Worldwide Giveaway! Gallery Leather Monthly planner and Quo Vadis Textagenda Daily planner!

This giveaway is closed. Check the post on Feb 3, 2014 to see who won!

Huge thanks to Mstraat for this giveaway! She is giving away a brand new and unused 2014 Gallery Leather monthly planner, and an academic-year 2013-2014 Textagenda daily planner.

Gallery Leather Monthly and Textagenda Daily Planners

I have used Textagendas for years, so I can tell you all about that one in a minute. I don't have any experience with Gallery Leather planners. Here is what Mstraat has to say about this one:

The Gallery Leather monthly planner is 7.5 x 9.75 inches and 3/8 an inch thick, so actually quite portable. Inside it has: yearly overviews for 2014, then 2013 and 2015; two-page monthly spreads for July 2013 through December 2014 with grid squares 1.5 x 1.75 inches; info pages including US time zone map, ribbon marker, then US area codes, international dialing info, and toll free number & website listings; 21 note pages (42 sides); and a listing of US holidays and space for birthdays and other events. The last page is for personal info. I didn’t test the paper but it seems fairly heavy and is just slightly off-white. The printing is a dark grey color.

Here are some photos of the Gallery Leather monthly planner:

Gallery Leather: monthly layout

Gallery Leather: holidays and birthdays

Gallery Leather: US time zones map

Gallery Leather: notes pages

Gallery Leather: reference calendars

She didn't send photos of the Textagenda because I have several of them myself (which you can see in this post here). Here are some photos of the inside pages. Note the cover shown in these photos is my cover, not the cover included with the Textagenda to be given away. That cover is dark blue, which you can see in the top photo.

Textagenda: daily layout

Textagenda: anno-planner

Textagenda: timetable

Textagenda: reference calendars

Here's how to win:

1. This giveaway is open to everyone worldwide!

2. To enter, please leave a comment here on this post. Your comment is your entry. Only one entry per person. In your comment, please say which planner you are entering to win, or both planners.

3. Entries will close at 6pm UK time Sunday February 2, 2014. Any entries submitted after that time will not be counted.

4. The winners will be determined via Random.org.

5. The winners will be announced here on Plannerisms Monday February 3, 2014.

6. The winners must email me with your mailing address by Friday February 7, 2014. If I have not received an email from the winners by that time, a new winner will be chosen. So be sure to check back on Friday the 31st to see if you won!

Good luck everyone!

Free For All Friday No. 20: What would you like to see more of here on Plannerisms?

Today I want to check in with you, dear readers, and ask: what would you like to see more of on Plannerisms?

Would you like to see more how-to-use-planners posts? Would you like to see more reviews? (Keep in mind I buy my own planners most of the time, so my reviews are limited by my budget.) Are you liking these weekly forums? Is there something else you would like to see?

Thanks for your input! I want to make Plannerisms relevant and interesting, and a place where you enjoy visiting often.

As always on Fridays, feel free to discuss/ ask anything planner-related!

New Plannerisms Planners Facebook page!

Hi everyone, I have just created a new Page on Facebook for Plannerisms Planners! Please Like it to get all the official Plannerisms news. Just search Plannerisms Planners on Facebook, and Like. See you there!

The Success Choice new covers: Felt and Caramel Leather

The Success Choice has some gorgeous new covers in: Limited Edition Felt, and new Leather covers!

This is the new felt cover in Red:

 

The felt is wool, and feels so nice in my hands. It is also very lightweight.

It has an elastic strap closure, and inside you can see there is a placemarker and elastic pen loop.

 

This is the Caramel leather cover. These come with the tab closure shown here, or now with an elastic strap closure.

The rustic leather looks and feels great, and has that nice leather smell!

Inside you can see the leather covers have pockets for cards and a checkbook, as well as the placemarker and pen loop. You might remember my review of the brushed leather cover I did a couple of years ago with the same features.

