change with them. If the planner you picked so carefully stops fitting your life, that’s not failure. That’s information.

The sooner we stop forcing it, the sooner we find what actually works. So, grab your favorite pen, colored pencil, highlighter, washi tape, or stickers, read each sentence below, and mark the ones that sound like you:

Take the quiz. Be honest. Your planner already knows.

☐ 1. You can’t remember the last time you opened it.

If the most recent entry is a dentist appointment from spring, that’s not a pause.

☐ 2. You’re planning everywhere but your planner.

Sticky notes on the fridge. A running list in your Notes app. The back of a receipt. If your real plans live somewhere else, your planner already knows it’s been replaced.

☐ 3. It’s too pretty to write in.

You’re saving the pages for “when life calms down.” Spoiler: it won’t. A planner you’re afraid to mess up is a planner you won’t use.

☐ 4. The layout fights you.

Busy days get a tiny box. Quiet weeks get big empty hourly columns staring back at you. If you’re constantly squeezing, crossing out, or skipping whole sections, the format isn’t built for how you actually live.

☐ 5. It doesn’t come with you.

Too heavy for your bag, too big for your desk, too precious to leave the house? The best planner is the one that’s there when the thought hits.

☐ 6. You feel guilty every time you see it.

Every blank week feels like a small judgment. Planning should feel like a deep breath, not a report card.

☐ 7. You’re already shopping for a new one.

You have tabs open. You’ve watched the flip-throughs. You know the paper weight of a planner you don’t even own yet. Friend, your heart has already moved on.

Your Results

0–2 CHECKS: Just a rough patch.

Every relationship has slow seasons. Try a reset: clip out the past months, add a fresh dashboard, and choose one section you’ll use every single day. Start small and see if the spark comes back.

3–5 CHECKS: Time for the talk.

Something isn’t working, but you may be able to fix it. Before you shop, figure out what’s wrong. Is it the size? The layout? Daily versus weekly? Write down what you love and what you skip. That list is your map to the right fit, whether that means new inserts or a new planner.

6–7 CHECKS: It’s time for a break. And that’s okay.

Let it go with gratitude. Move birthdays, goals, and anything important to your next system. Keep the pages that mattered. Then start fresh. You don’t have to wait for January.

Before You Commit to Your Next One

Ask yourself three questions:

1. When do I actually plan? (Morning coffee, the Sunday reset, on the go)

2. What do I need to see at a glance? (My day by the hour, my week, my month)

3. Where does it need to live? (My bag, my desk, my nightstand)

Answer those, and you’ll stop dating the wrong planners.

Breaking up with a planner doesn’t mean you’re bad at planning. It means you’re learning what works for you. And for people who live life on paper, that’s part of the journey.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

For the Flexibility Seeker
You need a planner you can take apart and rebuild as often as your life changes.

• Jane’s Agenda: My current planner, and the one I’d hand to any flexibility seeker. Discbound means pages move, swap, and disappear as needed, with no commitment to a layout that stopped working in March.

• Levenger Circa smartPlanner: A longtime discbound standard with a polished, professional feel, ideal if your planner goes to meetings with you.

For the Hour-by-Hour Crowd
You live by appointments, errands, and notes to self, and you need room for it all.

• Hobonichi Techo: A page for every day, smooth Tomoe River paper, and a whole year in one compact book.

• Passion Planner Daily: A full page each day, with built-in space for priorities and the bigger goals behind them.

For the On-the-Go Planner
Your planner lives in your tote all week, so it has to keep up without weighing you down.

• Hobonichi Weeks: Tall, slim, and pocket-friendly, with a week at a glance and space for notes beside it.

• Moleskine Weekly Notebook: Simple and sturdy, a week on the left and a lined page on the right. Lots of colors.

Finding Your Perfect Match

This is only the beginning. Our special edition, The Planner Issue, is on its way and packed with planner goodness.

I was 30, and for two years I hadn’t been running (the unhealthy kind) or looking for greener grass. I was in the best relationship I’d ever had, and I couldn’t have been happier.

At 31, I got a promotion that meant moving to a new town. Again, I couldn’t have been happier. It was only 30 minutes away, so we’d still be close to family. He decided to keep working in the town we’d left. I never questioned it.

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Fast forward to Thanksgiving, the year I turned 32. I was so settled that I was making brunch for his family and dinner for mine. I was barking orders, as I do when I’m trying to make everything perfect, and suddenly I heard my beloved say, “I’m leaving.”

