Back in 2013, I went along to my first Brit Mums Live. I had a fantastic time and and left with a voucher to exchange for a Personal Planner within the generous goody bag. I couldn’t wait to travel home and sit down to plan and order my own custom Personal Planner. Since then I’ve always used an A5 Personal Planner to keep me organised throughout the year, I really love them! Read on for my review of the 2019 Personal Planner and for a chance to win a voucher so you can design and order a Personal Planner of your own:
Personal Planner- the Front Cover
With a Personal Planner you can really personalise the design and make it your own (just take a look at their Instagram for inspiration). First I chose the size of my planner. I love the look of the square planners but find their A5 size works best for me. I’d love to treat myself to the A4 size one year as it would be perfect for planning blog posts. In the past I’ve uploaded a photograph as our planner cover. This year I couldn’t quite find the right one so I went with one of their 2019 designs instead. Next year, I plan to take a portrait orientation family photograph just for the planner.
Once you’ve chose your front cover design you can choose the text for your planner. I went with “Diary of the Evans-Crittens” as it’s my work/blog planner. If you start your planner later on during the year or at the start of the academic year you could type “2019/2020” in this section.
Front Page
On the front page you can write a message in case your planner ever gets lost (I hope that never happens!). You can customise your personal details on this page.
Elastic Closure
I chose a gold elastic to match the gold font-it adds a bit of glamour! There are a range of colours so your elastic can match, compliment or contrast with your planner.
Back Cover
I opted for a matching aqua back cover (without the text). If you choose a photograph for the front cover you could choose a matching or corresponding photograph for the back. For example, one year I had a photo of the kids in a country lane and on the back I had a photograph of the same empty country lane, another year I had a beach portrait on the front and an empty beach on the back. Or you could choose a matching back plain colour cover. Use the preview option to check how your Personal Planner looks so far.
Layout
Ruler
All Personal Planners come with a ruler. You get to personalise the colour in the “Layout” section. I opted for clear. I also keep my previous planner rulers so I can book mark a couple of key pages in my planner- the current month overview, current week and my notes section.
Weekly Layout
In the layout section you can choose your planner’s starting month. This is so handy and means that you can begin a Personal Planner at any time of the year. You could begin an academic planner in September. You can also choose your inlay language, countries national holiday and your pattern inlay.
There are a number of options for your weekly layout. Some people like a more vertical design but I always choose the horizontal weekdays as shown above. This just works well for my way of thinking.
Writing Space
The writing space can be kept clear or ruled. I chose rainbow stripe as I loved the pretty colours! You have the option to add work, weather or workout tick boxes to each day of the week here. I left this blank. You can also choose between blank or adding times to your diary – handy for very busy schedules.
Modules
Along the bottom of your Personal Planner you can choose modules (or leave this space blank). I always find a space for “To do”, “Dinners” and “Workouts” is handy. You can also choose from ideas, tunes, homework and lots more.
The monthly overview and notes module is useful too.
Personal Dates
One of my favourite highlights about Personal Planner is the “Personal Dates” function. This saves a list of your personal dates so you can add the same family birthdays each year and make edits where necessary. This makes it a lot quicker when ordering subsequent planners.
Back Pages
Lastly, you get to choose which back pages work for you. Firstly I always choose a “Month Overview”. Month overviews are inserted at the beginning of each corresponding month.
Yearly Overview
I also chose a “Yearly Overview”. I find this great for noting paydays, bills and regular appointments throughout the year.
We love to travel. I find choosing “Map Pages” for our Personal Planner is inspirational for me while I’m dreaming of new places to travel to or write about. It also keeps the kids amused while we’re in the car or stuck “waiting” somewhere! You can even choose Suduko pages but these wouldn’t last long for us as our girls are always solving puzzles.
It’s always handy to have a place to write notes, so anything that there isn’t a space to make a note of in the diary goes here. You could always add more note paper if you needed too- I love that you can also choose music paper or dotted paper- there are so many choices.
