On the quest for planners with some decorative elements but not too many (still want a functional spread), I came across the Happy Bee Planner. The entire planner has bee & honey references throughout!

Quick facts

• Size: A5
• Hardcover
• Sewn binding
• Dates at a glance page
• Annual planning pages
• 2 page Monthly calendar (starts on Sunday)
• 2 page weekly spread (starts on Sunday)
• 1 page daily planning pages
• Neutral inside pages
• 5 Double sided lined notes pages
• 5 Double sided blank notes pages
• Pocket folder
• Undated
• Lasts 6 months
• 2 ribbon bookmarks

Let’s take a closer look!

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The Cover

The usual hardcover that all sewn bound notebooks have. At least they added a bee to the otherwise plain black cover.

The planner comes with 3 functional rainbow sticker sheets 🙂

Approx 0.75″ thick

Dates at a glance

This is the only page of the planner that has dates pre-printed.

USA Holidays List & Goals

The goals by category is a great idea but the writing space is very squished and only gives enough space to focus on 1 goal for each category. A bit more space would been good.

Love the timeframe page in gantt chart style. I use something similar to this to plan out my year.

Monthly Planning

Love the bee & honey theme continued throughout the entire planner while still keeping the planner very functional.

The monthly calendar pages are a bit disjointed. If they’d added an extra page (e.g. goals or notes) then you could see the month at a glance but at the moment you have to flick between pages. In a 2 page view, 1 page is last month and 1 page is the current month. So in the photo below the left would be half of June and the right page would be half of July.

Weekly Planning

Same for the weekly planning. Starts on a Sunday (consistent with the monthly calendar) but disjointed. Maybe I got a planner with printing error…

The scheduling and daily task space is quite narrow – you’ll need to write small. However there’s plenty of space on the daily spread so you could do a code e.g. a symbol or stamp for each goal category, and then write the task on the corresponding daily planning page.

Daily Planning

1 page for each day with a very functional spread. I think this would be a really good layout if you want to keep work and personal in the same planner.

Notes

5 lined and 5 blank notes pages.

Pocket Folder

Pen Testing

Since the paper is thin with bad ghosting of the design printed on the back of the page, I didn’t bother with a pen test.

Pros of the Planner

• Portable size
• Minimalist color scheme
• Honey & bees theme continued throughout is something different (while still keeping the planner functional)
• Plenty of lined writing space throughout
• 3 big (A5 size) sheets of functional rainbow planner stickers
• Detailed yearly and monthly goal pages
• Undated – start planning anytime
• Pages lay flat
• 2 ribbon bookmarks (and different colors)
• Logical clustering – starts with yearly, then monthly, then weekly and lastly, daily pages at the back
• Functional daily planning page
• Lined and blank notes pages
• Pocket folder

Cons of the Planner

• Plain cover (and it’s black)
• Thin paper that’s prone to ghosting
• Yellow / cream paper not white
• Hard to find online
• No tabs
• The monthly calendars are awkwardly split between spreads. In a 2 page view, 1 page is last month and 1 page is the current month
• Columns are narrow on the weekly spread
• Only lasts 6 months

Would I use this planner?

No. I don’t use vertical weekly planners or day to a page planners. However, I still like this planner. There are a few design flaws – thin columns on the weekly, odd page sequencing with split months and weeks and the thin paper, but I do like that it has monthly, weekly and daily pages. The daily pages are a very functional layout that would be ideal if you wanted to plan work and personal (or your day job and a side hustle) in the same planner.

I found this planner on Amazon about a year ago but cannot find it on there anymore. The website on the front of the planner also doesn’t seem to work. So if you like this planner, I’d try a site like eBay.

More planner reviews:

• bloom weekly planners review (horizontal, vertical, monthly & student)
• Life Organized Weekly Planner by Paper House (similar to the Erin Condren Life Planner)
• Mom’s Manager Planner Review from TF Publishing 

Planning Tips:

• 7 Cheaper alternatives to popular (but expensive) planner supplies
• Best pens for writing on washi tape 
• How to choose the right habit tracker for your planner

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