As we near the end of the year, you’re probably on the hunt for your planner for next year. Before you pick one, make sure you check these 10 things first!
10 things people forget to check before buying a planner
1. Line spacing
My preferred spacing is around 0.7cm or no less than 0.25″ (similar to what Happy Planner uses)
Week 40: Using the MAMBI Happy Planner Horizontal
2. Start day of the week
Some planners start the week on Mondays some start it on Sundays. I much prefer when the week starts Monday. For whatever odd reason most planners start the weekly spread on Monday but the monthly calendar on Sunday. If this annoys you as much as it annoys me make sure you check before purchasing!
3. Monthly calendar split boxes
Another pet hate of mine – when the monthly calendar splits 1 days’ box into 2 rather than restarting the date numbering on the top row. The logic behind why so many planner company’s do this is something I’ll never understand.
You can get around this by using some whiteout tape and writing the number on the top row or using a date dot sticker.
4. Pen bleed through
From the 80+ planners I’ve reviewed, most of them unfortunately had pen bleed through or ghosting. The pens with the least amount of ghosting and bleed through tend to be ballpoint pens. My recommendation would be the PaperMate Inkjoy 100 1.0M – they write smoothly, are cheap, readily available and they come in lots of pretty rainbow colors!
I’m always searching for planner with decent paper quality so if you can recommend any please comment below.
5. Yellow or white pages
For whatever reason, hardbound notebooks always seem to have yellow paper (and no tabs 🙁 ). Not only is yellow paper just yuck, but highlighter colors don’t look as good and it also seems to be more prone to bleed through and heavy ghosting. Most pages also end up with a ‘wrinkled’ feel (like after you’ve dropped water on the page and it dries) after I use erasable pens.
The Curation weekly planner has one of the brightest white paper for a hardbound planner that I’ve come across
6. Lay flat binding
I typically avoid hardbound / sewn notebooks not only because the paper tends to be yellow, but also because they don’t tend to lay flat without you holding them open with one hand while you struggle to write with your other hand.
If there’s a planner you really want but the pages are prone to closing, a butterfly clip is a good solution.
Related: Bullet Journal Ideas: 26 Weekly Spread Layouts to Try
7. How other people have used the planner for ideas
YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs (including this one!) are all great sources of inspiration on how the same planner layout can be modified in so many different ways. Don’t just buy a planner because that’s what everyone else is using – buy a planner because the layout suits YOUR needs.
Some planner companies offer a free download so you can trial their layout.
Read more: Planner companies that will let you download, print and try their planner layout for free
8. Sturdy Cover
One of the main reasons some planners cost more than others, seems to be the cover. If it’s hardcover it’s almost always going to cost more than a softcover or a laminated cardstock cover.
If your planner stays on your desk at home (like mine does – I take a photo of it rather than carry it around), then the cover material isn’t that important. However if you’re tossing it in your handbag, a flimsy cover is going to get ratty very quickly in which case it’s probably worth splurging for better quality.
The Corie Clark planner is pricey but the cover is very sturdy
Related: Corie Clark Purposeful Planner Review – Daily Version
9. Extra pages
Some planners include extra pages, some don’t. Most planners will heavily advertise these as a point of difference if they include them. So if there’s no mention of these, don’t expect anything. Some planners these days don’t even include notes pages.
Budget pages in the Live Whale Planner
If you’re using a discbound planner (my favorite type of binding) or coil bound, you can always add your own extra pages (tutorial for adding coil pages here).
Otherwise you may prefer to use a second notebook. This is what I do. I have what I call my ‘reference notebook’ where I keep things like cleaning checklists, recurring task lists, password logs, my monthly habit trackers, monthly planning and review etc. (I use the A4 ARC discbound notebook for this).
Related: Planner Organization: Why I use the Arc Planner instead of binders
10. Shipping
If you’re a fellow Aussie you’ll know that shipping is a killer (it often costs as much as or more than the cost of the planner to get it from the USA to Australia).
If there’s a planner you like and it’s your version of planner peace then expensive shipping should be a non-issue. However, if you’re not quite sure or want to try a few, be sure to purchase your planner mid-season (March to May for calendar year planners or September to October for academic year planners) when they go on clearance.
There are so many planner companies these days so if you’re after the typical vertical, horizontal or hourly, there’s probably a cheaper alternative. Or you could trial the layout with a printable or make your own planner.
More planning tips:
- Setting up a new planner: 70 Tasks to add
- 10 Things I don’t put in my planner (and why)
- 7 Planner supplies I don’t regret splurging on
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Cori Large says
Another thing, for those who cannot see the planner in real life, lots of pictures on the seller’s website is a must! You give such in depth reviews, it makes up for seller who skimp on pictures. Example: Franklin Covey Blooms or Seasons inserts: we only see 1 of 4 quarterly images. Not too helpful. Thank you for this helpful list.
Erin-Joi says
I love your posts like these. I had a lot of trouble deciding on a planner and tried three before deciding on my current choice. I am using a happy planner mini with all pages except the monthly being ones I have customized or downloaded.
Since I bought the planner I started with on clearance, I didn’t feel bad pulling all of the weekly pages out. At least six months were out of date anyway. (bought 18 month planner 6 months after it started). I didn’t discard them. I used them in sticker books.
One of the problems that I had with the previous planners was that my life doesn’t fit in a box. I am not a mom nor am I a typical businesswoman. I am married, work full time in infectious disease research at a university, and am a part time PhD student at a different university in the same city. I needed a planner that would fit home, work, and school.
I have many of your freebies although I am not using all of them. I have bought some printable pages and bundles. I use a 2 page vertical weekly format during the semester and a single page day. When school is out and I don’t have a giant report due, I can drop back to just the weekly.
When on vacation, I use very open single page weeks. We don’t plan our vacations like yours. There will be one page with flights, rental car, accommodations, specific attractions or locations that we want to visit. Otherwise, our vacations are unplanned. Rest, relax, renew.
Although I have stickers, my spreads are not pretty. They are functional. I do have a lot of inspirational, motivational, and pretty words scattered through and some themed stickers for certain pages (fitness, reading, etc). I use color coding because it helps me, and that is probably the best looking part of my pages. LOL.
I love your blog and have learned a lot from it and tweaked a lot of my customized pages after reading some of the sections. You also suggested pages that I hadn’t thought of but really like having.
Thank you for the time you take to write such wonderful postings. your blog has been great for a newbie with a tendency to dive in at the deep end.
Warmest regards from Atlanta!
Rachael says
Hi Erin, glad you’ve found my blog helpful. Thanks for sharing how you use your planner – was an interesting read 🙂
Leslie says
Hi Rachael–I too enjoyed reading Erin’s post. I could post something similar, about how your blog has so positively influenced my current planner in its look and feel and usage. I’m a long time planner user, and my current one based on what I’ve learned is the BEST ever.
I followed your similar post to this one on what to look for in a planner. In Barnes & Noble last June, I found an 18 month academic planner from Gallery Leather (in Bar Harbor, Maine). It’s leather bound, starts in July 2018, has the typical monthly calendars in the front and maps/contact/blank pages in the back. For the rest of the planner, on the left is a weekly page with lines for each day and on the right is a full blank lined page. I’ve used colored pens and highlighters and washi tape like never before, and loving it!