My toxic trait—if we’re being honest—is buying planners and bullet journals with all the pretty highlighters and pens. My intention is always the same: to be creative, organized, and motivated. I carefully design each page with categories that make me feel like I have my life together—habit trackers, color-blocked schedules, daily, weekly, and monthly to-do lists.
Every couple of months, I get consistent again. I schedule time to create new pages for the month, then diligently fill them in at the end of each week.
And then—inevitably—I lose interest. It becomes time-consuming, and the planners end up sitting in a filing cabinet with all the other abandoned systems I was once convinced would change my life. I’ve probably spent hundreds of dollars on journals and accessories that now exist purely as evidence of good intentions.
The other weekend, I walked into a cute stationery store with a couple of friends and immediately beelined toward the shiny things. Cute printed papers. Matching folders. Pens that whispered, Treat yourself.
Unfortunately, my frontal cortex announced out loud, “I have an addiction to buying stationery and then not using it.”
My friends heard it. They understood the assignment.
They started making fun of me with passive-aggressive digs that were both insulting and wildly accurate. I walked out without buying any planners. Instead, I bought a coloring book… for myself… which also came with pretty markers. That was the compromise between the logical side of my brain and the impulsive one.
To be fair, I actually use the coloring book. I bring it to appointments where I have to wait around. Sometimes I color at home when I don’t want to scroll on my phone, don’t want to watch TV, and desperately need silence. It turns out it’s very therapeutic.
Anyway—back to planners.
When I stop using one, the only thing keeping me organized is the calendar on my phone. And what I’ve learned about myself is this: if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. Even when the calendar widget is front and center on my Home Screen, I still manage to underestimate how busy my days really are.
That’s why the physical, color-blocked calendar matters to me.
The to-do list is the most important part. Somewhere between motherhood and getting older, my brain stopped reliably holding information. Without a list, I’m aimless. With one, I either feel accomplished by the end of the day—or annoyed that I missed something obvious.
The habit tracker was helpful too, though mostly as a way to pat myself on the back for doing things I was already trying to do: work out, drink water, take my vitamins, eat like a responsible adult.
When I notice myself slipping into self-sabotage mode, that’s usually when I try to return to the planner—but in its most stripped-down form. No colors. No art. Just a messy list for the day. It’s my attempt at swimming back to shore when my legs are already tired.
At that point, I’ll either commit to the list or ignore it entirely.
It’s probably something worth unpacking in therapy.
More Than Shower Thoughts 
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