Carpe Diem Home Planner Review (Pros, Cons & Video Walkthrough)
Carpe Diem have pretty and functional planners. Their budget planner is my favorite paper planner for money management so I was keen to do a review of their Home Planner!
Quick facts
- Cover Size: 7.25″ wide x 8.75″ high
- Page Size: 6.25″ wide x 8.25″ high
- Hardcover
- Wire binding
- Dates at a glance page
- Tabs
- Colorful inside pages
- (7) Personal info inserts
- (14) 2 page monthly calendar pages
- (26) Schedule inserts
- (21) Get it done inserts
- (21) Menu plan inserts
- (8) To do inserts
- (1) Interior pocket
- 2 Sticker sheets in coordinating colors
Let’s take a closer look!
To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon).
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more planner videos!
If you like the Carpe Diem home planner, you’ll love the Carpe Diem budget planner that I did a review of in this post.
The Cover
Love the cover of this planner! It’s super sturdy hardcover with gold corners.
Approx 1″ thick
Home Information
At the front of the planner are home organization type pages including password logs, account info and contacts.
Monthly Calendar
Starts Sunday (not consistent with the weekly spread)
As you can see the calendar is undated so you can start planning anytime! If you don’t want to write in the dates this brand has an entire sticker book with date dot stickers (it’s one of my all time favorite sticker books – I use it all the time)
Weekly Schedule
The proportions of this planner are a bit weird. There are 12 monthly calendar spreads… but only 26 weekly spreads.
This planner has 3 different weekly spreads:
- 1 page weekly spread with the days of the week
- 1 page categories weekly spread (u.e. icons and no days of the week)
- 1 page menu planner (with days of the week)
If you wanted to use 2 of the weekly spreads together to create a 2 page weekly spread, you’ll need to flick back and forth between the tabs.
Categories weekly spread
Menu Planning
These pages are yet another weekly spread… so there’s 3 different weekly spreads in the same planner.
But oddly no grocery list pages…
Checklists
At the back of the planner are some checklists, unfortunately there are only 8 pages of them!
Tabs
The tabs are sturdy, laminated cardstock. Each of the dividers are double sided with different patterns on the front and back.
Planner stickers
If you want more coordinating stickers, Carpe Diem do entire sticker booklets including the home sticker book.
use their rainbow calendar and number stickers all the time!
Pros of the Planner
- Colorful
- Undated – start planning anytime
Cons of the Planner
- Not enough home organization pages
- Not enough checklists
- There are meal planning pages but no grocery lists
- If you want to use the weekly planning pages to create a 2 page weekly spread you’ll have to flick back and forth between the tabs
- Monthly calendar starts Sunday, the weekly spreads start Monday
- The planner is heavy
Would I use this planner?
No. I loved the Carpe Diem budget planner which has a similar style to this planner so had high hopes for this one. However the Home planner is a bit disjointed. Nothing really seems to fit, there are 3 different weekly planning pages but there’s no home management pages like cleaning schedules, home inventories, budgeting, home cleaning recipes reference chart or anything like the icons shown on the cover etc.
If you like this planner, my sister stocks it in her planner supplies shop.
More planner reviews:
- Alternatives to the Erin Condren Horizontal Weekly Planner
- 7 Planner supplies I don’t regret splurging on
- Lucky Life Tools Planner Review
Planning Tips:
- 7 Mistakes to avoid when setting up a new planner
- 10 Functional Ways to Use Washi Tape in your Planner
- Answers to 50 Frequently Asked Planner Questions
Found this post helpful? Pin it!
I think To Do pages are regular schedule task for, something like FlyLady system. You just need to write a to-do checklist for every room of your home, and then based on these you could schedule the weekly and daily task to the earlier pages.
Strikes me this planner is a work in progress. The bones & setup look great for a small planner. I could not use it. They just don’t seem to have a handle on what the inserts should be. They would be smart to convert to the disc or a binder format and offer open stock on the various inserts, allow people to self tailor the planner to their needs. I didn’t notice any goal pages, or tracking pages, and list pages were small. If there was an index, I missed it. No dates & no pagination are an asset to me. I did notice no split weekends. I personally don’t mind if the month & weekly calendars don’t start on the same day. In the US that is standard. Plus nurses work weekends so the weekend as a separate entity has never existed for me. The To Do List is just longer with more complex tasks on whatever days we are not on the clock or shifts we are not scheduled. By the way thankyou for rerunning the article on sticker storage, it answered all my questions & my sticker notebook is now accomplished. Thank you!