The 'One Day At A Time' Back Story

You know the feeling of getting your diary from the stationery stores for the year ahead? That feeling of new beginnings, fresh starts and pure bliss! Well, I got that feeling every year. From junior school to university to working - I would buy my diary as soon as the stores released them. 

Every year I would use the diary in different ways to figure out how I could be more productive, manage expectations, and stop procrastinating. I would be so excited and claim “this is my year”.

I’m sure you can tell that if I got excited every year for that new beginning feeling, I wasn’t having any luck with these diaries.

Not one year went by that my diary was used start to finish. And not one year went by where the diary helped me get things done consistently. Missing weeks or months in the diary often made me stop using it and I disliked the feeling of those empty blank pages.

Can you relate?

This endless loop forced me to sit down in 2022 and come up with a way that would actually be achievable. I was overworked, overwhelmed and as a result, the stress impacted my health. So I sat down, and printed blank month calendars on plain white paper and attached it to a clip board. I always had twelve months on the clipboard and I'd carry it around everywhere. If more was added to my plate, I'd check the calendar for my capacity. Each week I'd make one list that I'd focus on so that my brain could zone in on what was really important.

When it came to the daily actions to get things done, I'd make this big plan for each day of the week on the Sunday. But my Monday nothing went to plan and the rest of the week crumpled too. So I started planning on the day to real time assess my energy and time. That's how the phrase “one day at a time” became a mantra, at work and in life for both me and my team.

After months of using this method, I noticed I was able to prioritise better and focus on one thing at a time. The thing I had been missing was the big picture, almost like a bird's eye view on my capacity. It also took a lot of self work to learn that I couldn’t say yes to everything and that my corporate job was not my life.

When I left my job it became a passion to create my own line of planners. One that I knew would help others.

I spent months in the design phase, making sure it was simple but aesthetic enough to suit any gender. It was and is really important to me that planners and journals are not seen as just a “girly” product. I loved that the simplicity of it would enable so much creativity in the user.

That’s how the OG classy book-like hard cover planners came to be. The journals followed suit because who doesn’t need a writing companion!? My favourite part of the original collection was how easily it can blend in as a normal book on the shelf.

It's been three years since the first collection was manufactured, and since then so many new products have joined the team and manufacturing is now in-house.

One Day At A Time is the name on the planners and journals because it's all we have that we're certain of. Embracing contentment requires acceptance of what is, which is difficult to do if you're living in the future in your mind or constantly repeating your to-do list over and over again. 

So what better name to have on the covers for that reminder?

It doesn't mean you settle. Have the direction, your focus, then take it one day at a time.