Bailey Craft Planners Simply Yours Planner Review

2016 may have lost its new-year sparkle, but you still need to be searching for new planners to fit your life and needs. Bailey Craft Planers Simply Yours Planner is one of the newest planners on the market. This weekly planner is a mix between demure and boisterous, open-ended and organized, and structured and moldable. It’s definitely a planner you can customize to be 100% simply yours.

For $46, you can choose from four cover designs, personalize the front page, and choose whatever starting month you need. Oh, and you get all of the stuff below too.

Starting at the Top

Material Quality

As far as covers go, I’ve seen few as sturdy as this one. It’s thick but not cumbersome, and is trustworthy enough to last a full year. It comes with corner brackets to protect them from all of the dangers of normal use and an elastic band to keep it closed tight when you have to toss it into a bag. Like the cover, the coil is thick and durable, but not so large that it inhibits writing or flipping through the planner.

The paper on the inside has a delightful silky quality to it, which is nice to feel, but can cause smudging if you use the wrong pen. (It’s best to use a pen you know won’t even run.) At the back of the planner you’ll find a double-sided folder. It’s not huge, so it won’t hold absolutely everything, but it will hold the necessary things, like invites and receipts. Besides, you don’t really need to be carting around a million loose pieces of paper anyway.

Overall, the planner is a good size. It’s big enough to provide you with room to write, but it’s not too large or heavy to carry around on a daily basis.

The Meat: The Weekly and Monthly Layout

Simply Yours comes in a weekly horizontal layout. It starts on Monday and has Sunday and Saturday side-by-side. Each day’s section has a lined space and a righthanded column for your to do list and shopping list complete with checkboxes. The main part of each day can be used however you want. If you just want a place to write down random info that pops up throughout the day, the main event for each day, or track your diet and exercise, you can do that. There’s no specific way you’re required to use the weekly spread.

The weekend days have less space than the weekdays. Sunday and Saturday only have checkboxes for a to-do list, but since it’s the weekend and most of us have fewer scheduled events to follow, it shouldn’t be an issue (unless you’re a chronic workaholic or overtly social butterfly).

The monthly calendar starts on Sunday and comes with a column for things to do that month on the far righthand side. Each month also comes with a word to drive your actions and thoughts throughout the days. In addition to a monthly word, the months come with a different color that’s carried through the weekly spreads. This comes in handy when a week straddles two months. The different colors allow you to see at a mere glance what day the new month starts.

Note These Things:

However, it is worth mentioning that there is limited writing space in this layout. If you’re the type of person who has to write down every little thing in your day (schedule, to-do list, meals, workouts, and random bits of information), you’ll find yourself scrunching your handwriting. If you have large handwriting, the to-do column will be a particular struggle since it is narrower than most. It’s best to have a shorthand for your to-do list in this case.

Now About Those Extra Features

Simply Yours comes with several bonus pages to help you stay on top of your life and its many responsibilities. Vacation planning pages, internet password grids, monthly/quarterly/annual bill tracking, and a gift list (there’s also a bonus list in the November section) are all included in the planner to help you manage your money and remember everything.

How About Some Goal Setting?

Before you even reach the monthly and weekly calendars of Simply Yours, you’ll find oodles of bonus pages. This includes a large section for goal setting. There are two pages for you to set your long-term goals and assign deadlines to them. The space is organized, but directionless so you can use the boxes however you want. If you want to dedicate one box solely to your long-term health goals, you can. Or you can use the boxes to divide long-term goals by years.

This space is meant to provide a designated spot so you can brainstorm what you want and how you’ll get it—so you don’t have to worry if you’re doing it wrong or not.

After you’ve set your long-term goals, you have several pages you can use solely for short-term goals you’ll work toward in order to achieve your long-term goals. The short-term goal pages have clearer directions, but there’s still space for you to wing it if that works better for you.

But Wait — There’s a Bonus Fry in Your Box of Chicken Nuggets!

Planner lovers across the world know how precious and rare those blank note pages are in planners. They are limited and you have to be extra extra choosy in what you use them for. Well, good news! Simply Yours has note pages everywhere. At the end of each month, at the end of goal setting, and at the back of the planner. Twelve lined and blank pages at the back, 12 lined throughout the 12 months, and one at the end of the extras and goal setting gives you a total of 26 note pages. Girl friend, you can write down absolutely anything you want.

So is This Planner Right for You?

If you’re the type of person who naturally is a little erratic and can’t function in overly structured spaces, then Simply Yours will be a good fit in your life. It doesn’t matter if you’re in college, raising kids, or focusing on your career. Even though each page of the planner has a purpose, you can mold the spaces to fit your personal needs. There won’t be unused schedule sections in your weekly layout or random notes written in the margins.

If you want something that can be adjusted as needed on the fly, the Simply Yours planner has you covered.

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