ABOUT KATE BUCKMAN

I design planners and notebooks with a focus on integrating mindfulness into already busy lives, and then I turn those designs into lovely, handcrafted books that hopefully bring a little beauty and calm into your day.

For several years, I had been something of an unmoored maker. Floating from woodworking projects to fabric arts and back again. Bookmaking finally claimed me when I started making my own planners and notebooks in a desperate effort to bring some order to my life. But I've always been drawn to beautifully made books. Approaching a display of journals in a book store can give me a contact high. Anything can happen in those books. I mean look at them...they have leather cords wrapped around them...they're embossed...their pages have deckled edges. It's all so romantic. So discovering that I had the ability to MAKE something with that soupçon of romance was satisfying to say the least. 

I’m a single, working mom, so organizational systems are my co-parent. But I’m not always great at USING a system because…life. For me to be able to use any kind of system, it has to be ridiculously specific to my situation, my personal strengths, and (especially) my limitations. That’s one of the reasons I started making my own planners. I’ve also discovered along the way that living your entire life according to a checklist has some serious downsides. What’s the point of making it to the end of every day with everyone else healthy and happy, if you never consider whether you are happy? In the end, my systems broke me.

What was missing was any amount of mindfulness or reflection. As fond as I am of them, I’m pretty sure the meaning of life is not wine and checklists. So if I was going to have any hope of being healthy and happy myself (and avoiding giving my son his very own anxiety disorder from growing up with a crazy person), I needed to make a change. Some of the most meaningful changes I made were just small adjustments to my thinking and responses to things as result of adding mindful reflection into my routines.

So now I create organizational and planner systems for other folks that help them navigate their specific circumstances while trying to make just a little space for mindfulness, gratitude, and themselves. Otherwise, what’s the point of all these checklists?!

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Because I design and build all the books myself, I have the luxury of making a custom product that best suits you and your life. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. 

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