2017 Day Designer Planner Review: #PlannerGoals

Another year, another chance to purchase a brand-spankin’-new Day Designer. For 2017, Day Designer has made some exciting updates and kept all of that good shit we all love. And this year they’ve carried over all of the beautiful and fun designs from the 2016 mid-year line. Green palm leaves? Check. Blue tile? Double check. Pretty pinks, abstracts, and florals? Check, check, check.

From their flawlessly designed daily pages to the revamped goal-setting worksheets, the 2017 Day Designer planner is made to help you slay your days like Khaleesi slayed the slavers of Astapor.

If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Before I delve into all of the exciting changes and additions to the 2017 Day Designer planner (hint: it’s a #goaldigger), let’s start with what hasn’t changed.

Day Designer is the queen of daily planners. With an efficient daily layout, tons of room for your tasks and schedule plus some other fun stuff, and the streamlined aesthetic, there’s no reason to tweak a single thing. Thank goodness they didn’t. Why ruin a good thing, right?

The monthly calendar is also the same: Plenty of white space, plenty of room to write, and gorgeous grayscale will continue on through 2017. Like the monthly and daily pages, there’s no change in the number or design of the bonus note pages throughout the planner. This is the one thing I wish had been ramped up for the coming year.

As a lover of lists, I tend to run out of the note pages quickly and find myself having to tote around another notebook on a daily basis for all of my note taking. I still love the way the note pages are designed with topic boxes at the top, but I do wish I could have more of them.

I’d actually love to have a straight-up notebook from Day Designer with these pages. Can I put that in the suggestion box?

2017 Day Designer Planner = #PlannerGoals

Now that I’ve said my piece on note pages, it’s time to go over the significant changes made to the goal-setting pages. As Donald Trump would say, this is gonna be ‘UGE. In 2016, Day Designer toned down the goal-setting pages significantly. There weren’t as many worksheets and I personally didn’t get a lot of benefit from them throughout the year. Thankfully, the 2017 worksheets are plentiful and thorough. I’ve used Day Designer for two years now, and I can honestly say that I think these goal-setting pages are the best they’ve ever created.

There are six total worksheets for 2017. They all feed into each other and are designed to help you create vision and intention for the coming year. This is done through self-reflection of the past year, your personal interests, and your values so you can identify what your true priorities are.

Terra’s Top Worksheet Picks

Of all the worksheets, my definite favorites are the four new ones. The “My Reality Check,” “My Core,” “Ideal Month,” and “Ideal Week” pages are so insightful. As I was working my way through them I found I had to really stop to think about the questions I was asking myself and analyze the way I had been spending my time and money. These aren’t exercises you can blaze through. They required focus, time, and quiet.

Personally, the most useful worksheets of them all were the “Ideal Month” and “Ideal Week.” If you’re the kind of person who’s constantly struggling to fit it all in (like I am), then you’ll appreciate these pages as well. They challenged me to really think about when I’m doing certain tasks and if that’s really the most efficient way for me to tackle my responsibilities. Truthfully, I realized that I was trying to do too many different things in one day, and now I recognize it’s not feasible to work on everything in the same day.

If you work on multiple projects, have a side hustle, or do some freelance work, you’ll also find these to be valuable worksheets. Looking at your week from a bird’s eye view (minus appointments and tasks) is beneficial in helping you decide your ideal work and life flow.

Non-Organizers Need Not Apply

So would you benefit from a Day Designer in 2017? Well, do you feel like you need something to get you through the days with organization and focus? Do you have ton to write down every day and not enough space for it all? If you answered yes to those questions, then you’ll 100% benefit from a 2017 Day Designer planner.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a career woman, a mom, a student, or even all three; the labels in your life don’t dictate if this planner will lend you some organization. Day Designer is for anyone craving some organization, focus, and intention in their daily life.

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