Plastic Pocket
Every Personal Planner comes with a plastic wallet- handy for storing appointment letters, receipts, tickets and stickers!
Stickers
Talking of stickers- yes Personal Planners come with these too. These are great for helping to organise and design your planner.
Each month is colour tabbed so it’s easy to jump to a specific month in your planner.
Ordering a Personal Planner
I love the process of ordering a Personal Planner. Choosing the design is all part of the experience. My Personal Planner always arrived just days after ordering (they can take up to two weeks as they’re sent from Sweden). The classic A5 design currently costs £22.90 (including postage). They make great gifts for others as you can email or post the voucher code to friend and family and then the recipient gets to design the perfect planner to suit them.
Order a Personal Planner here: https://www.personalplanner.com/EN/
Win a Personal Planner
One lucky reader can win a voucher for their very own Personal Planner. Enter the Rafflecopter below- remember to read the terms and conditions- good luck!
Many thanks to the following Competition Promoters:
ThePrizeFinder
Competition Database
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Life in a Breakdown
Thanks to Personal Planner for gifting a voucher for the purposes of this review.
The personal dates section is crucial to me as I live away from family so remembering birthdays and special occasions are crucial and need advance planning especially if I need to make visits home or send out gifts. This planner looks amazing!
The plastic wallet perfect for storing appointment letters, receipts etc.
The stickers – I always find them useful!
I love having all my important dates and appts in the one place x
Personal dates,as I can remember birthdays etc and plan accordingly! Xx
I like so many features that it’s hard to choose one, but the Birthday stickers are great.
the plastic wallet is a great idea
Colour coding – MAKES seeing what I need to do so easy
that you can start it on any month! plus stickers is a bonus!
I love the workout of the week feature – gives you a real incentive to fill it in
i love you can personalise with stickers too x
I like How organised they enable me to be!
This looks a great planner i would love to win.
The stickers are a good idea
Being able to have a reminder and to do list
I love the personal dates section. In fact, I love all of this planner and need it in my life!
Love this planner! Being able to personalise and be creative is a fab feature! I’d love to win. Love the colour too!
i like the space that you have to write in, it is also cant nice to look at, colourful.
Like the stickers x
Well there is so much I like about this book. I am going with the Stickers. Great for seeing who’s birthday it is at a glance or whatever.
I like the stickers that come with this and having somewhere to write down appointments, birthdays.
the Birthday stickers are great
I like how it is a bit for dinner ideas for the week
I like how it’s colourful and very organised
Great Planner! I need this so much !
My favourite feature has to be the stickers as it makes it stand out more than a simple planner
The stickers are always used and the planner has many different features
I think the stickers are a great idea
Pages for making lists!
personal dates so I remember every special occassion
The stickers! I love stickers as much as my kids do.
the to do stickers are great i always forget things
That it’s customisable.
Love the overall look and colour choices
I like being able to tick off whatever I’ve achieved – so much better on a paper planner than on a screen.
So many features in this planner, I love the ability to personalise the front cover, having enough space inside to add little drawings to my daily notes, also the plastic wallet is very handy for storing notes, tickets etc as keepsake reminders of lovely days out with family and friends.
Making it personal to you!
I like the plastic wallet for storing vouchers etc in
The stickers are fabulous at a glance you can see something important is happening at a glance. Great reminder
A plastic wallet is great for bits and pieces. And I love how you can personalise everything in this planner.
Definitely colour coding, I work best with a visual
Selecting the notes modules most relevant to self and inclusion of Personal dates
I love colour coding things, so this is great. The wallet is a nice touch as well for storing bits.
I like the size amount that available for each day
I like the size amount for each day section
I would love this to keep me on track with my family routine
I like the fact that there is enough room to keep the whole family’s schedules
That I can plan ahead and it keeps me knowing what I am doing each day and my appointments
The stickers are great for getting organised 🙂
I think the size is ideal x
I like the wild optimism of having a world map in there as part of my planner!
Being able to write reminders x