We’ve rebranded! Crossbow Printables is now Crossbow Planner Co.

crossbow printables rebrand

Hey friends,

After seven years of operating as Crossbow Printables, I’m so excited to unveil a new name to suit our growing brand: Crossbow Planner Co.!

I’m just bursting with excitement as I type, because yes… we’ve rebranded! I started Crossbow Printables in 2014 as a purely digital planner business, and have outgrown the name over the years as I’ve added more and more physical planning tools to the shop. So, I can’t tell you how excited I am to put on our new grown-up brand name… it’s been bubbling in my heart for the last few years!

You can expect much of the same from this little business – it’s still run solely by me, along with some help from my wonderful husband when things get really busy! We will also still be focused on creating beautiful, functional planner inserts, printable planners and accessories that help you go after your goals. But removing the word ‘Printables’ from our name frees us up to be able to create so much more, too! I have so many ideas bubbling around my head (some of which have now come to life with our exciting rebrand product launch!) and I can’t wait to design many more planning tools that will help us all to live our best lives!

Thank you so much to all of you for your support that has got us to this stage, I truly am so grateful for you.

Love,
Jordan x

How To Setup A 6-Ring Planner (Minimal Style!)

how to setup a 6 ring planner

 

Do you remember when you did your first 6-ring planner setup? For me, it was a pretty overwhelming experience to know where to start… what planner inserts do I choose? How many do I need? What should I put in each section?

Maybe you’re yet to fully dive into the planner world, because let’s face it, it can be hard to know where to start. I recently posted a poll on Instagram to see how many people felt overwhelmed when they were setting up their first planner, and it turns out most of us were in the same boat. So, if you’re creating your first 6-ring planner setup and need a little help on where to start, here are a few tips to get you on your way to creating the best 6-ring planner setup for you:

1. Choose a planner size that is right for you.

There are lots of sizes to choose from, but for now I’ll address the most popular three. From biggest to smallest, they are: A5, personal size & pocket size. The best way to find out which is right for you is to go to a local stationery store to see them in person. Think about whether you’ll be keeping your planner at home, or carrying it around. If you’re using it on the go, you may find personal size or pocket size will work for you, because an A5 planner can get pretty hefty! But if it’s going to be used primarily at home or work, you may love (or need!) the extra space in an A5.

2. The second question is: will you use printable or printed inserts?

Printable inserts are PDF versions of the planners that you can download and print, cut and hole-punch yourself. They’re ideal if you don’t mind a bit of DIY and want to keep the costs low, (but remember to put a 6-hole punch and a guillotine on your shopping list!). Otherwise, if you want a finished product professionally printed onto beautiful paper, go for printed.

3. Now for the fun part—time to choose your planner inserts!

It can be overwhelming to choose your inserts, so before you go to a shop like mine that has a million different options, take a few minutes to write a list of what you need to track in your planner. Is it monthly dates? Weekly to dos? Goals? Or are you hoping to get on top of cleaning, budget planning and your health? Start with a list so that you won’t be distracted by all the options.

4. Don’t forget the dividers!

You’ll need them to split your planner into sections that you can easily flip to. So, remember when choosing your inserts that you’ll most likely have 6 sections to fill.

If you’re still a little overwhelmed, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! I’ve put together something I wish I would have had at the start of my planning journey – a Complete Planner Setup Kit! It’s a full setup of all the essential planner inserts you need to get planning, with 87 planner inserts, (printed front and back to make 175 planners), plus one of my trademark vellum quote cover pages.

 

minimal planner setup

 

At the click of a button, you’ll have a pre-organised 6-section, minimal planner insert setup to help plan your months, weeks, goals and to dos. You can even add dividers if you want to complete the minimal ‘Crossbow’ look. If you’d like to take a look at what’s included, you can shop my complete 6-ring planner setups here. (Available in A5, personal size and pocket size).

 


Starting at £22.50

 

I hope these tips and my complete planner setup kit will make it so much easier for you to set up your new planner. If you have any feedback questions, please feel free to comment below.

Happy planning!
Jordan x

The 5-Year Vision Freebie (my best freebie yet!)

free planner printable a5

Hey everyone,

Firstly, I just want to say a big thank you for joining in the Crossbow Weekly Homework Club so far. I can’t believe we’ve been in this together for six weeks now! That means that this week in the last of this series of emails (for now!), and I’ve created the best and biggest free planner printable yet for the finale!

