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Thursday, April 18, 2013

At-A-Glance Planning Notebooks

Many thanks to At-A-Glance for sending me these Planning Notebooks to review!

At-A-Glance has a whole range of Planning Notebooks that are an excellent hybrid of a notebook and a dated planner. They sent me two Planning Notebooks to review, the Perfect Bound Medium Lined with Monthly Calendars on the left and the Planning Notebook with Circle the Date on the right.

Below I've shown them with a Bic 4 color pen for scale.

First up, the Circle The Date:

 Here it is without the label:

This Planning Notebook measures 9 1/4 by 6 1/8 inches, so it's a good size for writing yet still portable.

Inside there is a plastic pocket, and a page with descriptions of the features, click to enlarge:

There are 3 year reference calendars, and index pages where you can index by dates.


Here is the meat of the Planning Notebook. The lined pages have the months and dates down the side, so you can quickly circle the date as you take notes or make plans. I can see how this would be handy in a meeting or at a conference where you are quickly taking notes and can just circle the date on the new page and blaze on.
You can use one page per day, or as many pages as you need per day.

Here is a closer look at the page. At the bottom of each page is a Hot Spot where you can write next actions or important reminders.  Every page is perforated for removal if you want.

At the back of the book are several pages with orange edges for easy reference. There are monthly calendars for 3 years:
There is an Event Planning page front/ back and a Quick Reference page front/back.

Here is one idea of how to use this book: several people have asked me if I know of a combined weekly and day per page planner. I don't, but you could easily turn this into one.

Below I have shown how you could use it as a week + notes format, then you can use the pages after this spread for your dailies. Then you can write the next week and its dailies after that.


Here's a closer look at how I drew the week page, but of course you could do any format you like. Goals at the top, a space for each day, and Weekly Review in the Hot Spot area at the bottom. I've indicated the month and the current week with the dates at the edge of the page.
Especially with the monthly calendars at the back, this book would be really handy as a self-designed planner any way you like. I don't know how many pages are in the book, but there aren't enough to use one page per day for the entire year. For that you would need to use more than one notebook for the year.

Next is the Planning Notebook with Monthly Calendars:
Here it is without the label:
This is a bound book measuring 8 1/4 by 5 inches with an elastic strap closure and a firm cover.

This book has several index pages, and lined pages to write the date at the top and a Hot Spot at the bottom for important items.
Below shows a two-page spread. There is a color-matched placemarker, and the book stays open easily on its own.

At the back of the book are three years of monthly calendars with space next to the months for notes, monthly goals, and important items that month.


There are several Quick Reference pages at the back of the book.

There are three years of reference calendars at the back of the book too.

There is a back pocket with color-matched sides inside the back cover, and a page detailing the features of the book, click to enlarge the image.


Many thanks again to At-A-Glance for these products!

4 comments:

  1. These are interesting. I was looking for something like the second one-- a notebook plus calendars-- but didn't think anyone made one. I ended up making a DIY notebook pages+calendars out of a blank notebook. I printed out a yearly calendar & stuck it at the beg of a Moleskine-type notebook. Also printed out a monthly cal for April (June/July are next)... Only have room for 3 months in one notebook so will have to make 2 more "planners" to cover the whole yr.

    I need the extra room b/c I'm using it as a goals tracker, to-do log & general journal. It's undated so I can use as many pgs as I want. I used the Moleskine Daily for a couple of yrs but it still didn't leave me enough room for everything I wanted to track--and they upped the price too. I don't have a hectic life so I don't need an elaborate system to keep track of appointments.

    I have so many unused notebook, I figure I should use some up rather than pay $20+ for something I can easily make myself. For my purposes, the DIY notebook/calendar set up seems to work best for me.


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    1. Laura thank you for your comment, I'm very interested in your system! I remember when you used to use the large daily Moleskine planner. Very cool that you're using undated notebooks now so you aren't restricted on how much space you need each day. I might do this too, maybe next year. I like that a notebook is slimmer and lighter than a day per page planner of the same page size so I can still write a lot but it's less weight to carry around with me.

      Do you divide the pages into sections and write certain things in specific places? Or do you just write down the page as the day goes along?

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  2. Is the first one available in the UK at all? Amazon is showing it as permanently out of stock :( Really want to try it as a logbook for various uni projects!

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    1. Hi Jelly, I don't know if these are available outside of North America. You can use their Contact page to ask: http://www.ataglance.com/ataglancestore/customerService/contactUs.jsp?page=contactUs

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