Hi, Emm from @planwithemm here! You can find me on Instagram and YouTube. 

Winter is in full swing here in the US, so it seemed fitting to work on a winter monthly routine. Different season for you? No problem! Just cater it to where your life is right now. This could be a summer routine, a vacation routine, or even finals week routine. All that matters is it serves you and brings a little bit of joy to your day.

Let’s dive in!

SUPPLIES

• Notebook: I used an A5 size for each, but there are so many options. 
• Calliographs
• Stickers 
• Your pen of choice
• Washi Tape
• Scissors
• A pencil for any sketching
• Corner Rounder (optional)

Make sure to use my affiliate code PLANWITHEMM10 to save 10% at Archer and Olive.

BRAINSTORMING

The great thing about creating a spread for your routine is that it gives you a chance to really think about your daily plans. On an regular day, what would you want to prioritize? For me, I wanted to make sure that I made time to be creative every day! I set up my routine for a standard work day, but you could also do it for a weekend to give yourself more time.

From here, I recommend taking a blank page and brain dumping all of the things that you’d love to do if you had the time. The key here is that we’re going to MAKE the time for them! Go wild here - If you wish you had the time to play your ukulele, that goes here. This isn’t for things that you think you “should” do, that’s a whole other can of worms. This list is going to be the core of your ideal routine. 

Stuck on what you want to include? Check out my printable for some ideas to get you started! This is by no means an exhaustive list, but includes lots of categories of tasks you may want to include in your daily routine. 

I went with an “ideal winter routine”, but you could go to the micro-level and have it be your Monday routine, or macro-level with just a general daily routine regardless of the season. I’d recommend something in the middle so that you can reuse it as inspiration for wherever life takes you.  

DECORATION

Personally the prettier the spread, the more likely I am to look at it again. So let’s make this functional *and* fabulous! I started by ripping the paper to add a bit of texture to the page, using contrasting colors to make the spread a bit more vibrant. Here you can use either the dot grid or plain side, depending on what you prefer. Then comes the fun part... STICKERS! 

I’m using the wintery alpine stickers from Archer & Olive’s January Kit Club to make this spread look extra frosty and I just love the woodland animals. While we may be sticker-happy people, remember to leave plenty of room to write! We’ll need space for a title and our entire day’s routine. 

Once you’ve stickered to your heart’s content, go ahead and letter in your title. Go as big and bold as you want! I handlettered each word in a different color to make it pop against the bright paper and I feel like it looks so vibrant.

SETTING YOUR ROUTINE

 Next, I used my calliograph to create a long vertical line on both pages. I’m using this to track what time I want to do each piece of my routine at, but you could also make it more like a mindmap of your day instead. My time blocking is based on when I begin and end my day - so starting at 7 AM and ending at 9 PM. You definitely want to change this based on what your schedule looks like.

Here’s where we take our list and put it in chronological order. Group certain elements together if they happen around the same time - Sometimes I take my meds before I brush my teeth and other times vice versa. What really matters is that they’re happening around the same time. Then when you have your groupings, order them based on when they happen chronologically. Once you have this ordering, you can space them out so that it actually makes sense for your day. If you like to shower in the morning, slot it in then. If you’re more of an afternoon or night shower person, that’s where it’ll go. Then comes the fun part.... Writing it all in!

At this point, you may realize that you’ve overcommitted yourself - I know I did. There are only so many hours in the day, so some events may get left off. A way to keep all of your routine items on your page is to give yourself OPTIONS. I know that I’m not going to walk, bike, do yoga, and meditate all in the same day, but I do want to exercise every day. So voila, I could create an exercise category with all of these as options. 

But that isn’t to say that I didn’t leave things out that I may actually want to include in my routine. I think a good routine will require several revisions before it feels juuuuust right. And the only way to tell what I absolutely NEED to include in your routine? Doing it. Take notes on what works and what doesn’t, and repeat until you’ve found something that brings you daily joy.

And voila! We have a spread devoted to our ideal winter routine. Remember that this will grow and change over the season, so don’t be afraid to make a new one if inspiration strikes.I definitely plan to iterate over mine through the months. Be sure to check out the video below to see how I crafted my winter routine and check out this blog to tune into your morning routine.