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Friday Favourites: The Mslexia Writer’s Diary

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As I explained in How a Messy Creative Learned to Love Advanced Planning, my journey towards a more organised life began with a diary.

This year’s diary

To be exact, it began with the Mslexia Writer’s Diary, which I have been buying and using for eight years now. Here’s why it fits my needs so perfectly and why I keep coming back to it year after year.

1. It’s got the basics down.

Week to view on the right, space for notes on the left. There’s enough room for me to record appointments and plans for every day, and if I need to I can expand on the opposite page. It also has pages for 2017 and 2018 at a glance, a menstrual calendar, and the traditional weights and measures section, which is surprisingly useful! I also love that it’s spiral bound, meaning that it’s easy to open and keep open, and there’s an elastic band to hold it closed.

Week one always looks so tidy!

2. It’s a writer’s diary.

Each year there is a different theme (this year it’s ‘The Human Mind’) and there are several pages at the start of the diary exploring this theme in-depth. There are also monthly passages from books and exercises on the theme, and each week, quotes from authors alternate with book recommendations. At the back of the diary there are 28 blank pages for notes, and I have been known to scribble over the contact section as well.

Other useful features for writers include a manuscript layout guide, a submissions diary, a key to editing marks, a resources list, and ‘The Writing Year’, which has details of upcoming competitions and festivals. I’m really excited about the ‘Plan Your Pitch’ section in this year’s diary, it’s not especially relevant to my creative writing practice but the list of anniversaries and notable dates will come in handy for planning my blogging!

Last year’s diary – surprisingly unbattered considering how long it spent squished in my satchel!
A testament to how well-designed these are.

3. The ‘Books Lent and Borrowed’ section

I love that this is a feature – so much so I decided it deserved its own tribute. This is extremely useful for keeping track of books I’ve lent family and friends, and making sure I don’t forget what I’ve borrowed! It’s a brilliant bookish bonus.

Waiting to be filled with titles and names!

Do you use a paper diary? Do you stick to the same one every year or do you change it up each time? Let me know in the comments or tweet me!

You can buy the Mslexia Writer’s Diary directly from Mslexia. 

Why Being a ‘Mood Dresser’ Doesn’t Work

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As I explained in How a Messy Creative Learned to Love Advanced Planning, I am not a natural planner. I enjoy being creative and following my whims – especially when it comes to getting dressed in the morning! In an ideal world, I would be a mood-dresser. I would choose every outfit each morning so that it fit my mood perfectly.

But as fun as being a mood-dresser can be, I decided to become a planner instead. Mood dressing is just too stressful, and here’s three reasons why:

1. If I don’t know exactly what mood I’m in, I panic

Often, I wake up with an outfit idea in my head, or put one together when I’m in the shower. Often, but not always. Most days of the week, I just want to look and feel good and I don’t really care what colours are involved and what silhouette I’ll end up with. It’s those mornings that would lead me to stare at my wardrobe, trying to decide what I wanted to wear and how to put together an outfit. After five or more minutes of staring, I’d panic and put on whatever combination first sprang to mind.

Once I was dressed, I’d start feeling uncomfortable and unhappy with the outfit. A glance in the mirror would confirm my suspicions were correct. Something about it didn’t work. The colours weren’t coordinated, the silhouette was wrong, I looked too casual. So I’d decide to change skirt or swap cardigan – only to make the outfit worse! Inevitably, I’d glance at the clock, panic again, change back into the first outfit, then go to work feeling self-conscious and dissatisfied.

2. It’s time consuming

All that staring and panicking and changing takes up an enormous amount of time. Mornings are rushed enough without wasting time worrying about something as superficial as clothing.

I believe that it’s better to get this small detail taken care of in advance so that getting dressed can be as quick and pleasant as possible. Once the outfit planning is out of the way, mental energy is freed up for other purposes.

3. It doesn’t take practical considerations into account

My moody, creative mind didn’t have the slightest clue what clothes are clean. I’d frequently decide that my heart was absolutely set on wearing one particular item, for example, a pink top. Then the real trouble would begin, as I’d discover that none of the clothes I usually wore with that pink top were clean and would have to come up with a new combination on the spot.

Even if I was having one of those glorious mornings where I woke up with an outfit idea in my head, I’d usually find that I couldn’t wear exactly what I had imagined because the tights in my mental picture were in the wash. So I’d have to swap them for another pair, which would mean that the matching cardigan would also need to be replaced and more and more time would be wasted.

Mood dressing would only be a practical choice if I had an extra half hour every single day for choosing outfits – and if that half hour could not be used for any other task!


In the real world, there are better things I could do with that time, ways to spend it that leave me feeling satisfied instead of frustrated. That’s what lead me to create my system for wardrobe planning, and develop it into a course that can help you too.

My favourite thing about my Planning Your Work Wardrobe system is that you can adapt it to give yourself just enough flexibility to keep your inner mood-dresser happy, while still having a functional plan that will see you through morning after morning. So – are you a mood-dresser, a planner. or something in-between?