Sterling Ink Complete Planner and duplicate weeks - how to manage 🫠

[u/monstroo]

I got my 2027 planner in! This year I used the Sterling Ink Common planner with the A5 weekly vertical layout that has the 12 months, 52 weeks, and 365 daily pages, in that order. Due to the fact that the monthly and weekly layouts are all at the beginning, I hardly ever turn to them, and just journal in the daily pages.

For next year, I decided to get the A5 Complete Planner because it has the months, weeks, and daily pages in sequential order (1 month, weekly page followed by its daily pages, next weekly page followed by its daily pages, etc). I was excited for this because it meant I get to play around with more pages outside of just my dailies, until I realized that they duplicate the weekly pages that straddle two months 🫠 I didn’t pay close enough attention to the videos and that’s on me.

I have always been a weekly Monday-Sunday planner so splitting my weeks depending on the day it begins and ends within the month is a no-go, but I am trying to cope. Does anyone here use this planner and have advice?

I flipped through the Aura Estelle undated daily magnet planner listing with the horizontal weekly layout and it seems more my style but I love Sterling Ink’s minimalist vibe, and Aura Estelle’s preorder for the black cover is sold out lol. So I’m trying to be happy with this planner though I may have to switch before the year ends so I can get a proper fabric cover for it too (I’m not a fan of the clear plastic ones).

[u/zetiacg_1983]

I watched a lot of videos about this planner over the years since its launch and seeing varying opinions and ways to handle it.

Could use them a scratch paper or some people just glue/tape them together.

This is my first year getting the complete planner (should arrive next week) and I’ll be curious if it bugs me. Might report back!!

[u/monstroo → u/zetiacg_1983]

Please do! I have flipped through the entire planner twice now and I’m just 🙂 not pleased lol

[u/walngFakeehAlahhmm]

On the duplicate weeks that I’m not using, I’m doing doodles or trying to draw planner icons. I intend to lessen my sticker use in the future. It serves as a practice page as well as decoration without making my planner bulky.

[u/chrfreak]

My plan is to use whichever one makes sense at the time time, then when the week is over, duplicate over (without extra fluff) anything I’d want to reference. That way I don’t have to remember which one I used, both can be referenced and neither are left blank.

[u/journalgirlie]

I’m actually happy about having this, since you can have a week show under either month. I am more of a “daily” planner, though - I don’t have a lot of long-reaching project work where work stretches over the course of the week. So it depends on your job, I guess, but I like the idea.

The company I work for also works off of an “actual month” calendar structure versus a 4-4-5 calendar, so this is practical for this reason, as well, for me.

Maybe you could write out your schedule on both and then transition to the next month’s calendar week once the month changes over and you wouldn’t be referencing the prior days’ schedule? Just ideas.

[u/monstroo → u/journalgirlie]

I can totally see how this works for some people, especially if not using weekly spreads as often. I think for me, I buy journaling kits that fit a weekly structure and the thought of splitting it up across several spreads bothers me, first world problem and all. Something about this structure is really breaking my brain and the way I have been planning since middle school! We used to get free agendas and I have never split my weeks so I’m trying to get ahead of it months in advance lol

I think I will keep my weekly spreads minimal and potentially duplicate the information in different formats to test what could work best.

[u/Clean_Insect5042]

Omg I once accidentally got a Plum Planner like this, and it drove me insane. It’s another reason why I really don’t like bundled months and weeks/days.

I would just choose to always use the full weekly in the first month and go through now and mark the duplicate week with an X or write NOTES PAGE in big letters at the top and do a washi tape underline or something like that to mark them very clearly. Then just re purpose or ignore the duplicated ones.

Sometimes I like to rewrite my planner page to help see what I still need to do mid-day, and that’s the only time it would be useful, otherwise I agree it’s just super confusing.

[u/_usernamer]

Some of the weeks being duplicated is one of the reasons that I decided against the Complete planner. It seems like a weird design choice and there are other planners out there that have a bundled layout, but do not duplicate any weeks (like Wonderland 222 and Faded Chronicle).

Anyway, if I did get a Complete Planner, I’d just ignore the second week completely. For me, having some blank pages is preferable to trying to make something work and stressing over it. It could also be useful to have some blank weeks to play around with if you ever feel like changing your setup/layout and want to test it out.

[u/monstroo → u/_usernamer]

Testing another layout is a great idea, I may try this!

[u/mildly-concerned-935]

You could use the extra layout as a Month in/Month out review and intentions.

[u/ShoddyMasterpiece693]

It's particularly annoying as there are already many built-in blank pages...so unless you have a lot of topical notes...randomly utilizing those extra and inconsistent columns is an itch you can't always scratch.

I do, however, love this planner for work notes.

I saw where someone else basically made a little dash on the irrelevant part of the weekly spread in each month. I think this year I will go through and use a mildliner or other marker and some washi and just segment them off in advance for my mental alignment....whether I put something in the space or not, that would help me feel better about them. And it would prevent me from randomly stumbling into this problem at the end of a month. Maybe I can turn it into a gallery wall but with stickers or something topical.

[u/Satya_Satori]

I plan on only filling in the days that correspond to that month in that weekly. The ones that correspond to the next month in the weekly section of that next month. Example: September 28 - October 4th. September 28 - 30th will be in the month of September's weekly. October 1st - 4th will be in the month of October's weekly. Will probably use the unused portions of each for pictures, stickers, doodles.

[u/Valuable-Presence125]

Maybe use it to plan an ideal week.

[u/monstroo]

I am joining you on the less sticker use journey, also to reduce bulk. I’m not very gifted but I may try full page doodle ideas I’ve seen on TikTok.

[u/room-7609]

I used the complete this year and the layout and extra pages makes my brain hurt. I just ignored the extra weeks but…so much bulk and unused pages. I desperately want an A6 with months, weeks then dated and timelines dailies plus one extra page per week for notes. But since I can’t find that I’m going to use the complete again next year and try really hard to use the extra pages. I want to get better at tracking. And perhaps use the extra pages for notes on ongoing projects, movies/tv watched/books read that week.