DIY: Upgrading Planner Tabs

I love my planner tabs that I made a while back from craft paper (glued together, cut, and hole punched). But the template I used had the tab in one specific spot, so all the tabs ended up in that spot, each hiding the ones underneath it.

I needed a new set of tabs, and since I wanted something more lightweight and durable, I decided to buy tabs made for a planner, that were clear (so I could see my indexes through them) and big. I found some at Target (Avery brand), but only for a FC Classic-sized binder.

So I bought them (for under $4) and made them my own.

(No worries about the old tabs. They are only worn around the edges and will be cut into little closet dividers as part of my baby shower gifts to my many pregnant relatives. Big Catholic families usually mean three or four babies baking at any given time! The dividers will be labeled NB, 3 M, 6M, 9M, 12M, 18M, and 24M, for sorting all the not-yet-in-use new baby clothes.)

Please forgive the shadows, but they were necessary to show how this DIY project is done.

First, I binder clip the template to the clear, plastic tab.

Next, I cut and hole punch using the template.

TIP: Use a single hole punch for this job, so you can easily press through the plastic. Don't bother trying with the six hole punch. Ask me how I know. :/

TIP: When cutting, never quite let the scissors close. Just keep moving it forward, or you might break the plastic.

I also rounded any annoying edges. I like to keep the edges by the rings square, to protect papers, but round the outer edges.

Don't worry about perfection. Nobody is going to be comparing each individual tabbed page with the others.

The pages came with little tab labels.

One tab, by necessity because of cutting the tabs down to Filofax personal/Franklin Covey compact size, was going to hide a bit. Since Future is part of my calendar, it's the one I hid.

My tabs: Projects, Tasks (master list), Calendar, Future, Notes (some people do Files or ABC Files instead).

Etcetera.