That’s right, this week’s challenge is a big one, but it’s something that has the potential to change our lives for the better if we commit to it.

This week’s homework is to set your 5-year vision.

In five years time, do you want to be in the same place as you are now? Or, do you have some dreams that need to be re-ignited and have got lost in the busyness of day to day?

You may already know how much I love yearly goal setting. But often, our yearly goals can be so task-oriented that we lose sight of the big hopes and dreams we once had, settling for less than we were born for. The 5-year vision planner is an invitation for you to take a step back and be inspired to dream BIG again, and actually set a plan in place to make those dreams happen.

“When you reach the end of your life, do you want to be one of the people who are glad they did, or one of the people who wish they had?” – Dan Zadra.

I hope you’re as excited as I am to get your 5-year vision down on paper! You can get the freebie here, along with a writing guide that will walk you through how to use the planner.

As always, I’d love to stay connected with you and hear all about how your 5-year vision setting has gone. Find me on social media (@crossbowprintables) to let me know.

Wishing you a lovely week,
Jordan x

free printable planner inserts

A Brand New Freebie… for a Brand New Challenge!

Crossbow weekly homework club

Free daily gratitude planner

Hey you guys,

Well, the Spring Clearout homework that we’ve been doing the past few weeks has really taken it out of me… I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to enjoy a bit more quiet time this week!

Before I let you know about this week’s homework, let me just say to those of you who didn’t quite finish their Spring Clearout – don’t worry one bit! False deadlines are great, because they encourage you to be proactive when you don’t really feel like it. BUT, you don’t need to beat yourself up if you didn’t quite make it to the end of the list. There will be plenty of time to complete it in the future, and I’d still love to see your progress as you’re using it (@crossbowprintables).

So, it’s time to change pace. This week’s homework is to write down three things you’re grateful for every day this week. Why three? Because writing down one thing you’re grateful for is too easy! There’s a lot of negative news surrounding us at the moment, so by doing this together, we’re going to be training our brains to focus on the positives, rather than being overwhelmed by the negatives. The more we dig deep into thankfulness and focus on all that we still have to be grateful for, the less anxious we will feel.

Because I love you all so much, I’ve created another free printable for you to use in your planners to complete the challenge! The one thing I ask if you’re using the freebie, is that you please tag me (@crossbowprintables) and use the hastag #crossbowweeklyhomework when posting on social media, so that we join together as a community and encourage each other along the way.

Wishing you all a positive week ahead and sending you all my love,
Jordan x

 

Free Planner Insert

Introducing the Crossbow Weekly Homework Club (with LOTS of freebies!)

Spring cleaning planner freebie

 

I’ve got some exciting news!

With everything in our world seeming off-kilter at the moment, I’m making it my personal mission to brighten your week by giving you free resources and weekly challenges that we can do together, in order to make the best use of the extra time we’re having to spend indoors. For the next 5-6 weeks, we’ll be getting organised around the home, with our finances, with our goal-setting and so much more. And the best part? We’ll be doing it together! Because community is so important at times like this, and we may have to be isolated, but we should never be detached.

 

Spring cleaning freebie

 

Introducing: the Crossbow Printables Weekly Homework Club: weekly challenges sent straight to your inbox for the next 6 weeks, with freebies and tutorials.

All you have to do to be part of the Homework Club is sign up to my mailing list at the bottom of this page.

Excited to get started? Me too!

Our task this week is to start a Spring Clearout to get our homes de-cluttered, cleaned and feeling peaceful, and I’ve created a free printable that will guide you through the process. This week, we’ll be working through the first two sections on the printable – the Kitchen and Bedroom areas. Be sure to follow along on my Instagram account, @crossbowprintables, for tips on how to use the planner and to follow along my progress as I use the insert myself throughout the week. And most importantly, if you’re getting your weekly homework done, be sure to share it by tagging #crossbowweeklyhomework so that we really can stand together as a community against this isolation! I’ll be sharing some of your images on next week’s Weekly Homework Club email.

Jordan x

 

Enjoy your free planner printable!

Please note that the download may not work on some mobile devices.

Free planner inserts

5 Tips For Creating a Morning Routine + Free Planner Printable

Free planner printable inserts Crossbow Printabless

There’s a reason that most successful business executives – from Benjamin Franklin to Tony Robbins – stick to a morning routine. Scroll down for a free planner printable that will help you create yours.

