All My Favorite Planners

Happy Monday, beautiful friends! Today is the first official Monday of 2019 and the “start” of my new year with teaching. Back in November, I asked on Instagram stories if you guys would be interested in seeing a planner review/round-up and I had over 100 responses with HECK YAH! With the holidays wrapping everyone up, I decided to wait until the celebrations were over to get this post out. I will warn you now, this post is a little lengthy, but I am so excited to help you plan out your year!

So, when it comes to picking a planner, what am I looking for?

1. Visually pleasing – I know this doesn’t matter to many people but since I carry my planner almost everywhere with me, I need it to be pretty.
2. Not too heavy – Since half of my days are spent working from home, at a local coffee shop/eatery or traveling, I do tend to take my planner in my purse. My everyday purse if the LV Neverfull, so I have plenty of space for a daily planner that may be bigger than a weekly or monthly.
3. Ability to test drive – Have you ever spent $30 on a planner only to realize it wasn’t what you are looking for? Because I totally have. Our saving grace is that now many planner brands provide free pages to test drive before purchasing. Some companies have free full digital planners, while others you have to pay for. Here are options to free pages to try out planners :
4. Sturdy paper – If you’re a planner addict like myself, you know the difference between paper quality. Unfortunately, I have had my fair share of run ins with flimsy paper and the pen blending. Since I write in my planner daily, I can’t handle pen marks from the day before coming through.
5. Affordability – I’m sure I’m not the only who noticed that planners can get a bit pricey! Since ideally you’re only buying one planner a year to year and a half, the investment is worth it but a good quality planner can run you up to $60. However, when planners are just released (check their schedule in the FAQ section of their websites, there is usually a sale code for 10%-20% off) Currently, The Simplified Planner is 20% off with code GETREADY + the Purposeful Planner is 15% off with code LOTSOFSASSBLOG!

So, here are the planners I’m covering in today’s post: Purposeful Planner, Passion Planner, Inkwell Press Planner (360-disc system), The Happy Planner, Momentum Planner & Lily Pulitzer Agenda.

1. Purposeful planner – This is my planner for 2019. The Purposeful Planner is perfect for my lifestyle with a page for each day, timed-section, brain dump space, meals and more. There are so many pros to this planner but for me, I love the thickness of the pages; the prayer & praise section for each day; and space for budgeting. For someone who wants everything in one space, I totally recommend this planner. Saturday & Sunday share a page with everything except the timed space & retail therapy. My favorite part of this planner is the “15 minutes” section with a different task to complete each day. This year, I am challenging myself to complete the task each day. If you keep up with the task, you will have an overall more cleaned and organized space since some of the prompts include: declutter your desk, pick up all the shoes around your house, load/unload your dishwasher and so-on. Use code LOTSOFSASSBLOG for 15% off! 
2. Inkwell Press – This was my first time trying this planner and I love it! I have the brand new 360-disc set which is basically a fully customizable planner. You pick what type of layout you want, extras, accessories and more. Since it is completely up to you what goes in the planner, it can definitely climb up in price. My full price was $110 for: Cool Solid Sticker Sheets, triple pocket folder, pen loop, daily sheets, monthly tabs, vegan leather cover, gold discs. The size is a bit smaller than the Purposeful Planner, which is perfect you carry a smaller bookbag or purse. If you opt for the daily layout, you will only be able to fit about 1/2 the year at a time. However, the weekly layout allows space for the entire year at once. Each month has a “mission board” where you can easily map out what you want to accomplish in each section including health, home, financial, social and more. There are also 2 graph pages for notes per month and a place to track 3 habits for the entire month. The only thing I dislike about this planner is that the hourly starts at 5pm and ends at 9pm. Personally, I don’t plan on waking up at 5am unless I’m going on vacation and I stay up working until 10/11, so I would rather a shift in the hours. Other than that, this planner is perfect if you want to create a planner, have great quality paper and an array of cover options.
3. Passion Planner – Okay, so the Passion Planner has been one that I have recommended for years. During my sophomore, junior & first senior year (victory lap AKA 5 year FTW), I ran this planner into the ground. I love this combines my love of the daily time slots but gives me the full view of the week. Theres a section for work and personal to-dos during the week and a blank space for doodling, brainstorming or planning. The Passion Planner has a detailed section at the beginning for goal mapping and strategic planning. This is another planner that I’ll say is good for someone who wants almost everything in one place. The only reason I stopped using this planner is because my life got a little too busy for the weekly view and I started to feel compeltely overwhelmed. Passion Planner has a great get one, give one program where every time a planner is purchased, another planner might go to a student needing to plan her next steps after graduation or to a patient organizing his medical appointments. Passion Planner also offers every planner for completely free as a download. If you want to try before you buy or are in a tight financial spot, this is a great option. Head over to my Instagram for a chance to win a Passion Planner for yourself 🙂 
4. Momentum Planner – Okay friends, this has to be the most unique planner I have seen on the market. The Momentum Planner is perfect if you’re a project based person in any way. Looking at the monthly sheet, you can plan for 5 projects per week (I do 1 project/work days since there are 5 lines), 5 monthly objectives, 5 objectives for this quarter, scheduled events, emergent project notes. There is a digital planner for $12, a bound printer for $39 and free sheets. In November, I basically printed out an entire month of free sheets to see how I could make this planner work for me. My favorite part is that on the weekly view, you have space to prioritize tasks for each day and then a place to compare the planned time versus the actual time. For someone like me who gets easily side-tracked, that was a complete wake-up call for me. I would estimate 1 hour on a project but it would actually take 3 hours after I took 4 social media breaks, walked my dog, got 2 snacks and answered emails in the middle. I adore that the daily layout allows you to input your own times and has a separate section for scheduled events, so you can map out your time section with actual projects you’re completing. The only downside to this planner is the bound size. There is only one bound size, 5×8, which is completely too small for me. If this planner was bigger, it would definitely go head to head with my #1, the Purposeful Planner. As mentioned, this planner is more project focused with spaces to break down supporting tasks for each project. This planner is hands down the most unique one I’ve seen and once you buy one/sign-up for their mailing list, you get so many goodies about productivity including links to podcasts, blog posts, resources and more. I highly suggest grabbing a free planning page and trying this layout before purchasing. 
   