Excuse me?

I’m pretty sure I asked if he’d be back before his family arrived. He cleared that misunderstanding up quickly. He was LEAVING, as in, he had met someone.

Excuse me?!

The survivor in me came out. I pushed the phone into his chest and told him to call his family. Brunch was off. I turned off the oven, tossed his keys out the door, and told him I never wanted to see him again. And since this was long before anyone worked from home, I never had to.

Now, at 59, I think I’m seeing things a bit more clearly.

He told me back then that the person he “met” was a dental hygienist. In the town we moved from. The town he never really left.

I didn’t let myself put the pieces together back then, or for decades after. But recently I remembered something:

I mean, really, did I honestly believe he needed that many cleanings?! He never, not once, complained of a toothache. And why would anyone choose to drive hours a day, every day, for years, when he could work close to home?

Maybe THIS is the wisdom that comes with aging:

Twenty-seven years later, the fog of self-preservation (or denial?) has lifted. Back then, I never in a million years would have thought he’d cheat on me. Now I think he was cheating the whole time we were together! Right? Am I right?

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In a Substack note yesterday, I shared a photo of my large “work” monitor looming behind my bright, sunny, smaller “home” monitor. In that post, I yammered on about how much I enjoy moving my small monitor in front of my large screen because that means it’s time to relax, create, not watch the clock, and, finally, do what I want to do. It’s how I fix what’s wrong with my 5-day work week: No creativity. No fun. No coloring. No non-technical reading or writing. All business. Politics galore.

That weekly monitor shuffle describes and illustrates my entire work life. I went to university to teach elementary school. Then I got married, had a beautiful baby, and divorced before she left Pre-K. Raising my daughter on a teacher’s salary was out of the question. So, I started applying for higher-paying jobs. I applied for and was offered a marketing position. I was thrilled. It sounded fun! It wasn’t. The role was in a very technical field, and fun wasn’t part of the job description. In fact, the work was very prescriptive. I am Gen X, so we were taught/learned/heard that you don’t change professions or jobs unless things are bad. Really bad.

So, I stuck with it, and twenty-plus years later I’m still in the industry. I was promoted to Vice President, so there’s that. I am proud of this accomplishment, given I had no degree or formal education in this field (I would argue elementary education was perfect training, but that’s another post). What I do have is no work-life balance; I’m a workaholic; I rarely leave the house; coffee is my favorite food; headaches are a way of life; and I am on conference calls for work way more than I talk with my family.

Very shortly after that promotion to VP, I decided it was time to “fix” things. For all the reasons I just listed plus more, I had had it. So, what did I do to fix it? I reached out to colleagues who knew me professionally and said:

Seemed reasonable. And, well, that is exactly what I got. Sort of.

For several years now, I have worked at a firm where many people still do not know my name, let alone my capabilities or experience. People, most half my age, teach me skills in areas I used to lead. And, once they see I can do the work, they pile more responsibilities on me than I had as a VP. So, did I fix things? Nope. Do I look forward to weekends and moving that smaller home monitor in front of my ridiculously large work monitor so I can do all the creative, fun, delightful, life-saving activities I love? More. than. ever.

So, what’s my next big idea to fix my work situation? Convince my husband to fund my existence for two, maybe seven, years (until I retire) so I can work full-time on my magazine. I think it’s my best idea yet. He doesn’t think so…

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When I first started dreaming about BINDER Magazine, the idea was pretty simple: create the kind of magazine I would want to read and flip through, over and over. One all about planners. Then I realized planners were only part of it.

Because the people who love planners usually also love planning, go figure, right? And they like journals, stationery, notebooks, books, pens, stickers, paper, lists, writing, reading, creating, organizing, collecting, and sometimes buying one more notebook when they already have twelve perfectly good ones sitting at home.

So, BINDER got bigger. Not bigger just for the sake of being bigger. It simply started becoming what I think it was supposed to be all along: A magazine for people who live life on paper.

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Inside the magazine

BINDER will include a mix of features, interviews, reviews, trends, inspiration, favorite finds, conversations, and stories about the people shaping the paper world.

Some pieces will be practical. One of my personal favorites is introducing you to a creator or company you may not know yet. Some will be about the things we use, like planners, journals, pens, books, the types of paper, stickers, and all the tools we convince ourselves are absolutely necessary. Because they absolutely are.

And some will simply be about us. Why we plan. Where we plan. What we write down. Why certain notebooks matter to us. Why opening a brand-new planner in January, or September, if you’re one of those people, is far more exciting than it probably should be.

