March Discussion Post

[independence1776]

Recommend a favorite planner! Tell or show us why you love it.

Comments

[lunabee34]

I love planners.

Right now I am using Bloom Daily Planner. I probably will not use this brand again, simply because of the size. I'd always used the big 8 1/2 by 11 size, and the Bloom planner is the smaller size, like a little smaller than A5. I have discovered that I really like a bigger size because it's hard to write on the left hand page as you get close to the spiral binding and the boxes to write in are a little smaller.

It does have all the features I consider essential: tabs for the months and a monthly view followed by weekly view.

Bloom planners also have some cool features like a sizeable number of pages at the beginning devoted to goals and planning and some pages at the end devoted to reviewing them. There's also multiple pages of to-do list with boxes to check off at the beginning.

I want to get a Volt planner for next time, but I'm not sure of the dimensions. I need to check that out.

Does anyone have a Volt? What size is it?

[fay_e]

I don't use a Volt or any planner really.

But just wanted to say thanks for the link to the Bloom Daily Planner - it has a lot of the spreads that I drew up myself from scratch, and it was really good to see what well-designed version of my spreads look like! Almost makes me tempted to buy the planner... until I remembered that I usually need more space in between the spreads than such planners cater for.

[lunabee34]

Yay!

I really do like their spreads, but you're absolutely right there isn't enough room for them (at least in the size I have; they may sell some of the bigger version that I prefer). I feel like what they have on one page needs a separate page for each item, really.

[lunabee34]

I just looked up the dimensions for the Volt: 6 x 8.5.

The A5 Leuchtturm is 5.75 X 8.25.

The Bloom Planner I have been using is 6 X 8.25.

Hmmmmmm. So the Volt will be slightly bigger than both. Well, now I don't know if that will be large enough. The Volt isn't spiral bound, so I won't have the trouble writing getting close to the edge that I do with the Bloom.

Maybe I should just go back to the utilitarian academic planners I've been using for the past decade.

Or I could make my own, but that seems like a very ambitious project. I like bullet journaling in theory but I don't want to do it for real to keep track of important tasks. LOL

[eleanorjane]

One option I've been looking at, for my work planner, is to design my own sheets in Photoshop or Word, and then take it to a copy shop and get it printed and bound. Would that work for you?

[lunabee34]

That's an intriguing possibility.

Have you done it before? How much did it cost and what was the binding like (like a book or spiral bound?)?

[eleanorjane]

I didn't wind up doing it because I wanted B5 and consumer-targeted copy shops (i.e. places that will do stuff without requiring a print run) don't tend to do B5 printing or binding. If you were happy with A4 or A5, black and white/greyscale printing, you'd probably get away for dollars per book. I don't know where you're located, but here in Aus the copy shops tend to do metal coil binding or perfect binding (glued spines).

For comparison, my folks had an A4 book printed B&W with a couple of hundred pages, perfect bound with hardcover, and it cost them about AU$25. I think. (That's not much more than a typical blank notebook/journal of equivalent size here.)

[lunabee34]

Price wise, that's really not too bad.

This post and your comment has got me really thinking about what I want from a planner and what I actually use in a planner and whether the way I use one justifies the expense.

I don't want to use a bullet journal for a planner. I've got my beautiful Leuchtturm, and I am pseudo-bujoing in it as an art project. I find it very relaxing and stress relieving. But I have problems with actual bullet journaling. I don't want to keep my planner; it's for crossing shit off the list and throwing away at the end of the year. LOL I don't like the bullet journal's mix of everything all together. I don't like the idea of drawing out twelve months of calendar. I find it disorganized, even with index pages and etc, if you go by the original, organically unfolding method.

And yet, what do I really use in a planner? I use the calendar function extensively, putting lots of things on the calendar view. And then the rest of the pages are just where I jot things down that come up that need to be done that week. It's not like I'm using the weekly spread pages in my calendar as anything but a to-do list (and irrespective of the days; I just start the list at the top on Monday and list down regardless of the day it needs to be done; I use the calendar view for remembering what needs to be done on specific days/times).

So, and I feel like I should apologize for unloading all of this on you as this is probably only interesting to me LOL, it occurs to me that I'm not really using very much of the functionality of these planners I'm buying.

I wonder if I would be better served by getting a pocket calendar or even just printing off calendar pages and putting them in the front of a notebook where I keep my to-do list (and not a nice, fancy notebook either; one where I cross shit off and toss it at the end).

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I feel like I could certainly make a bullet journal that fits my needs and is exactly what I want, but it would be a lot of effort, and I would need it all to be finished and laid out before I started using it because I'm neurotic that way. It could be a summer project, but that's a lot of work. I could do it in an inexpensive notebook, though.

And now I am done brain dumping all over you.

[eleanorjane]

Ahaha, no, that’s ok! That kind of reflective, analytical thought process is crucial to getting and staying organised, IMO.

[lunabee34]

Whew. :)