Guest Post - Going to Personal from A5 - Zsu - Part 2

Continuing this excellent by Zsu, you can catch up with part 1 here. 

Back to Personal

It was not an easy decision, but a decision had to be made: I could no longer carry my planner, no matter how much I loved it. I had doubts about the smaller size, and I wasn’t sure I could do it again. And so I went back to my old Personal Size inserts, to remember from my own handwriting, how I could fit my days in that size. I leafed through the old pages and old notes to gather courage. Thankfully, I also had the help and guidance of my friends at the Philofaxy group, who helped me decide on the best planner. I wanted something in leather so it would last and grow old gracefully, and something zipped, so I could make sure I would not chunk it up beyond reason. (Hey, you can dream, right?)

The size shock this time wasn’t so bad, because I did had all those old inserts to remind me what was it like then. I did a lot of the moving of data through resizing and printing inserts and information on smaller formats, and then gave myself the chance to work with the known inserts, the ones that came in the planner, to reacquaint myself with the size. The old inserts gave me a guide to find my footing, and I enjoyed being able to use smaller bags as well. And my old crone back was really happy with the new size!

It helped that I went back to erasable pens, but also that I went with thinner-line pens, (from 0.7 mm to 0.5 mm and 0.38 mm), but also switched from M nib fountainpens to F and EF nib ones. This simple change helped me shrink my handwriting and still write “readably” – for my standard.

Once I was set, I noted some of the “problem areas” I was finding in the new size, like the lack of space for notes in my weeklies. I went to social media to investigate possible inserts and printed out several mockups to try out, tweaking them each time until I found the one that suited me better. And I must admit, it wasn’t the one I was expecting. It was by trying out and experimenting on printed out test inserts that I found the one that worked for me in Personal size: the Plotter weekly.

This is my third year back in Personal size, and it feels like I have been in it forever. Admittedly, I’m not one to change planners constantly, and once I’m in a size, I want to stay in it forever. It gives me a sense of certainly to know where to find things in a page, how to fit the planner in a bag and what I have where. Life has many surprises and uncertain things, and I don’t need my planner to be also a source of unexpected.

Closing Thoughts

Changing sizes, or even picking a size, is a personal decision. Maybe some of us are more flexible to move from one size to another, and can fit our plans in different types of inserts and sections. Some of us find it more difficult. The way to find out, however, is to try it out. But you don’t need to spend upwards of $100 or 100 € or £100 to see if a smaller size would work for you. Instead, look for old inserts, or a sample pack or just print out a couple of pages in the size you want to try out, punch them for the rings and give it a couple of weeks. Copy in them your busiest weeks, look at them, see how you feel with the size, try different pens and writing tools, and if it feels like something you can do, that it can work for you, splurge on the planner, and give it a try for real.

And if it doesn’t work for you, well, you gave it a try.

My eldest nephew is already at the university, and he loves pizza. One day I went to pick him up, and on the way home we stopped by a pizza place. He can eat a huge pizza all by himself but not me. And usually the pizzas I like, he doesn’t like. So we were at this pizza place and I wasn’t too hungry, so I asked if they had personal size pizzas. They had not, only one size (big). And then, the boy at the counter said something funny:

“Any pizza is a personal pizza, if you believe enough in yourself.”

Well, the same goes for the planners: “Any planner can be the right size of planner for you, if you believe enough in yourself”.

I did not get that pizza, not because I don’t believe enough in myself, but because I know myself. With the planners, yes, there may be a bad back, or weaker eyesight that might condition the planner size you can get, but maybe, really, you can find your way and be happy in any size you feel like trying out. 

Again thank you to Zsu for her detailed description of her move to personal, it gives me confidence that my similar move next year will not fail in week 1 of 2026!