5. The Happy Planner – If you follow any of the #plannercommunity, #planneraddict or #thehappyplanner hashtags on Instagram, this planner will show up 10000x times. Seriously, The Happy Planner has a crazy following. So, why do people love this? For one, this planner is super affordable and easy to pick-up. Unlike the planners above, The Happy Planner can be found on Amazon, at Michael’s, Staples, Walmart and probably some other places. This planner also comes in 3 different sizes, all customizable from the inserts to stickers to covers. Once again, customizable planners are so fun but can get pricey after the add-ons. However, there’s almost always a 40% off coupon on the Michael’s website and their planners go on sale pretty often. I would wait until you have the coupon or run into a sale before picking up one and all the accessories. There are tons of Etsy stores that sale stickers that fit into these planner perfectly plus the stickers and sticky notes/list available in store. My other complaint with this planner is that the pages are super thin. Out of all the planners, I’ve seen people have the most fun with this one since you can get hundreds of add-ons, inserts, stickers, covers, binders and sizes.
6. Lilly Pulitzer – If you would have told freshman year me that I would not use this planner for the rest of my life, I would have passed out. As a northern, when I came to the south for college, I felt like I had to jump on the Lilly Pulitzer bandwagon. I was obsessed with the bright colors and fun sticks to decorate my planner. Since then, I’ve definitely moved up to something more simple but for my southern college gals, this is a great planning agenda for classes, rush season, projects and more. My favorite part of this planner is the 15 note pages in the back. There were several times freshman year where I would forget my notebook (Okay, I was a nervous-wreck freshman year of college)  or go to an interest meeting without a bookbag, so the note section quickly filled up for me. There are also cute sheets in the front to plan your next trip. Overall, this planner made me feel extremely happy and excited to plan and use cute sticks. This will forever be my first adultish planner that I tried and will always hold a special place in my heart. Since I found an old planner in my closet, the pictures are from an older version but all the same sticks, additions and layouts are exactly the same.

If you skipped all the way to the bottom, here’s the spark notes:

• I’m currently using & loving the Purposeful Planner, which you can get 15% off with code LOTSOFSASSBLOG! 
• The Inkwell Planner now has a customizable version and is the perfect size if you want something smaller than a notebook.
• The Passion Planner is great if you like a weekly view with time slots plus has a completely free version to download.
• The Momentum Planner is great if you manage several projects and one of the most unique designs on the market currently with free sheets, a complete digital pack and a bounded option.
• The Happy Planner is a most affordable customizable planner that can be found at Michael’s craft store usually on sale and is the most fun (IMO) to decorate).
• The Lilly Pulitzer Agenda is fun for the southern sassy college gal who loves colors and cute stickers.

List of planners that offer free downloadable pages(s): Day Designer | Simplified Planner | Passion Planner  | Happiness Planner | Momentum Planner | Purposeful Planner

Planners currently on sale: The Simplified Planner is 20% off with code GETREADY + the Purposeful Planner is 15% off with code LOTSOFSASSBLOG!