As the blogger and photographer behind Living Outside the Stacks, I independently select and write about stuff I love and things I think you’ll enjoy too. Living Outside the Stacks has affiliate and advertising partnerships so I get revenue from sharing this content and from your purchase. Thank you for your support.
I have always been a planner girl. In fact, my daughter reminded me this morning of how I used to carry around a purple snake skin planner with a bunch of little tabbies and sticky notes poking out. I used different colored ink pens to differentiate between my family, school, and personal calendars. I also doodled in the margins of my calendar and used fancy writing for fun things like birthday parties, anniversaries, and such. This was waaay before the planner parties with their fun stickers and washi tapes.
In all honesty, I’d forgotten about that purple planner until my daughter mentioned it. But now that I think about it, carrying planners/calendars wasn’t new to me. I carried a plain black wire bound, very utilitarian, calendar when I was in high school and college. I think I stopped when I joined the Army. They kind of told me when and where to be, ya know?
Skip ahead many years, and I moved from the paper planner to Google and started using Google calendar. And, while I liked Google Calendar, I missed the pretty and the customization that I had during my paper planner days.
So, when I updated my iPad a month ago, I was excited for 2 things: the ability to use the iPad pencil and purchasing a digital planner.
But the big question was: WHICH DIGITAL PLANNER DO I BUY?
I put out a call on Instagram to see what other people were using and I received a lot of great suggestions, then I saw an ad for Artful Agenda and decided to take a look… I was instantly curious because it stated that it was “inspired by paper agendas.”
ABOUT ARTFUL AGENDA
Artful Agenda is the brainchild of Katy Allen. Katy, much like me, was a paper planner girl who made the transition to Google calendar, but missed the pretty. She created Artful Agenda to keep the digital convenience of an online calendar while being able to customize and pretty up her planning, the way she did with her paper planner.
Furthermore, Artful Agenda is convenient, no more lugging around a planner or missing appointments because you forgot to share appointments with family members or update the paper calendar. Artful Agenda syncs with Google, iCloud, and Outlook. This means that I can have my pretty calendar open on my work desktop instead of that ugly Outlook calendar. It’s the small things, y’all. Mobile apps are available in the Apple App Store as well as the Google Play. And there are tablet apps that are compatible with either the Apple Pencil or a stylus.
You can find out more about Artful Agenda on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
Pictured below is the monthly view of my calendar. Everything is color coordinated to match my planner cover {you can pick your own cover, just like you would with a traditional planner}. There are embedded quotes to keep me inspired through the day. I also set and track my monthly goals — seeing them every day helps to keep them at the front of my mind. I also like adding my own stickers to the pages {your subscription comes with stickers, but you can add your own from Etsy or make your own in Canva or PicMonkey}.
The weekly view isn’t nearly as pretty as the monthly or daily views, so I’ll be honest, I almost never look at this view.
The daily view is, hands down, my favorite view and is the view that I keep displayed on my desktop at work. I like that I can see what I’m doing hour by hour. And I like being able to keep track of what I’m currently reading {I saw this on the Artfully Obsessed Facebook page and loved the idea}.
Isn’t it pretty? You can customize the “handwriting,” the colors for the handwriting, as well as your different calendars. Do you see the “Currently Reading,” book cover, and plants? I made those in Canva, uploaded them to the app, and pasted them into my calendar. Having this level of creativity, allows me to make my calendar my very own. The woman reading is from a sticker package that I purchased from Keza on Etsy. For more tips and tricks, you can always visit Artfully Obsessed, the Facebook page for Artful Agenda users.
MY THOUGHTS
Artful Agenda has been one of the best digital purchases I’ve made since upgrading my iPad. I know some may hesitate at the $44.99 per year subscription fee, but it’s worth it. And, when you consider what you’d pay for a new paper planner plus stickers, washi tape, and pens, it all balances out. There’s also the convenience of being able to sync and share calendars between devices and family members {no more missed appointments}.
MY AFFILIATE CODE
Artful Agenda is $44.99 per year. If you’d like to give Artful Agenda a try, they offer a FREE two-week trial. If, after the trial, you’d like to purchase a subscription, feel free to use my code: RD1028912. I use Artful Agenda Plus, which includes a Habit Tracker, personal sticker upload capability, quick select color palettes for better customization of all the things, drawing mode, and so much more. This upgrade costs an additional $5, for a total of $49.99. SO WORTH IT!!
AFFILIATE INFORMATION
As the blogger and photographer behind Living Outside the Stacks, I independently select and write about stuff I love and things I think you’ll enjoy too. Living Outside the Stacks has affiliate and advertising partnerships so I get revenue from sharing this content and from your purchase. Thank you for your support.
THANK YOU
Thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. If you like what you read, please consider sharing this post on Facebook or Twitter. You can also share on Pinterest. While I pay for many of the items I share on this blog out of my own pocket, some items are gifted to me {I always disclose those items}.
Come back soon,
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