In the midst of our busy schedules, a good morning routine has to power to make you feel like a productive, organized, goal-getting machine, all before 8am. Starting your morning well means you can set the tone for the day ahead and energize yourself for what’s to come, rather than waking late and rushing to get out the door while asking yourself ‘why did I hit that snooze button for the third time?!’I have to admit, I’ve always been a big enemy of mornings. I’m the snoozer that I just described, always wishing I could wake early enough to have a peaceful, productive morning routine, but never having the will-power to do so. Eventually, I held my hands up and said ‘I’m just not a morning person’. I’d tried to muster all the willpower inside my body to fight the snooze-hitting-beast inside of me!

Ultimately, it wasn’t willpower that I needed. I needed a plan. I needed a morning routine that was worth waking up for, that would help me get out of bed with intention and purpose. I designed the Morning Routine printable planner insert, added it to my little pocket planner and started crafting a morning routine that I would want to wake up for. It helped me so much that I decided to make it a free planner printable that will hopefully help you, too. I can’t explain the difference that this little morning routine plan made to me – a self proclaimed snooze-addict! I had a few things lined up for each morning that I knew would make me a better version of myself if I did them everyday. Now that’s a good reason to wake up.

Crossbow Printables Morning Routine Planner

5 Tips for creating your first morning routine:

 

  1. Start your routine with something that you’ll look forward to. You guys, I can’t explain to you how hard it was for me to get out of bed when I knew the first item on my morning routine was the dreaded e-word… Exercise. Who the heck wants to trade a cosy bed for a HIIT session? Not me, thank you! A simple re-arranging of your morning routine on your free planner printable can make a world of difference. Now, when I wake up, my number one priority is to put on my dressing gown, go downstairs and make a cup of tea that I can drink whilst doing my daily reading. That’s the kind of cosy start I can look forward to.
  2. Remember that small daily actions determine the course of your life. When you’re planning your first ever morning routine, ask yourself a big question – ‘a year from now, what kind of person do I want to be?‘ The answer should help guide you into building the routine that’s right for you. If you want to be healthy, then maybe you’d add exercise, lemon water and a healthy breakfast into your routine. Do you want to be a more kind and generous person? Maybe you could spend five minutes every morning sending an encouraging message to someone. Want to be more mindful? Journaling and meditation may work for you. The main thing to remember is this: it may not feel like you’re changing your life when you wake up and do 15 minutes of exercise, but it’s small habits like this done consistently that will shape who you are a year from now.
  3. Start small. You may have a friend who wakes up at the break of dawn, bangs out a workout, does all the washing, plans out the day ahead, spends an hour in prayer and still has time to make dinner before the day has begun. (I basically just described my Mum, the queen of mornings!). Just remember that good habits are built over time and whenever you add a new discipline to your mornings, no matter how small it is, you should celebrate that! I started only four months ago by waking up 30 minutes earlier everyday to do a little exercise and reading and prayer each morning. Already, that’s become so natural that I now wake up another 30 minutes earlier than even that! I can now add some cleaning into my mornings and increase my exercise time. So, start small and take it from there.
  4. Mix it up. Don’t expect to find instant joy in the first morning routine that you write on your planner. You will most probably find that you need to mix it up a little to find something that truly works for you. For me, it was the third draft that stuck. I made little tweaks each time that I knew would make my morning routine more joyful until something stuck. Try each new routine for a week, adding things in and out, moving the order around, and increasing or decreasing the amount of time spent on certain things until something sticks.
  5. Commit to just doing it. Let’s be honest, new disciplines are hard to build. Once you’re in the habit of waking up and going through your morning routine, it will be as natural to you as brushing your teeth. But, until then, you’re going to have a few weeks of committing to just do it. Unfortunately, there’s no easy fix for creating new disciplines, but if you can motivate yourself with the points above – starting your routine with something you’ll enjoy, and thinking of the person you’ll be a year from now if you follow through on your routine – then you should be able to muster the motivation needed to get started.
I hope I’ve inspired you enough to give morning routines a go, if you don’t already have one. I’d love to hear and share your success stories – let me know how your morning routine planning is going over on instagram (@crossbowprintables) and please tag me in the photos of your free planner printable, I’d love to see what’s in your routine! Everything inside me is routing for you – you can do it!