This is where my reader surveys come in, and I hope you’ll take a minute to fill them out when they pop up. Your answers will help shape who BINDER features and what we explore next.

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The Sections

I organized BINDER into recurring sections, so every issue feels familiar while still leaving room to discover new things. Here are the areas you can expect to see:

PLAN
Your planner, your systems, your way. This is where we cover setups and spreads, systems that actually work, planner reviews, and seasonal and goal planning. We show real pages, not perfect ones.

PEOPLE
The faces behind the pages. Creator profiles, small makers, everyday heroes, community spotlights, and reader setups. We give extra love to the people who don’t always get the spotlight.

READ
Books for paper people. Book picks, author interviews, reading journals, and book club. If a book is the reason you picked up a pen, the story belongs here.

WRITE
The written life. Journaling, letters and snail mail, writing prompts, and the joy and mess of putting words on paper.

CREATE
Making things with paper. Art, collage, lettering, DIY, and every creative project that starts with a blank page and a little nerve.

FINDS
The things we couldn’t wait to show you. New releases, product reviews, stationery hauls, gift guides, and events worth knowing about.

The features are about real people

One thing you will notice right away is that BINDER doesn’t only feature the biggest companies everyone already knows. Of course, we’ll talk and feature our favorite brands and well-known creators.

That’s why you’ll see reader surveys, questions, and open calls for features. I want BINDER to be something we build with the community, not just something you read.

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And yes…there will is be a shop!

This part makes me ridiculously excited. I’m already my best customer!

It’s OPEN! The plan is for the BINDER Shop to become a curated place for some of the things we discover along the way: planners, paper goods, stationery, accessories, and products from creators and brands within this community.

I don’t want it to become a giant everything-store. I want it to feel like someone already wandered through the paper world, found the good stuff, and put it in one place. I would love for BINDER to give independent makers another place to introduce and sell their work. I would love for you to stop in, check it out, and let me know what you think.

The BINDER Shop

How subscriptions will work

There will always be a way to be part of BINDER for free.

Free subscribers get the full magazine. That means every issue, every section, and every story, with no paywall in the way. And you’re invited to shop at the BINDER Shop.

Paid subscribers ($6/month or $55/year) are the readers who want to support BINDER and get a little something back. Paid members get 15% off everything in the BINDER Shop.

Founding Members ($165/year) are the people saying, essentially: I believe in this. Keep going. Founding Members get the 15% shop discount and free shipping on every order, any size, every day. Their names also appear on the Founding Members page in every issue, so they’re recognized as supporters of BINDER and the creative community we’re building.

(Free shipping on orders over $60 is open to everyone in the shop.)

I made the whole magazine free on purpose. I don’t want BINDER to become a place where every interesting thing costs money. I want people to discover us first.

Then, if you love what we’re doing and want to help it grow, you can choose to support it.

And then there’s the actual magazine

Substack is BINDER’s official website. It gives BINDER a place to publish between issues, have conversations, ask questions, introduce people, and let the community grow in real time.

But the larger vision includes curated BINDER issues, something that feels intentional, collected, and worth sitting down to read. Page after page of people, stories, ideas, and things I have spent my life researching.

Honestly? This may be the most fun I’ve ever had building something.

And we’re just getting started. So, if you’re here early, thank you.

You’re not simply subscribing to something that’s finished. You’re watching BINDER become BINDER.

And thank you for helping me build it. xoxo -Kath

I was in my late 20s when I got my very first planner. It was a Franklin Planner (now Franklin Covey), and I still remember how important I felt being selected for the training, which included the planner. I was obsessed with the training, the trainer, the planner, the pen, the page finder, the catalog of additional supplies, everything.

We were given a box with a planner and planning system and taught how to organize our days, prioritize tasks, plan ahead, and somehow fit an entire life onto those little pages. I loved every single minute of that training. It couldn’t last long enough. I wondered how I had survived my twenty-something years without a planner and, certainly, a system. Where had this system been all my life??

Something about opening that planner box and seeing everything laid out in front of me clicked immediately. Beautiful pages for Appointments. Tasks. Notes. Goals. Things I needed to remember. Things I absolutely would not remember unless I wrote them down.

It all had a place. And once I learned the system, I was hooked. At first, I think I loved Franklin because it made me feel organized. I had GOALS! But then, I discovered the covers…That changed EVERYTHING.

