Trying out the To Do List in a Book Planner (Notepad version)

While looking for a daily planner without a scheduling section I stumbled across the To Do List in a Book… and then the To Do List notepad. I ended up opting for the notepad as it didn’t have the annoying sewn / book binding.

The notepad is 6 x 9″ and has 150 tear off sheets.

There’s not much to say about this planner, it’s about as basic as they get – just 3 sections on the page.

Since I was travelling at the time I used this notepad, I used the PaperMate Inkjoy 100 RT 1.0M ballpoint pens. These are my go to pens as they’re retractable, lots of colors, cheap if I lose one while travelling and need to replace and they write nice.

While I like the priorities and focus format of the planner, I ended up using the back side of the page for little things, reminders etc. as there wasn’t enough space.

The notepad is quite thick – if you use a page a day / every other day it should last around 5 months (it has 150 sheets).

The notepad is smooth to write on and the paper is bright white <3

Pros

Cheap ($13 USD)
Tear off as needed so you don’t have to carry the whole thing with you if you don’t want to
Includes a lot of pages
Bright white paper
Smooth to write on

Cons

The instructions e.g. ‘list 2 medium priority tasks’ are a bit pointless since ‘should do today’ heading already says that
Awkward page size – wish it was A5 without having to trim it
Writing space is too big for each section
Needs a 4th ‘little things’ type section for random stuff that pops up

The design of the page leaves a lot of dead space around the boxes, however it does mean you could punch the side and add to a discbound notebook.

Would I Use this again?

Probably not. To be honest, I have a bit of buyers remorse about buying this one. I initially wanted this because it was simple… however after trying it out I think it’s a bit too simple.

It could work for pre-planning the week by changing any ‘today’ references to ‘this week’. If you’re someone that finds you don’t need an entire planner, just something you can use every other day, then this notepad may be a good alternative.