Here you can see the color comparison between the Caramel leather and the Chocolate leather. (This is the Success Choice binder I reviewed here.

The felt and leather covers are designed to fit the Women's Success Choice planner and/ or the Choosing Joy in the Journal Journal (which I reviewed here). Below you can see how both can fit into the cover at the same time.

You can order these beautiful covers, and all Success Choice products, at www.successchoice.com. Don't forget, Plannerisms readers get 15% off their total order! Just enter the code plannerisms12 at checkout.

Choosing Joy in the Journey Journal from The Success Choice

This is a wonderful new product from The Success Choice: The Choosing Joy in the Journey Journal!

This new journal is a wonderful addition to the Success Choice lineup. It can be used along with the Women's Success Choice Planners, or alone.

The journal has 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch pages and is very light (only 209 g!) so it's easy to carry with you everywhere to capture thoughts and ideas wherever you are. The thick paper can be used with any inks, is acid-free and archival. There are 136 numbered pages, the last three of which are a categorized index (which I will show you in a minute).

The journal is full of tips, quotes and ideas. Inside the front cover is advice on using your journal. (Click on photos for larger views.)

There are several pages, which I will not show, of journaling prompts with monthly themes. These monthly themes are the same as the corresponding months in the Women's Success Planners. The theme of the 2014 planners is Be. Each month has a different topic, for example January's is Be Present. The journal has several journaling prompts for Be Present such as, "How can I be more fully engaged in my interactions with others?" and "What distracts me from being fully present?"

Other journal-prompt topics are Be Organized and Be Self-Reliant. You can use these topics to prompt your journaling, if you like. Or they can be just something to think about. You can work through all 12 topics and their prompts, or choose whichever ones relate to you at the time.

After the journal prompts pages come the journaling pages. On every two-page spread, the left page is blank and the right page is lined. This allows you to use the pages in many different ways: adding in photos, sketching, art journaling, etc.

At the bottom of each right-hand page is an inspiring quote. Also here you can see the pages are numbered.

Here is something that makes this book especially useful: at the back are three pages of categorized index so you can easily find things in the book. The first two pages have designated categories like Plans and Events:

 On the last page the categories are blank so you can customize it yourself.

The pre-numbered pages and index in the back would make this book especially useful as a Bullet Journal or other daily-record type book.

On the back cover there are more ideas for ways to use your journal:

The journal is designed to fit into the Success Choice leather covers and felt covers, which are roomy enough to fit the journal in along with the Women's Success Planner. I will show the new covers in my next post. Or it can be used without a cover. The laminated card covers would hold up well even in your bag.

(I apologize these photos are not great, I took them quickly in a brief moment of sunshine! The book actually looks much nicer than my photos show.)

I ordered this journal for myself and I also bought one for my mom, and she loves it! This would be an excellent journal or everyday book for anyone.

You can find the Choosing Joy in the Journey Journal and all the Success Choice products at www.successchoice.com. Don't forget, Plannerisms readers get 15% off their total order! Just enter the code plannerisms12 at checkout.

Free For All Friday No. 19: Annual cyclicity

Now that we've lived here for about a year and a half, holidays and events are repeating and I'm finally starting to figure out how things are done here. This is the first place we've lived where people really "do" holidays, and now as I come around to each one again I remember what happened last year and what I need to do this year to prepare.

This year Christmas kind of crept up on me. It all came crashing down on me in the last two weeks when I realized I needed to order gifts online (and had to pay extra for expedited shipping because I waited too long), buy cards and gifts for teachers (oh yeah and wrapping/ gift bags for those gifts), cards for each kids' class (students give cards to all their classmates here), etc etc etc. Plus I was busy with home and Plannerisms things too. In the end I was so rushed and stressed I ended up with the flu for Christmas. Bah humbug!

