Happy Sunday!  This blogger uses Sundays to plan and prepare for the upcoming week.  I have been asked so many times about the resources that help me plan a full week that I decided to launch the “Planning the Week” feature with three concomitant components: a recommended book to make your commute easier; a healthy recipe to make your week tastier and healthier; and a planning or planner tip to keep it all running smoothly.

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While the idea of a planner can bring to mind a big, boring calendar with a list of things to do each day, fact is that there is a broad range of beautiful planners available to us (check these ones out…)  Pre-decorated planners are available for those of us who have no desire or talent when it comes to decorating.  But for those of us who are not good at decorating from scratch but would love to give our creativity a (limited) try, there are some great and easy ways to personalise a planner without getting a headache.

One of them is washi tape, which is basically a type of decorative masking tape.

I like shopping for washi tape on Etsy; my favorite stores combine great price, great quality, great customer service, and great variety.  The gold medal goes to Silent Poetry Art; other favorites, in no particular order, are Pikwahchan (they send you a gift with your order!), Sticker Paradise (they also send you a little something extra with your order!), Zakka Lover, and Goodi Mochi.

I’ve collected quite a few pins on a board dedicated to the use of washi tape for planners and planning, which you can find here.  Of these, here are a few I’d recommend starting with.

Start slow: accessories

Starting slow and bagging small successes increases the chance you will continue on to becoming a master washi taper.  Making binder clips that either match your planner or are coordinated depending on what they hold together in your planner immediately spruces us your planner in a matter of minutes.  You can then up it a notch by first making paperclip flags, then  bow toppings for your paper clips, which instantly spruce up any planner while making finding a specific page a lot easier.  If you want some pages in your planner to stand out, you can use washi tape to line them.   You can also create page dividers in your planner and decorate them using washi tape.

Pick up some speed: Some Simple Guiding Posts

Bethany’s post on how to organize a planner is a great place to start decorating your planner.  Ariane shows us how she uses washi tape to brighten up her notes–something that can be used in the latter pages of any planner.  The Chic Life has a great post on how to completely transform the monthly view in your planner with washi tape.

Head on to Becoming a Master Washi Taper

I found YouTube tutorials more useful when it comes to further upping the ante when it comes to using washi tape to become more organised rather than just to decorate.  JackJack’s video is really simple but makes for a great beginning.  Belinda’s video is a little glitchy in the middle, and her style is quite different from mine (I’m more of a classic minimalist where she seems to be more of a cutesy artist) but I found some of her ideas really useful and easy to adapt to my style.  By contrast, Vanilla Mom’s style is really simplistic yet still colorful–she uses a series of monthly views to plan for different aspects of her life, which might be a good idea for those of us who have a number of different hats we wear.

There are a lot of posts and videos out there on how to use washi tape in a planner; these are only some of the ones I used.  I’ve received pointers from fellow planner addicts and would love to get more, so if you find anything, please feel free to share them in the comments below or email me–saharsblog (at) gmail (dot) com.