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One of the biggest pain-points we personally had during the years that we were testing out #alltheplanners was simply this: it was too dang easy to get lost in your own notebook!

The most amazing brainstorming session would get lost in a moment as we moved on to fill out the next prompts and schedules, rarely to be seen again. This was annoying at best, and actually radically complicated our lives at worst when our week's agenda was inaccessible in the moments when we needed to make quick decisions during the course of our days. We solved this problem in a big way with our innovative dutch door layout.

As we became more skilled in the use of our own planner, we began using a simple tool - a paperclip - to aid us in our ability to navigate, mark and reference various key pages. This one hack put an end to getting lost in our own planner for good, making the navigation of the Evergreen Planner a real dream. Our planner system is minimalistic, yet dynamic. We love that you can effectively use a simple ballpoint pen to get your thoughts organized on paper, or that you can just as well bust out your entire collection of microns and washi tape for beautifully curated designs.

Have you ever gotten lost down the rabbit hole of artistic journaling layouts? We have always adored how customizable a blank notebook is, and a quick Pinterest search will show you the myriads of ways you can make it your own.

But for us, that level of creativity isn't always feasible. Art supply caddy or not, we have thoughts to organize and things to do! As much as we'd love to spend our time drawing and creating unique daily layouts, we needed something that met us when we woke up each morning and was immediately useable. So we built in some structure, but kept what we loved: that blank bullet space that can be used in solely practical ways (hello scratch notes I hope no one ever sees) or that can that become the canvas for your latest masterpiece.

One of the main benefits of using a planner on a daily basis is the resulting automation of thought processes.

Automating thought processes can do so much to free up mental bandwidth and reduce decision fatigue (did you know that was a thing?!).

On our day spreads, we have our regular prompts which lead you through a set of intention-strengthening exercises: "What are your top targets for the day? What are you thankful for? What are your seasonal goals and why are they so important?" etc.​

But there's so much space in your planner system to make it serve you in unique and powerful ways. One of the ways to automate your own, personal thought processes is to develop a series of "Intention Lists."