So I'm determined that's not going to happen to me again. Tuesday (the 14th) I realized that Valentine's Day is just a month away, and I remembered from last year that the kids give all their classmates little cards. So I wrote in my planner the first week of February to take my kids to the card shop so they can choose cards for their classes.

This morning I realized that Easter is on its way soon (as if the plethora of Easter candy in the stores hadn't clued me in to that) and I need to write my plans in my planner well in advance so I'm not rushing at the last minute again.

And I'm already writing things to do for Christmas this year in the weekly pages of my planner, so I can have those cards and gifts ready early! No more last minute crunch for me!

I'm doing similar things for my kids' birthdays too: writing weeks ahead to book a venue, buy cake ingredients, etc.

I'm thinking of a way to move this information from year to year so I don't have to come up with it each year. I think I'll put countdown activities (things to do when there's 3 weeks to go, 2 weeks to go, 1 week to go) for each holiday/ birthday/ event on sticky notes in my monthly planner pages (on the pages between the months) and move them year to year so that as each month comes along I know exactly what I need to do to prepare!

Do you keep track of what you need to do each year for holidays and events that recur annually? How do you keep track?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss/ ask anything planner related!

Guest post: Review of the X47 DUO4 wallet.

Many thanks to Graham for this guest post detailing his experience with the X47 DUO4 wallet, which looks like a great way to combine your planner and wallet into one grab-and-go organzer!

For me, a truly practical combination of a wallet and an organiser is the Holy Grail.

In the past, it has been organisers which have attempted to make themselves money friendly, with pockets for plastic cards and notes and zipped sections for coins.  These additions have always felt like an afterthought, and I’ve never found them practical. One could never get to one’s money easily and efficiently, unattached papers would fall out and the whole process became a trial. The addition of cards and coins would make the organiser lumpy, making it less easy to write on. All in all, not a good marriage.

So what about trying to make a wallet into an organiser?  Enter X47’s Duo4. The Duo4 has been carefully designed to make a success of the wallet/organiser combination.

Compact Finsbury, the X47 Duo4, Mini Finchley

It is slightly larger than a Filofax mini and has been cleverly designed to pack in features without wasting space. Plastic cards are stored in layers instead of overlapping each other, and, together with the high quality of the coin pocket, the Duo4 gets fatter as it fills but doesn’t bulge or get lumpy, which makes writing in the diary and notebook much easier than I had expected.

There are no rings – an insert (about the size of those used in the Filofax mini format) fits neatly onto a steel spine, which makes using both sides of the pages very easy; and a pen (a Filofax mini pen fits perfectly) fits inside the unit and folds neatly around the insert, again making optimal use of the space. You can get a good idea of how the Duo4 has been designed by watching this video – it’s in German, but is also very instructive even if you don’t understand the audio.

As a wallet I have no complaints about the Duo4, except that I would be nervous about carrying it in my back pocket for fear of bending the steel spines on which the inserts sit. Where the compromises have been made it’s been in the organiser, where the space saving theme is continued. The paper in the inserts is thin and the week on two pages diary split into two inserts each of 6 months. The amount of space to write for each day is limited – it could never replace the desk diary of a busy professional. I manage my to-dos on a computer so my inserts don’t include a section for those – if they did the amount of diary space for appointments would be reduced even more. To save space the month is written only as a number and public holiday names are, somewhat annoyingly, written in a page’s top margin rather than on the day itself. Also, when being used on the go, the organiser really needs to be placed on a surface as it would be very awkward to use it while held in the hand.

I’m a great believer in customer service, but this was an area where I felt very let down by X47. Of the questions I sent before purchase, one was never answered and the others given a somewhat curt gruff response after 24 hours. This may be a language issue – X47 is a German company and haven’t fully or successfully embraced their international customers as yet – but when a product costs over EUR 200 queries should be answered quick sharp and in full. No excuses.

These points aside, this is definitely the best wallet/organiser combination I’ve come across so far.

Graham Rhind, http://www.grcdi.nl/author.htm