44 | How the Horatio Printing Dream Planner Helps HSPs and Introverts Manage Emotions

In this episode, I'm sharing how using a planner can be a powerful tool for managing emotions as a highly sensitive person and introvert.

As someone who's been using planners since middle school, I've discovered how they go beyond simple organization to become a vital instrument for emotional wellness. I explain why planners are particularly beneficial for those of us who feel deeply and notice everything - from helping process emotions and reducing mental clutter to creating space for quiet reflection and intentional living.

I also reveal my current favorite planner, the Horatio Dream Planner, and why its clean, simple design and built-in reflection spaces make it perfect for HSPs and introverts who need regular periods of rest and contemplation. Join me to learn how the right planner can help bring calm and clarity to your emotional life.

Check out the Horatio Dream Planner here: https://www.horacioprinting.com/

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's the new year and New Year's is a time when we are all making new plans and setting goals and dreaming about what we want our life to look like, as we kind of have this clean slate and this fresh start. Well, as a highly sensitive person and an introvert, life can often feel like a whirlwind of emotions and responsibilities where you're trying to manage the demands of your everyday life so your work, your serving your family, and you've also got endless to-do lists with all of that and then add on trying to manage all of the emotions that you're feeling right, all of the feels that you're feeling deeply and all the thoughts that you're thinking about all of the time. It can easily lead to overwhelm and burnout. But what if I told you that there's a simple tool that can help bring you calm and peace and clarity throughout your day Yep, a planner. That's right. Today, on the podcast, I want to share with you how a planner can truly be a game changer for highly sensitive people and introverts when it comes to managing your emotions. If you're tired of feeling like you're drowning in your emotions and want to stop walking around feeling numb and overwhelmed, you're in the right place. What's up? I'm LaToya, an emotional resilience coach and fellow highly sensitive introvert who learned how to manage all the feels with journaling, and I love helping women like you identify and work through your emotions. Embrace your God-given sensitivity so you can stop running away from your feelings in a way that feels authentic to you, ready to dig in, grab your weighted blanket, get comfy and let's get it. So today we are going to talk about planners and how they can help us manage our emotions.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Now, I have been a planner girl for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure I was in middle school when I went to Kmart which I don't even think was in middle school. When I went to Kmart which I don't even think exists anymore. But I remember going to Kmart walking through the little notebooking, journaling section and I came across my very first day, at a glance, planner and I was hooked. I don't even know what I had to plan or keep track of in middle school, but I wanted a planner and I got a new planner every single year, without fail, and that has lasted all the way into my 40s. So, yes, I love planners and I'm really picky about my planners and yes, I will tell you which planner I am using. You have to wait till the end for that, though, but, yeah, what I realized in this past couple of years is just how helpful having a planner has been in managing my emotions, and it's not something that I had thought about before, so I wanted to talk about that today with you.

Speaker 1: 2:30

So why does a planner really like? Why is it this game changer? Why is it so effective at helping us manage our emotions as highly sensitive introverts? Well, first, right, we feel deeply, we talk about, we feel all the feels all the time Yours, mine, like, right, we feel deeply, we talk about, we feel all the feels all the time Yours, mine, like the environment, we feel it all. And we also notice everything, like we are the people in the room that notice the teeny, tiniest little details about everything, including, like, the shifts in the mood of a room. Right, we know what the sights are, the sounds, what the emotions are, and this can lead to this feeling of overwhelm, which is actually mental clutter, emotional clutter and overstimulation. We're just overstimulated by feeling all the things, and so when you have a planner, you can actually calm some of this down. When you're writing down your schedule, when you're making note of what your priorities are, when you're taking time to dream about what you want for your life, what you want for your future, what kind of goals you want to do.

Speaker 1: 3:30

It gives you a tangible way, something really practical that you can do to manage your thoughts, to manage all your obligations and jobs and responsibilities. And when you do that, it helps your emotions calm down and it reduces the amount of stimulation that you're feeling, right? Another reason is that it can help you process emotion. So planning actually helps you manage your emotions and it's very similar to journaling, right. When you set aside time to journal, to reflect, to make plans, you are giving your feelings space, right, that they need. So you're giving yourself the time and the space to think about things, to process things and to do all of that. And if you have the right kind of planner, you will have space inside your planner to do all of that, because all of those things are important when you're planning your month, when you're planning your week, when you're planning your day.

Speaker 1: 4:21

Number three, a planner can help support your need for just quiet, reflection and intention. So, as an introvert, we thrive on quiet, right, being able to get away, to be alone, to rest and recharge and reflect right, it's what we need, it's how we recharge, it's how you know we kind of exist in the world. And so when you have a planner, right, it's going to give you a place to set your intentions. Okay, you can take your time to go to your safe space, your safe haven that you've created for yourself, and you can sit down and you can reflect, reflect on your day, reflect on your week, reflect on your goals right, you can really nurture that introspective part of you that is part of being introverted, right?