 

Enjoy your free planner printable!

Please note that the download may not work on some mobile devices.

Morning Routine Planner - Free Download

Personal Planners Are Here!

Hurray! Printed personal inserts are now available in the shop, along with a few new A5 printed designs. *Happy dance* 🙂 Watch the video below for a full run through of what’s new, and a sneak peek of what I’m putting in my own personal planner.

How to increase your chances of goal achieving

IMG_5376

No amount of pretty lighting or fancy backdrop can make this book look less battered and bruised than it is. But, its scars show just how well loved ‘The One Thing‘ has been by me and my family. It’s provided some valuable lessons to me personally and to everyone I know who has read it, and I’d definitely recommend it to you if you want to see extraordinary results in your life… which I suppose is most people.

There’s so many great things I could share from this book, but my affinity towards goal setting and achieving urges me to tell you of one fact that blew my mind. Did you know that people who write down their goals are 39.5% more likely to achieve them? I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to get them on paper. But, what’s more, is that people who write their goals on paper and send progress reports to friends are 76.7% more likely to achieve them. WOAH!

I’m all for anything that will help me keep on track with my goals, but part of me just wants to call my planner my ‘friend’ so that I don’t need to hunt an accountability partner down 🙂 But, alas, the research doesn’t lie, and so I’m making it my mission this week to find a goal accountability partner.

Do you have a goals accountability partner already? If not, I can be yours! Let me know how your goal progress is going by commenting on the post or even writing me an email. Or, if this already works for you, I’d love to hear any wisdom you may have on the matter, too!

Until next time,
Jordan x

My Planner Setup for Ultimate Productivity

IMG_4699 Crossbow Printables Planner Setup

I’ve been thinking recently on just how much my life has changed over the past few years. Ironically, if you had known me a few years ago, you’d have laughed at the idea of me owning a planning business. Laughed! I’d like to think I wasn’t super unorganised, but the idea of keeping a schedule or having a plan definitely didn’t rank high on my priorities list.

That’s why I’m a pretty good testament to the power of planning. Nowadays, you won’t catch me at my desk unless I have a plan (or, more importantly, a reason to be doing what I’m doing) and I can honestly say I’ve achieved more in the last few years of my life than ever before.

I believe that planning ignites the main thing we need in order to make things happen and see change in our lives: focus. Focusing on what you’re working towards and where you’d like to be in the future is something I’d encourage everyone to check in on every once is a while. Like Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time”. Ouch, Zig, talk about cutting to the core! But he’s so right.

For me, my focus comes entirely through goal-setting. And let me tell you, I’m BIG on goal-setting! I set yearly goals, which I break down into quarterly goals, which I break down into monthly, weekly and daily goals. It may sound excessive, but I have never found a system that encourages me to knuckle down and make progress like I do now. It’s encouraged me to dream big, work smarter and achieve more than I thought was possible. In other words, these steps are transforming huge mountains (my big goals) into walkable hills.

So, let me encourage you to dream big, focus and make a plan that will propel you towards the change you want to see in your life. If you need planners to help you get there, check out the ones I use: the Productivity Planner and the Goals Planner.

Wishing you a lovely week!
Jordan x

Daily Planning: A Pretty & Eco-Friendly Alternative

Hurray!! Today’s the day!! Glass Encased Dry Wipe Planners are available to pre-order now!

I’m so so so excited about this new product for a few reasons: a) They’re an environmentally friendly way to plan, b) They’re a way to beautify your space whilst being an organisational rock star (aka, they’re just pretty ?) c) They’re a way to keep your goals in front of you all day, everyday.Glass Encased  Planners

screen-shot-2016-12-09-at-17-36-38
Dry Wipe Planner

There’s four planners to choose from: the Weekly Planner, Daily Planner, Daily To Dos and Meal planner. And rather than babble on about how fun it is to write-on-wipe-off your goals everyday (Karate Kid style!), I’ve filmed a quick video to show you these beauties up close and personal.

So, there we have it… my first product that everyone can enjoy – whether you have a physical planner or not – and I’m super excited about it. I hope you all love it and would love to hear what you think of this new idea!

Happy planning,
Jordan x

Sign up to get 10% off your first order, monthly product updates & planner how-tos!