Managing time

An amateur designer of planners creates a space for herself online, Wang Ru reports.

When Gao Li bought a fancy notebook on sale in 2015, she didn't know how to use it properly. As it looked good, she didn't want to treat it casually, so she searched on YouTube and found a lot of videos about turning the notebook into a planner.

"That was the first time I got to know about planners. The various styles and people's creative use of materials really delighted me, and attracted me to the circle," says Gao, 33.

Planners refer to people's notebooks recording schedules and diaries, often with creative layouts and decorations. Creating planners is a popular hobby across the world.

Gao found that making a planner was an ideal way to view life from a different angle. "I began to imagine people's lives from their planners, and compare their lives with my own. I found that many amazing things they recorded were not strange to me at all, but I didn't find them so interesting when I experienced them. It inspired me to put things down and view them from an observer's angle, to make things more interesting and meaningful," she says.