pat_harris•2mo agoMost Upvoted

Spilled coffee all over my March spread at 6am this morning

I was sitting at my kitchen table in St. Louis trying to log my water intake for the day when I knocked over a full mug. The coffee went straight across my habit tracker and smeared half the ink into a brown blob. I had to rip out that whole page and rewrite everything on a new one. Has anyone else had a drink disaster ruin their layout and how do you recover without starting over?

4 comments

4 Comments

wyattramirez2mo ago

Is it really that big of a deal though? It's just a planner page, not a wedding invitation. I've had coffee spills on my notebook before and I just let it dry and kept going. The brown stain adds character, honestly. Unless you're trying to sell your planner on Instagram, a little water damage isn't going to ruin your life. You could also try sketching a little coffee cup over the stain and call it decoration. That's what I'd do.

dylan_ward2mo ago

Wow, I actually read a study about how people get too attached to their planners. @wyattramirez is right, my notebook has a coffee stain from 2019 and I still use it fine. Sketching a coffee cup over it is genius honestly, might steal that idea for my own mess ups.

emma_jones2mo ago

Disagree completely actually. A planner is personal, it's where you keep your appointments, your thoughts, your goals for the day. If you mess it up, that can throw off your whole morning routine and put you in a bad headspace before you even get started. Not everyone can just brush off a coffee spill like it's nothing, some of us rely on those pages being clean and organized to function properly. That study Dylan mentioned probably has a point about attachment, but maybe that attachment isn't a bad thing if it helps you get through the week without missing a dentist appointment or forgetting a deadline.

cora81317d ago

Back when I was still working in an office, I spilled half a cup of tea right down the middle of my weekly spread. It was a mess, pages all stuck together and the ink blurring. I tried the blotting thing and it just made it worse, so I ended up cutting out the damaged part of the page with a craft knife. Then I taped a new sheet of paper over the hole and rewrote everything from my phone notes. Took maybe ten minutes, but it saved having to redo the whole month. Sometimes a little fix like that works better than trying to save the original page. Keeps the planner functional without losing your place.