Writer Support #3 - NaNoWriMo & Your Planner

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, but with #NaNoWriMo2016 right around the corner, I thought I'd write about a few more little insights about writing that I have to share. This post will be specific for those participating in NaNoWriMo for the most part, but I'm sure other writers will be able to extrapolate and use these ideas for their very own writing projects.

I've only recently hopped on the planner wagon myself, but for a long time I've admired pictures of how people organize and decorate their planners on Pinterest and Instagram. The main goal of a planner is to help organize your life, but with the open possibilities of some of the planners out there, I thought about a number of ways that you could use your planner to help assist you through the treacherous waters of NaNoWriMo.

Whether you prefer to decorate your planner before or after you start planning in it, making a little time to decorate your planner in a way that will get you excited about the upcoming 30 days of writing can actually help you. Not only is the process of decorating fun, and it will help fuel your motivation, but every time you look at those decorated pages, you can see your past excitement leaping off the page on those days when you're wondering just what the hell you signed up for.

You will always have the official NaNoWriMo website to help you keep on track with your word count, but sometimes writing things down can help imprint a more permanent goal in your mind. It's a good idea to write down your word count goal for each day in your planner, both to keep track of how many words you need to hit and to help motivate you towards those daily goals. Plus, you can always give yourself a sticker or some other kind of fun decoration for each day that you meet your goal.

There's nothing like your planner, seeing your goals and your plans for the week written on paper, to motivate you towards the weekend and beyond. One thing that a lot of people use to decorate their planners are motivational quotes, and November is definitely an appropriate month to plaster each page full of them. These can be purchased along with your other planner supplies, but I also recommend checking out Pinterest for a whole slew of free planner printables that include great quotes that you can just print off and glue or tape directly into your planner.

Let me know in the comments below if you found this post helpful, and let me know how you like to keep organized and motivated during NaNoWriMo :)