Suddenly, my planner wasn’t just something I carried because I needed it. It could be beautiful. It could have a gorgeous leather cover. It could be an accessory. Something personal. Something that said a little bit about me before I ever opened it. And that was all it took.

The relationship had begun. I’ve had as many planner covers as shoes and bags (impossible to count). I’ve used different sizes, layouts, brands, inserts, notebooks, pens, stickers, tabs, and systems. My planning style has changed probably a hundred times - sometimes in a month. So has my life.

There were years when my planner was packed with work meetings, deadlines, school schedules, appointments, bills, and things that absolutely had to get done.

There were other years when it held dreams, ideas, lists, plans for the future, and things I was still trying to figure out. Sometimes it made me productive. Sometimes it just made me feel better. And sometimes, if we’re being truthful, I spent more time setting up the planner than actually doing the things I had carefully written inside it.

I suspect I’m not alone there. That first Franklin planner started something I certainly didn’t recognize at the time. I didn’t realize planners would become this entire world. I didn’t know there would someday be planner communities, beautiful inserts, sticker shops, dashboards, washi tape, decorative spreads, planner YouTube channels, Instagram accounts, and people happily discussing paper weight and pen bleed like these are perfectly normal dinner-table topics.

For some of us, planners stopped being just productivity tools a long time ago. They became part journal, part memory keeper, part creative outlet, part security blanket, and part promise to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, we can get our lives together this week. If not this week, certainly the next. We just need a plan.

It’s the people who design them. The people who make the stickers and inserts. The people who sit down at a kitchen table with coffee and map out their week. The journalers. The list makers. The stationery lovers. The people who have twelve pens beside them because each one has a different job.

It’s the rituals, the creativity, the products, the stories, and the community built around putting our lives on paper. And I wanted one place that celebrated all of it.

That is what I want BINDER Magazine to be. Not just a magazine about planners, but a magazine about the people, creators, ideas, products, habits, and stories that make up this wonderfully obsessive paper world.

A place to discover something new. A place to hear from the people creating the things we love to obsess over. A place to talk about why we plan, how we plan, and why something as simple as paper can mean so much to us.

In a way, BINDER feels like the next chapter of something that started all those years ago with that first Franklin planner. Mine started with Franklin. And even after all these years, seeing an old Franklin planner takes me right back to that first one. The pages. The system. That feeling of possibility when you opened to a fresh day.

You never forget your first. Franklin was mine. And planning has become one of the longest relationships of my life. I never learned how I got selected to attend that training, but it was one of my defining moments, and I’m so grateful I did.

What was your first planner?

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I originally joined Substack because of BINDER, the magazine I’m building for people like me, who love planners, paper, creativity, and the whole world that surrounds them.

I was not looking for another social media platform. I was looking for my people.

Planner people. Writers. Creators. Small brands. People making beautiful things. People building something from an idea. People who still get ridiculously excited about paper.

Does Substack start to understand me based on the writers and publications I interact with? If I intentionally follow people whose work overlaps with the world I’m trying to build around BINDER Magazine, will I naturally begin finding more of that community? And maybe more interestingly, will they begin finding me?

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For some people, planning is a quiet Sunday ritual. For others, it happens five minutes before the day starts. Or, like me lately, in between meetings and during lunch, at my desk.

So tell me: where do you plan?

And tell me what’s usually beside you when you plan: coffee, stickers, books, headphones, snacks, all of the above?

I’m collecting answers for BINDER, and I’d love to hear your planning plans and how you plan.

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Not just the products. The people behind them. The PLANNER PEOPLE. The JOURNALERS. The READERS. The WRITERS. The MAKERS. The CREATIVES. The people who still get excited about a fresh notebook, a new pen, a stack of books, a beautiful planner, or an idea they can’t wait to put on paper.

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That’s what BINDER is about.

Here on Substack, we’ll share stories, interviews, our favorite finds, conversations, behind-the-scenes looks at the magazine, and there will be plenty of opportunities for you to tell me what you’re loving, using, reading, planning, and creating.

BINDER is an independent magazine, but I don’t want it to feel like something created at you. I want it to feel like something we’re building together. So, if you’re here early, thank you. Truly. You’re helping shape what BINDER becomes. I want you to be part of it. I want you to be in it.

And before I let you go, please take a moment to answer our short Reader Survey and tell me what you’d love to see here.

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Welcome to BINDER! I can’t wait to meet you.

Kathryn (Kath), the “I’m so excited” Editor behind BINDER Magazine