My Review Of The Happy Planner

Life Planners are invaluable. They can be used to manage our day. Remember appointments and important events like birthdays. A planner is a place to write down your goals. A planner can map out a strategy to achieve those goals. It can schedule your every day chores. Plus so much more. However, there are a lot of life planners to choose from. The Happy Planner is one. This is my review of the Happy Planner.

The Basics Of  A Life Planner

Using a life planner is a recent activity I started. I first began using a life planner in 2014. I hadn’t really understood the concept of a life planner. It wasn’t until I actually bought one that I understood how a planner could help you daily and in the future. A daily to do list and a reminder of future events. Simple, right? What a fabulous idea.

This is a list of criteria I have that helps me find the planner that is right for me.

The following is what I look for in a life planner:

1. Affordability
2. Ability to add to the planner
3. Accessibility
4. Ease of use
5. Pretty and functional

Affordability

Face it there are a lot of planners out there. They pretty much accomplish the same objective. Keep you organized, on task and on time. 

There are a lot of options. Size, type of cover, ring bound, coil bound, etc. That’s a lot of options that can come up to a pretty penny or dollars.

I need a planner that is inexpensive comparatively speaking. I could just use a notebook and print out what planner pages I want. There are lots of gorgeous free printable planner sheets in the blogging community. Ones I have used and probably will again. But I am lazy. Cheap and lazy. When I first heard about the Happy Planner and the under $30 price point, I was on it. I bought mine at Michael’s using a 30% off coupon.

For price alone I give it a thumbs up. But a planner needs to offer more than just being affordable.

Ability To Add To The Planner

My planner accomplishes a lot. I need to be able to add sheets of paper like grocery lists, to do lists, envelopes to hold tickets or other things. My password list. The possibilities are too numerous.

I want to add these sheets of paper and remove them with ease when I need to. The Happy Planner has a companion hole punch that will enable you to hole punch any paper and insert it into the planner. It is a special punch that uses a hole with a slit to fit onto the binder rings.

I also want to take out parts of the planner I am not using. This planner is an 18 month planner. For the year 2015, I was using a different planner. I began using the Happy Planner this year. So I didn’t need the months of July 2015 through December 2015. I removed all of those extra months except for December. This allowed me to add empty sheets of paper to the planner for journaling without the extra bulk.

Accessibility

I am not good at waiting.  If I can buy something locally I will. The Happy Planner is available locally at places such as Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. Plus you can use a coupon to reduce the price. A bargain. Giving you more dollars to spend on accessories.

The accessories are usually available where the planners are sold.

Ease of Use

I want a life planner that will lay flat. That I can use every bit of space on each page without running into any binding obstacle. I can do that with the Happy Planner. It lays perfectly flat and I can reach every inch of page to write on.

I want to personalize the planner to fit my needs. The Happy Planner comes spaced into three sections for each day but the space title is now left blank. So I can choose how I want to schedule my day. Rather than morning, afternoon or night, I can now use these three space to suit my lifestyle.

Pretty and Functional

Now if a life planner isn’t pretty, I just won’t use it. I want to be able to write in it with pretty ink pens. Decorate it with pretty stickers and washi tape. I can remember when the only organizational calendars only came in solid colors. Now there are so many options. A pretty planner must be written in. The Happy planner comes in many options. I chose the  one above for 2016 – 2017 because of the floral cover and the pallet like interior.

Plus there are many  inspirational quotes sprinkled throughout the planner.

The Happy Planner is very functional both at the beginning of the month with a full month layout. Then the weekly layout with room for notes on the left hand side of each week. Plus for the many reasons listed above.

I have been using the Happy Planner for this year. Enjoying the versatility of this planner. Keeping me on track.

What criteria do you have when choosing a life planner?