How to Organize your Monthly Planner

If anyone is like me, you can't live without a planner. I swear I look at mine about 10 times a day. I keep everything in this baby. From work, to bills, to blog post, to birthdays. Nothing is going to slide past me! The specific planner I have isn't my favorite, but my organization has really seemed to work great for me the last few years, so is love to share some tips with you. 

Here is a view of March. It's slap dab full. 

Here is April, which isn't over yet so it definitely has some room to go. 

And here is May, which you can see is pretty clean so far. 

My first recommendation, is a post it note with all of monthly bills, which hangs out in the top left corner. At the beginning of the month, I write a list of everything that is due, and as the bills come I write the amounts. There's a few which I know will be the same every month and I can go ahead and jot those down. This helps me keep a better picture of all of the finances. I write the totals on this list, and I write the bill on the due date with the total as well, as shown below. 

As these bills are paid, I will write PAID in black ink, with the date I paid it above. 

I then bring in a few of my extras. Washi tape and post it notes! 

I use washi tape to cover the important dates. 

As you can see, all of my pay days are marked with washi tape, and with a post it note beside the date. The post it notes mark all of the bills that need to be paid with that specific pay check. I again, with put the totals on this list as I receive the bills. I also have a money total on every Friday. My boyfriend and I are a doing the weekly savings, found on Pinterest and this keeps my reminder of how much is due each week. I check the amounts off as I put the money in our savings. 

I have other days marked with different tape, as you see above. My work holidays are marked with the flowers, and birthdays are marked with the leopard tape. 

One other thing that really helps me is color coding. I have a lot of meetings at work, and as you can see in March, I have those marked in pink and purple. For April I decided to write the bill due dates in different colors coordinating with the pay check they will be paid with. 

For March and April I also have any important sales marked with tab post it notes. I can't miss any Ulta or Sephora sales! 

So these were my few tips. I've learned the pretty I try to make things, the more organized I stay and I have NEVER into life paid a bill late! Do you have any tips I might be missing? Please let me in the comments below!