In Search of an Ideal Planner, Part I

Years ago when Etsy was a community of makers and the admin staff was encouraged to foster friendly relations with them, they would host little in-person gatherings in the cities and towns where employees travelled to visit family at the end of the year. They called these meetups Home for the Holidays, and Etsy shop keepers could register to attend if there was one in your locale. 

The one I remember was in December 2012, and I can recall the year because they gave out nifty little planner notebooks to all who attended.

I thought it was the neatest thing. I wrote my shop name on the front and used it for all kinds of notes, plans, stats, and analysis pertaining to my Etsy shop for a few years. I entered sales and views numbers, and tracked how my business was growing year over year on the platform. Looking back on it now, 12 years and immense growth and countless administrative changes at Etsy later (including new owners and becoming a publicly traded business), I am reminded of how different the experience of being an Etsy maker-seller is now, and how much my sales have declined since then. 

But I just wanted to say that I never got another planner from them, which is why I kept using it for 3 or more years. In fact, I've not seen another planner quite like it anywhere and that's what led me to start tinkering with making my own.

What I liked about it was its compact size (5"w x 6.5"h), spiral binding, and simple, flexible design. Each month opened on a two-page spread with holidays noted, followed by weekly pages that had the days on one side and a facing page that was finely gridded, so you could use it however you wanted. That's why I could keep notes and stats and sometimes sketch product design ideas for a few years.

As a very small-time operator and completely hands-on maker, I set out to design a planner that I could print at home and make myself from start to finish. That meant the size had to work with letter-size paper, to avoid excessive trimming and waste, so I made the pages 4.25"w x 5.5"h to print four on each side of a sheet on my Canon laser printer, which will print two-sided automatically. 

At first I would make only one, beginning in 2015. I was just focused on the logistics of making it and figuring what kind of hand-sewn binding I wanted to use. I experimented and played around with them for a few years, always just making a test document for myself. 

When I finally made a few to sell, in 2019 (for 2020) I used a through-the-spine criss-cross type of binding, which was a little complicated to execute, but allowed the book to open fully and lay flat for ease of use. It was a slim volume and probably contained too much information and not enough space for writing. My records indicate that I sold three of them.

(It was the Year of the Rat, hence the rodent theme.)

By the most recent version, for 2024 (Year of the Dragon), I had pared down the extra information and added more pages for user notes, increased the page count to 128, and assembled it with the same criss-cross binding through the spine, but with more signatures, which was a bit fussy to execute.

Well, earlier this year (2024), I learned of a printer near me, Smart Set, that was popular with a few artists I knew, employed eco-friendly practices (recycled papers, plant-based toner), is a certified B corporation and a union shop. I had been reluctant to consider using an outside printer, but these guys ticked all the boxes for me. 

Still, one of the reasons for my hesitation is that I am not a pro graphic designer and I was pretty sure that the way I set up my documents to print at home would not translate well to a print shop. The calendar itself, in two formats, required only moderate changes in how I set up the documents, and they printed beautifully. 

But the planner was more complicated: It would take quite a bit of time for me to create the document on my computer, which needed to be very different from how I had done it before, and it would cost quite a bit more than printing the calendars. I checked my previous year's sales records — about a dozen of them sold, some only after they were discounted — and I realized I just couldn't do it. 

Frankly, it was a relief to just pull the plug on that. But my husband and a handful of others had really liked my little planner, and I still wanted something small and flexible for my own use. So I began looking for a planner that met my criteria, and while I did find something that will serve for 2025, the search has renewed my urge to design my own. Now that I have a good idea of what's involved, including the cost, I just might have another go at it for 2026.

In the meantime, here's what I found and recommend in Planners Part II.