Speaker 1: 5:10

Another reason that a planner is so helpful is because it helps you find a little bit of balance. Now, I know balance is tricky, it's a hard thing and I don't necessarily believe in, like, that you're going to be perfectly balanced at any point in your life. Like, I just don't know that that's possible. But finding some kind of balance is essential when you have extreme and heightened sensitivity. Okay, it's going to help you look at all of the areas of your life and help you prioritize and set goals to make sure that you are doing the things that matter the most, that you are addressing and supporting the areas of your life that are top priority, because that is what's going to reduce your overwhelm, like when you're doing all the things right. So when you know that you have built into your days, into your weeks, time for self-care, time for rest, time for friends, right Time for all of the things that matter to you, that is going to really go a long way in helping you feel less overwhelmed, less overstimulated, because you are being super intentional about that and your planner is the perfect place for that. All right, so what planner am I using? I promised that I was going to share this with you, but I want to back up just a little bit.

Speaker 1: 6:29

So for the last three years, I switched to basically bullet journaling, and not the pretty bullet journaling with all the stickers and the sketches and the drawings and all of that. No, I just had gotten really tired of buying planners, spending 50, 75, 100 bucks on a planner to only use it for part of the year. My ADHD would kick in super bad and I would use planner maybe four months out of the year and the rest would be blank. And because the planners that I was buying were, you know, dated, I couldn't use them again. So I was wasting money and I was like you know what this is for the birds. I'm going to just get a blank journal. I'm going to bullet journal, and I'm going to do this Because with that bullet journal, if I fell off for a month or two, or with that bullet journal if I fell off for a month or two or five, right, I could just pick back up where I left off and it wasn't like a waste of money. And so I had the same journal for the three years because I kept falling off the wagon.

Speaker 1: 7:26

But I realized this year that the responsibility and the time and the energy of actually drawing out a layout every single month was an obstacle that I could not overcome, right Like it. Just it was keeping me from using my planner and I realized I need something that's already written out so that all I have to do is put my stuff in on the page and not have to actually create the page. So, if that makes sense. So this year I am using the Horatio Dream Planner Horatio Printing Dream Planner and I love it.

Speaker 1: 8:00

It's been a really long time since I found a planner that I just loved, but I love this planner. I think part of like the reason that I love it so much is because it's very simple. It's not over cluttered, there's not a lot of things going on on the page, right, it's just a layout. And the layout looks almost exactly like what I was doing when I was drawing it out myself. So it's a very clean, very simple layout. There's not a lot of distraction. There's not a lot of visual clutter or visual stimulation on the page, which helps with that, you know, calming effect that we're wanting when we're sitting down to work.

Speaker 1: 8:32

But also, and the thing that I really love, is that it is full of space for reflection. So you've got space in the beginning of your planner to sit down and reflect. There's lots of prompts and a process that she walks you through how to really dream and reflect on like the past year and where you want to go moving forward. That section is awesome. In the front there's places to list priorities and think about, like, what is it that I really want to accomplish in areas of my life? Right, and not just like oh, like financially, like no, like with the relationships, with your giving, like with your self-care, like what are all the things that you want to do and address? And there's lots of spaces there to reflect on that.

Speaker 1: 9:14

And usually when I get a planner like there's space at the beginning of the year to plan for the year. But what the Horatio Dream Planner has that the other ones that I've used before did not have, is that it actually has that same space for reflection all throughout the entire year. So at the end of the month there's notes, like just blank pages to take notes and to reflect on your month At the beginning of every quarter. So basically, like seasons winter, spring, summer, fall right, you go back and you do the same reflection exercises. I love that and there's a whole bunch of just blank journaling pages at the very, very end of a planner. It's where I can you can take notes, you can doodle, you can do whatever you want to do with those pages. So it's kind of like a journal and a planner all rolled up into one, which is why it is my choice for this year space to reflect, to pause, to think deeply about all the things, because that really does make a difference when it comes to managing your emotions.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So if you are looking for a planner and I know it's January, it's not too late. Maybe you got one and you thought it was going to be great. You want a new one. I'm going to leave a link in the show notes so you can go check out the Horatio Printing Dream Planner for yourself. But it is great. If you are a person that wants to have scripture on your planner, it's got it. You know, on all the pages there's encouraging Bible verses there. There's prayer prompts and reminders to pray, reminders to stop and offer some gratitude is all throughout there. It's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 10:54

It's the design, again. It's so clean, it's so simple. I love it. Um, it also has reminders to rest and reflect, right, something that we need as highly sensitive introverts to rest and reflect and not go, go, go, go go all the time. It's built into the design, um, and it's a great way to begin to build, like this ritual.

Speaker 1: 11:13

You know I talk a lot about having a morning routine and evening routine that addresses your needs for self-care, and using this planner is a great part of that.

Speaker 1: 11:21

You know being able to say, okay, this is what I have to do, here's what I need to get done. But I've already taken time to think that through and I know when I'm going to work, when I'm going to rest, right, you're able to pull out your planner and say, okay, I got a people Monday, tuesday, wednesday so I'm going to build and rest, you know, thursday, friday and Saturday. It's great for all of that. So if you're looking for a planner, I highly recommend that you go and check this out, because being able to find calm, to find peace, to have just times of rest, times to reflect right and being intentional about all of that is going to make the biggest difference when it comes to your emotions, your emotional wealth well, your emotional wellness right, and your emotional health. I think that's the word I was looking for, but it's all important and this is the planner that's going to help you do that. If you don't want that planner, then I would encourage you to go and find a planner that does work for you for all of the reasons that we have talked about today.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Did you learn something new or have an aha moment from today's episode? I would love to hear from you. The best way to do that is to leave a five-star rating and review in Apple Podcasts. This also helps other women like us find the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.