After my list of must-haves helped me narrow down my choices for a goal-based planner for next year, it was time to really dig into the different systems I’ve been looking at.
The Commit30 Day Planner has a weekly spread that includes space for notes and a to-do list, and I like that the time labels are unobtrusive enough to easily ignore. Unfortunately its goal-planning features are a little lacking; they’re based around a pair of monthly planning pages that give you a habit tracker and a few weird circles to write some goals into. I was hoping for more guidance than that.
I also took a look at the Momentum Planner from Productive Flourishing. It’s a set of printables rather than an A5 planner, which makes it a bit of a wildcard for me. I liked the way that the weekly page separates scheduled events and project chunks, but all of the sections wouldn’t be applicable to me and I can’t get past wanting a bound notebook. I could see myself trying some of their free printables for big-picture planning though.
One of the best options I found is the Passion Planner. It has lots of room for project lists and to-dos, and it encourages you to write down your main focus for each month, week, and day. The daily planning spaces have an extremely noticeable timeline though. It runs from 6 am to 10:30 pm with a line at each half hour, which means you’d need small, precise handwriting to use it as intended. Between that timeline and the high-contrast of the rest of the layout, the Passion Planner’s pages feel hectic and cramped. As much as I like its goal-based features, I’d probably only go with this one if I was willing to use their larger version.
I did check out one other planner, and it seems like the best fit for me. More on that in the next week or so.
For Helium! 