Tag Archives: planner

Best planner 2021?

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Whilst most people consider getting a planner for the new year, serious planner nerds know that the time to start thinking about this in September. Some of the most popular planners in the world go on sale around then and sometimes they (or their accessories) are sold out long before January rolls around.

Kikki.K has fallen victim to the global economic crisis, so there are no UK stores anymore. This means I won’t be using the Dream Life Planner again next year. So what to use instead? My first thought was trying out the Hobonichi Techo Cousin, but it’s so expensive, especially if you also buy a cover and then get whacked with a customs fee when it enters the UK.

So what to do? Come up with something potentially even more expensive, of course!

Over the past few years, a new planner niche has appeared: the 90 day planner. This gives people the space to do serious planning with nice tools requiring thicker paper (i.e. fountain pens and other wet inks), without it being the approximate thickness and weight of a house brick. The other advantage is that every quarter, you get to try something new and get the feeling of a fresh start, which reduces boredom and keeps you more engaged with the planner you are using to actually get work done.

I think I’ve come up with four options I’m interested in, but I’m also very open to suggestions of any alternatives (90 days or otherwise) for 2021.

The Full Focus Planner is an obvious choice. It was one of the original 90 day planners on the market and is very productivity and goal focused. My planning is all about functionality rather than stickers and washi tape, so I can see how this would be a really good fit for me.

My second choice is a little bit more of a risk in that it’s not actually out yet, so there are no reviews or evidence of its success. I’m a fan of Cal Newport and some of the ways he approaches his day – no one can argue that he gets a lot done. So his Time Block Planner coming out later this year has already caught my attention.

Best Self Co. do a range of planners and again, productivity and personal improvement is at the heart of the process, rather than just tracking meetings and organising a to do list. The book that’s classed a planner is for 6 months, so I’d probably go with the ‘journal’ which is a 13 week goal book.

The final choice is significantly less structured than the others: the Theme System Journal from Myke and Grey over at Cortex. I’ve always found their podcast discussions on systems for working interesting, so I’m naturally intrigued. Plus Myke is a pen guy, so I know that I’ll be able to use my favourite fountain pens without worry.

Anyone else thinking of doing the same thing next year? Or, perhaps more importantly, has anyone already tried it and either had amazing success or found it to be an expensive crash and burn? Let me know in the comments before I go any deeper down the planning rabbit holes and spend the equivalent of a mortgage payment on notebooks…

Pandemic Planning Mindset

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Everyone who knows me or reads this site knows that I’m a planner. One of the most relaxing things I can do is sit down with my physical planner, some nice pens and a coffee, and work through what’s coming up and what I want to achieve. This most recent quarterly review really made me consider mindset and much as actions.

I’d actually blocked a time aside in my calendar at the end of June and arranged to not be in charge of the small, loud tornado that is my toddler. I was looking forward to it, but when the day actually arrived I was feeling nothing short of meh. Instead of ploughing on with it, I decided to reschedule. Not once, but twice.

kikki.k planner

Current planner and essential mildliners

This isn’t like me, but given the current situation, it seemed like the most logical choice. It’s so hard to plan and dream when there are so many unknowns. Sure, the UK is coming out of lockdown, but so was Florida and Texas. Coming out of lockdown basically requires people to be sensible and thoughtful of others. I don’t have much faith in other humans at the best of times, but throw alcohol and new-found freedom into the mix and I can’t help but be prepared for a bumpy ride. Going into a planning and dreaming session with such a negative mindset is a recipe for disaster.

Add into the fact I was coming off a month of sleepless nights (my own fault for mentioning that a certain child had started sleeping through at last, thus causing some slapback from the universe), and I was struggling with the reviewing part, let alone the planning for the future.

