You may have bought some planners with monthly spreads that had expired and you do not know what to do with them. There is no need to throw them away especially if you like the design. First block out the dates and then you would have yourself some nice boxes.
What you can do is that you can use it to:
1. List your daily/ weekly/ monthly chores
If you have a list of chores that needed to be done, you can list it down after you repurpose your planner. I have provide my example below.
2. Learn a new language
You can use the planner and change the dates to the current month or next month (where you target to start). Write a word or a phrase of that language that you wish to learn and then each day commit to learning that each day. Usually you would require another monthly spread if you are serious about learning but now that you have an expired spread, why not make good use of it.
3. Write your recipes
After blocking out the dates, you can draw like below and instead of listing chores, you can list your recipes. You can group them in different months or you can use as a combination. For example, if you are serving spaghetti/pasta, you can have the recipe for carbonara, tomato sauce, aglio olio, etc combined different combinations of entre and/or desserts in a particular month spread. So when you wish to cook spaghetti that day, you just need to look at that month’s spread to see the combinations.
4. Write other lists like packing lists
Perhaps you travel often and you want to have a dedicated place to put your packing list so that you do not end up forgetting to bring any items. If you have a toddler or kids, you would definitely have specific items that you need to bring along when you take them out. It is good to have a specific place to write down that list because if you are rushing for time, it is easy to overlook if you only rely on your memory alone.
Let me show you what I did with my monthly spread planner with expired months:
I bought a thin monthly spread planner because the pastels and design inspired me. Here, it cost less than USD2. But it was kept in my cupboard as I was using another planner spread. In July, I decided to use this planner mainly to plan for my blogs.
But the months from January to June were not being used. Below is how I repurpose those pages:
Above is now the page originally looked like. I love the pastel designs as it inspired the creativity in me.
Using a purple pen, I covered up the dates. You can use stickers too if you wish. I did not cover the calendars because the expired calendar does not bother me.
I used the January spread to write down 3 types of items:
- My chores and how often I need to do them. This help me to plot nicely in another monthly spread
- The pockets of time that I typically have available to work on my blogs and the weekly tasks that I need to do related to my blogs
- My packing list when bring my mom out (when I take my mom out I would use the wheelchair, hence there are items I always need to keep in handy. It is similar to taking a baby out except my mom is an adorable old baby)
For me, I prefer to write using a mechanical pencil (I’ve always use Pilot 0.7) because it is easier to erase. Another option is to use Frixion or erasable pens.
If your planner have a yearly spread like above, you can use it as a ‘table of contents’ to list down the lists that you did so that when you search it would be easier.
Personally if the design of the planner is what I like, I tend to use it more often. Since using it for my blog planning, I have been keeping myself accountable in terms of setting goals for my blog.
Well, my hope is that this gives you some ideas on what to do with the expired monthly spreads or if the entire planner itself has expired. If you like the design, there are always ways to repurpose it. Have fun!
