One of the planners I purchased in my Europe stationery haul is a planner I’d found online months before the trip. I wasn’t expecting to find it (least of all in Slovenia!) as it’s a UK brand. Busy B have a variety of weekly planners (mostly horizontal) but in layouts that are a bit more creative than the seen-it-a-dozen-times kind of layouts.

Quick facts

Size: 5.5″ wide x 8.25″ high
Softcover
Glue binding
Dates at a glance page
Goals page
No monthly calendar
1 page weekly spread plus 1 lined notes page for each week
Worldwide holidays printed on the weekly spread
Extra pages including websites, contacts, expenses tracker etc.

Let’s take a closer look!

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The Cover

Disappointingly, the cover is just thin cardstock. It does mean the planner weighs practically nothing but it doesn’t have enough weight to keep the pages open / lay flat on their own. I can see the cover getting damaged throughout a year of use.

Approx 0.8cm thick (about 0.3″)

The planner starts with a personal details and useful information page

followed by 2020 & 2021 dates at a glance calendars.

A 2 page birthdays list. The writing space is far too small – only 3mm!

Then there’s a 2019 in review

And goals for 2020.

As you can see from the photos, the pages wouldn’t even lay flat on their own long enough for me to take a photo. Even when I broke the spine (which usually works) the pages still wouldn’t lay flat. I tried using a butterfly clip but since the cover is just thin cardstock the cover left an indent 🙁

Monthly Calendar

This planner doesn’t have a monthly calendar – probably why it’s so thin! I actually prefer this since I don’t use the traditional 2 pages per month box layout.

Weekly Planning

This planner is a UK brand but has worldwide holidays printed (including Australia!)

There are no tabs but the months are printed on the side to help find them easier.

Each month has a 2 page weekly spread – 1 page weekly horizontal layout plus a lined notes page.

Since there are no monthly calendar, the month is printed on each of the weekly spreads.

Extras pages

For being such a compact planner there’s actually quite a few extra pages at the back:

2021 Year planner
Key dates for 2021 (annual overview)
Goals for 2021 – 2 pages
Expenses (6 pages)
Travel plans – it’s just lined note paper (6 pages)
Websites (2 pages)
Contacts (2 pages)
Notes (4 pages)

Pen Testing

Unfortunately, the paper quality isn’t very good, all of the pens had indenting or heavy ghosting.

Pros of the Planner

Portable size
Lightweight
Affordable
Variety of extra pages
Elastic band

Cons of the Planner

Pages do not lay flat
No tabs
No monthly calendar
Paper is prone to ghosting

Would I use this planner?

Maybe. This planner had the potential to be great but a few things let it down: the pages don’t lay flat, the cover is too thin and the paper is prone to ghosting.

This brand has other horizontal weekly spreads to choose from (and different layouts to the usual boring seen that way too many times horizontal weekly spreads).