Just grateful for coffee I guess

Quite simply, mindset matters, much more than the day of the week. It’s easy when you have a perfectionist, upholder streak to do the review at the set time and place because that’s the best way and what you always do. In reality, it won’t matter if your quarterly review isn’t complete until a week into the new quarter (I finally finished the detail of mine this morning). What matters is that you’ve set some goals and plans that you feel enthusiastic about and hopeful for and that are within your control. This isn’t the time for massive stretch goals, not unless you have no family responsibilities and a higher than average autonomy over your surroundings. The pandemic planning mindset is about incremental progress forwards and celebrating the small wins. We’re in this for the long haul.

Work with what you have right now

Anyone who wants a good framework on how to do effective reviews should sign up for Sarah Hart-Unger’s email list and get her free planner download. It’s pretty much exactly what I’ve done for years (although she uses a very interesting quintiles system rather than quarters), but her template looks much nicer than anything I have right now! Her blog is always worth a read, especially her current pandemic blogging streak.

And talking of email lists, it came to my attention that mine had been disabled for a week or so. It should all be sorted now (thanks to mail chimp for the speedy customer service), so if you’ve tried to download a template and it failed, then please try again. If you still have problems, feel free to get in touch and I’ll take a look as soon as I can.

Moleskine vs Leuchtturm1917 Weekly Planner Review

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For years, the Moleskine Planner in its various formats has been the ‘go to’ product for those wanting an analogue calendar/organiser. It was the brand I picked for 2017, because the layout worked great for me. The trade off, of course, came with the paper quality. You can check out the original review of the Moleskine Weekly Planner I did back at the beginning of the year.

Molekine top, Leuchtturm bottom

For 2018 I have chosen to go with the Leuchtturm1917 Weekly Planner instead. As the two are very similar, I thought it would be useful to do a direct comparison for those people who are interested in trying a different brand.*

Paper Quality

There’s no point avoiding the elephant in the room. If you want to write with fountain pens, the battle of Moleskine vs Leuchtturm in the planner selection is no different to the regular notebooks. Leuchtturm1917 paper wins hand down. Even gel pens show through worse on the Moleskine paper:

Moleskine paper

Leuchtturm1917 paper

Year Overview Sections

Moleskine bottom, Leuchtturm top

There is a difference in approach here. The Moleskine overview is closer to the project planner section in the Leuchtturm (more on that below). The ‘by day’ view in the Leuchtturm probably offers similar space, but is visually less useful to me:

Leuchtturm day overview

Weekly View

Both have the same format: days on the week on the left hand side, lined page for notes on the right hand size. Because of the extra width of the Leuchtturm, you get more writing space for both.

Leuchtturm top, Moleskine bottom

Blank Pages

Last year it really annoyed me that my Moleskine planner had four blank pages at the back. For a whole year? Impractical. Leuchtturm, by comparison, has ten. Still not a great number, but much more useful.

Bonus features

Leuchtturm has a project planner view of the month. For high level use, this is something I’m really looking forward to trying out.

My Moleskine planner is from 2017, but it no longer came with an address book. The Leuchtturm1917 planner for 2018 came with a separate address book (with a section at the front for listing birthdays perhaps?), as well as some stickers and a grid guide.

Leuchtturm – 2 bookmarks!

Bookmarks – Moleskine has one, Leuchtturm have two. I think two is significantly more useful, given the project plan feature. However, they are both a good length, rather than being less than an inch longer than the length of the book. Small thing, but it really bugs a lot of people when the bookmark is too short.

Moleskine comes with more information at the front. Flight durations, time zones, measurements and conversions. Useful in their own way perhaps, but I’ve not used them once, even when planning travel for the year.

On balance, I think the Leuchtturm1917 wins as a more functional planner. Better paper, more of it, two bookmarks and a project planner. However, you can’t downplay the form factor and brand recognition that comes with Moleskine.

 

*Not an affiliate link. As I’m in the UK I can get Leuchtturm1917 notebooks from Amazon, but in the US it seems harder. I’ve used Goulet for fountain pens though and they’re a great company to order from.