There's been lots of buzz around the blogosphere lately about the
Erin Condren planner, so I was really excited to review one! Many thanks to the EC team for their very generous discount code, and thanks for supporting your blogging community!
Erin Condren products are colorful, and PERSONALIZED! There are loads of personalization options. When you click on your
cover choice, take a minute to examine your color options. For some cover choices you can specify what colors you want. For some covers you can even upload photos!
I chose the motivational quote cover, personalized with my name and blog, which looks awesome:
I ordered my planner in late September, so my planner begins October 2011 and goes all the way through December 2012. There is a monthly calendar at the beginning of each month, and tabs so you can access each month easily:
Now the thing is, the weeks at the beginning and end of each month are broken up, because the monthly calendar is EXACTLY at the beginning of the month. I've used planners before that have months embedded in the weeks, but those had the monthly calendar before the week when the month starts so that every week remained intact. The EC planners have the month spliced into the middle of the week. Let me show you what I mean.
Below is the end of January and beginning of February. You can see the last couple of days of January (Monday and Tuesday) on the left page. (Click on photos for larger views.) Then on the right page is the February calendar.
Then there is a two-page spread for notes:
Then turn the page again and there is the rest of the week:
Bottom line is, this will either bother you or it won't. I know a lot of people who use this planner who aren't bothered about the week being broken up.
Here's what a normal week looks like. It's an excellent layout with Goals and Tasks in the left column, and the daily columns divided into Morning, Day and Night.
Every month has a new color scheme, which is very pretty and adds variety:
There is a page to write in your important numbers, and several pages of colorful stickers, some of which are pre-printed and some are blank to write whatever you like.
There is a double-sided pocket in the back to hold bits of paper, tickets etc.:
There's also a plastic zip pouch for smaller items. This comes loaded with goodies! :)
Something that surprised me about this planner was the size. Including the plastic rings and tabs I measure it at more than 8 inches (22 cm) wide and 9 1/4 inches (23.5 cm) tall, and more than 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick. As a size comparison, it's slightly larger than my A5 Domino Filofax:
But, with a large book comes a large page size so there's plenty of room to write. The paper is very thick with no show-through. I don't use fountain pens, but my friend @RoriRants who does says the paper performs nicely with fountain pens, no feathering or bleed-through.
To summarize, the Erin Condren planner is a large, colorful planner with loads of personalization options, an excellent weekly format, monthly calendars, tabs, notes pages, pockets, and great paper.
If you look around online you can sometimes find a discount code for this planner, so do a search before you order!
You can find Erin Condren products on their website, and also check them out on Facebook and on Twitter:
www.erincondren.com
