Silver and Gold - How to Simply Highlight Your Planner

I considered a different title for today's blog: Wherein the Word Undies Is Hidden in the Pictures of My Planner.  Ultimately, I am too lazy to retake the pics or block out the offensive (or titillating, depending on perspective) word.  Happy dirty word hunting.  (I am sure I will get lots of need-to-be-moderated comments from people stumbling here from Google search.  Sorry, would be undie seekers.  We are talking something far more exciting here.)

And on to the excitement at hand - silver and gold ink pens!

I found several packages of these gel ink pens on clearance at Office Depot and bought out the lot.

The green ones, of course, are backup for my main ink needs, as I generally write in green.  They are not perfect, though, because the green is a dull green and it smears since I am left-handed.  

The red and blue ones go in my pen drawer for drafting notes to the teachers or notes for the husband.  (Please please please take out the trash.  Also, do NOT eat the cake in the fridge just because it is unattended.)  (Obviously, the cake sentence would go in red ink and would be 100% INEFFECTIVE.)

The silver and gold get tucked into my planner.  There is plenty of room.  It's hard to tell (because they fit so well that they disappear, especially since they are skinny), but the gold goes on the left inner pocket and the silver next to the green pen on the right.

These pics show it better:

I use the metallic pens as others would highlights, I guess.  For example, I could see writing log items and fyis (things that do not need to be done) in pink or yellow highlighter.  Or I can imagine highlighting items to cross them out when they get done.  (That trick actually works well.)  But I find that highlighters bleed through and tend to look messy.

Instead, I write nontask/nonappointment items in gold ink.  I scratch through completed items in silver.

Note that my menu items (tonight: pasta with chicken) and my daily junk food calorie limit (500 today, though it varies from 300 to 500) in the 29th square.  Because it is in gold, I barely see it.  

That allows me to see those things that really need to get done.  I scratch through those in silver gel, so I can still go back and look at them, but know they are complete.

I do the same with the weekly entries:

Note that my junk food calories are tracked in gold right on the page where I am doing weekly tasks.  (Pro tip: do NOT eat fried chicken if you only have a 500 calorie budget for the day.  You'll be eating veggies the rest of the day.)  I would also note if my husband was working overtime in gold or if someone other than me was picking my kid up from school.  Anything that does not require action by me goes in gold ink.

I'm not a fan of color coding entries too much, as my brain processes it as too busy, but this is so subtle that the real stuff pops right out at me in green ink.

If you color-code your planner, let me know how you do it in the comments or with a link to your own blog entry!

Etcetera.