As great as planners are, they can be cost prohibitive–especially when many sizes are proprietary, meaning brands can’t be mixed.
Last week, I mentioned buying a Recollections brand planner from my local Michaels to organize my writing, and I have to say I love the planner. Recollections is a Michaels store brand, meaning the empty planners are cheaper right out the gate than some alternatives. They’re sturdy, most have nice rings and good snaps, and since they use a standard six ring arrangement, they can be used with Filofax inserts.
The only problem there is that the Recollections planner is wider, meaning Filofax inserts look weirdly narrow, waste precious space, and are more expensive than the Recollections brand inserts, which I found limiting in selection. So what are you to do?
Make your own inserts, of course.
Recollections planners take a sheet that’s 4 x 6.75 inches. Many print shops can cut a standard sheet of computer paper to this size for you, though I cut my own at home. An 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper will yield 3 pieces for this planner, if cut properly; two sheets aligned vertically and one sheet aligned horizontally.
Once you have the right size of paper, you can print these PDF files at home, saving yourself a bundle in the process. So here are the templates I’ve created, with images to show what they look like. Links to the PDFs will be at the bottom of the post. Most templates include front and back versions of the pages to align margins correctly, because my printer, um… doesn’t. To print front and back, just print x number of copies of page 1, flip them over, and repeat with page 2.
The To-Do list
Month on two pages
Days are unmarked because some people prefer to start the week with Monday instead of Sunday, or want the notes column on the left, so this offers built-in versatility.
Year on two pages
Numbered lined pages
Front is 1-29, back is 30-58. I wanted 30 on each page, but it didn’t fit. Oh well.
Lined note pages
Graph paper
Quarter inch square graph paper.
Basic character reference sheet
This one’s for writers. On this one I decided to keep it to the bare minimum. The “notes” section leaves plenty of room for special commentary. I omitted a space for character gender because if you really need to write it down, you likely have bigger problems.
Basic setting reference sheet
Another one for writers. Pretty self-explanatory; can be used for made-up regions or real ones. Again, the notes section leaves plenty of space for any forms missing.
That’s all for right now, but I’m sure I’ll make more in the future.
PDFs to download
- To-do list
- Month on two pages
- Year on two pages
- Numbered lined page 1
- Numbered lined page 2
- Lined pages
- Graph paper
- Basic character reference sheet
- Basic setting reference sheet
Happy planning!