Although a lot of our scheduling these days has gone digital — iCal, gCal, Calendly — there’s still a case to be made for having a tactile, physical planner to organize your days. Jennie Lennick, illustrator, designer, and founder of Jenny Lemons, has found that out as she manages a busy business and all its logistical to-dos on top of the artistic practice that drives it. 

You might know Jennie from her wildly popular, fruit-themed hair clips, but before she started Jenny Lemons, her focus was on studio art. “My business really branched out from my art practice,” Lennick says, who has a master’s degree in painting after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2012.

However, “it wasn’t until I had a show where I created products…and hung them on the wall as artwork, and for the first time, my show sold out,” she says. “And I was like, ‘Oh, okay. This is telling me something. Maybe people don’t really want paintings and sculptures from me. Maybe they want things they can wear and use in their everyday life. That sort of started Jenny Lemons. I was sewing and making clothing and some jewelry.”

Then came her breakout accessories.

“I designed a strawberry hair clip and a banana hair clip and had them made at the factory, and they were an instant hit,” she says. “They’re still the same designs. The mini strawberry hair claws are our No. 1 bestseller. We sell thousands every month, which is crazy. And the banana is just a classic.”

Now that the brand is well on its way to success, keeping her days organized is more important than ever. Lennick’s go-to for keeping her busy days organized? Anecdote Goods’ The Daily Planner. 

“I love this planner,” says Lennick. “What I like about it is the pages. There are no dates, which is nice. I still use it like a calendar, but there are no dates, so you write it in…for me, I learn by writing, so I have to write [things] down physically every day.”

Organizing her calendar has become part of the start to her week, ensuring that she’s feeling on top of her to-dos.

“Monday, I sit down. I put down my schedule of meetings or whatever on one side,” she says. “Then there’s this little box for notes and ideas, which I’ll write stuff in during a meeting or whatever.

“For every day, they have a schedule from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m., a list of priorities, and then a to-do list on the side.  

“It starts the week with a blank page that has, like, a weekly plan. It’s just a blank page. I use this for my brain dump to-do list, which I love. I’ll write the week, and then I just start listing everything. 

“They have a place for yearly career goals and yearly personal goals, which I like too,” she says. 

From there, Lennick creates what she likes to call “buckets for productivity.| 

“I’ve got my marketing bucket, I’ve got my content creation bucket, I’ve got my product design bucket, I’ve got my ordering bucket, and I just start listing everything,” she says. “I’ve got my personal bucket. You know, I’ve got to bring my dog to the groomer or whatever.” 

Thanks to the design of the pages, if Lennick’s heading into a crazy week where she can’t finish every task, it’s still easy to keep things sorted and move items to the following week. “I have my categories, and then I have what the item is, and then I bring it over into the week,” she says. 

“The only con is it’s only six months, so you have to buy two planners a year,” she says. Then again, “[the planner]’s not small. I mean, if it was a whole year, it’d be like a Bible.”