Time Traveler 2013 day per page planner

Here is the Time Traveler 2013 day per page planner in Firenze Red that I hope will solve my day per page dilemma! I've been going back and forth for months on which day per page planner to use, and I really hope this will be The One. I've used and loved Time Traveler day per page planners in the past so I have high hopes for this one!

This planner is approximately A5 size, nearly 6 inches wide by 8 1/2 inches tall closed. It's nearly an inch wider than my large Moleskine day per page planner:

I love the wider pages, that extra almost-inch on each page makes a huge difference in writing space!

It has a full page for every day, even Saturday and Sunday (which is very important to me).

Times are printed down the side from 8 am to 7 pm with lines for the half hours too. Below 7 pm are several lines for scheduling later in the evening or notes. Holidays are printed on the day pages. At the bottom of the page are month calendars for the entire year with the current month highlighted.

There are also month per page calendars, which are so hard to find in day per page books!

**Update: I'm using these daily spaces in the monthly calendars as a reference of events similar to how Patty uses her Franklin Covey Index Pages.

Holidays for the US and Canada are printed on the days.

 The cover is so soft and flexible! I love to touch it.

I tried to get a shot of the texture of the cover. It's very soft and feels really nice in my hands. I'm very tactile so this is very important to me!

There are TONS of features in this planner. Here are just some:

Planning calendars and holidays for the current year and next two years:

 International holidays, weights and measurements:

I really like this page: birthdays and anniversaries. I'll write birthdays and gift ideas on the lines. My daughter is interested in the signs of the zodiac and is always asking me which signs are for which birthdates, and I never remember. Luckily now I have this information in my book!

 I really like this page too. I'll write my kids' sizes so when I'm out and about and see something on sale I'll know I'm getting the right size!

There are also pages with international dialing codes, US area codes, websites and toll-free numbers.

 At the back of the book there is a Forward Planner for all of next year:

Directory pages are bound into the book:

There are a few Notes pages:

Then come the maps! As we all know, I love maps in planners, and Time Traveler planners have some of the best maps. Here is their very accurate Time Zones map, which even shows Nepal is 5 hours 45 minutes ahead of GMT. Most time zone maps don't show this level of detail!

 Gorgeous world map!

 US map:

 And there are maps of every continent!

 Look at this Europe map!

 There's even a map of the North and South Poles! And that's just some of the maps.

Here is the back of the planner, with Time Traveler subtly embossed on the back. I love the red color, which is a little lighter in my photos than in real life, and the stitching. It's colorful yet subtle, and professional looking.

I love the smooth, white paper. I don't have fountain pens, but I did a pen test with my wettest inks. I was especially concerned about the Uni-ball Signo RT, which is usually a problem child on paper because it's so wet.

On extreme closeup, the only ink that had any feathering at all is the Sakura, and even that is not very noticeable.

The show-through to the back is not obnoxious at all (much better than my Moleskine planner) with absolutely no bleed-through, and the ball point pen is hardly visible through the paper at all.

**Edited to add: I have confirmation from the company that their paper is acid-free and FSC certified. Wonderful!!!

**Update: the only thing this planner didn't have that I wished it did was a back pocket. But I fixed that! I trimmed a Planner Pad Insta-Pocket to fit and stuck it inside the back cover.

 Shazam! Now I have a place to tuck papers!  My planner joy is now complete!

In my post on how I use my weekly and daily planners together I talked about why I wanted to move from my Franklin Covey binder into this day per page planner. This book gives me an equivalent amount of space each day as my Franklin Covey two pages per day inserts but in a much slimmer and lighter book than my Franklin Covey binder. It also has the advantages of permanently bound pages and having the entire year in one book.

Time Traveler planners come in weekly and daily formats with all these excellent features. You can see their selection at the Time Traveler website (www.timetravelerusa.com) and can purchase directly from them. I bought this planner at Amazon UK but I had to search 2013 Firenze because it didn't come up under Time Traveler. You can also buy Time Traveler planners at Amazon.com and at Calendars.com (which ships worldwide).

I highly recommend these planners! (Disclosure: I am not affiliated in any way, just a happy customer!)

Collins Classic Manager Week diary

I am very excited to show you the Collins Classic Manager Week diary! Many thanks to Collins for giving me this GORGEOUS diary as a sample!  I love it!

This diary is very classy-looking with a leather-like smooth cover that is slightly padded, so it feels nice in your hands. The gold corners and gilded page edges look so elegant! The book is full of luxurious details that add to the overall beauty of this diary.

The smart appearance of this diary is eye-catching but what really hooked me was the paper. Seriously. The diary itself is beautiful, and classy-looking, and nice to hold. But once I touched the paper that was it. I'm officially hooked. The paper is super-smooth, acid-free and an ivory color that is very pleasant to look at (not grayed or too dark).

There are LOADS of excellent and useful features in this diary!  The first page is Personal Information, then after that are 3-year reference calendars with the current year highlighted:
(Click on any of the photos to enlarge)

After that there are several pages packed with reference info (which I use and really appreciate having in my planner!).  There are pages with International Holidays for many countries around the world. There are detailed pages with international dialing information (including codes both into and out the of countries, and accurate time zone information):

There is a world time zone map with the exact time zone for lots of cities, and an excellent pageful of phone numbers and websites for travel information in the UK.

There is a two-page spread of useful conversions of all kinds:

Next there is a two-page spread with the entire year at a glance for long-range planning. I love annual planners like this, they really help me plan travel, deadlines etc.

Then comes the weekly section with the week on two pages and days as columns. Click to enlarge the photo to see all the excellent features of this page!  The days are timed from 8 am to 8 pm with a couple of lines for after 8pm.  Under the days are lines for Notes where you can write notes and tasks for that particular day, or to use for categorized lists.  There is a real ribbon placemarker which is another one of those luxurious touches that makes this book so nice!

Along the side of the pages are cut-in TABS to take you straight to the first week of each month so you can easily find future weeks. We all know how much I love monthly tabs!!  Also you can see the monthly calendars on the page with the current month highlighted.

After all the weekly pages there is a planner for the entire future year on a 2-page spread:

And then there are more useful pages! There is a Staff Leave planner which is very useful for managers. There is a Financial Planner to help you see your income and categorized expenditures in a way that lets you compare them month to month:

There are several pages for Personal information, and a page for Most Used Numbers. Then come the maps!!!

I LOVE maps in planners, and I have to say these are the most beautiful and most detailed maps I've ever seen in a planner. They look like they are from a really good atlas.

These are only some of the maps! 

Look at the level of detail!  Sometimes I flip through this book just to caress the paper and look at the maps, it is just that nice!

There is an excellent world map, and maps of the UK rail network and London Underground too.

The Manager size measures 260 by 148 mm (approx. 10 1/2 by 7 3/4 inches) so if you're carrying a laptop or iPad it will fit easily in your bag. And, it looks especially good sitting on your desk or in a meeting!

The Classic line of planners has an extensive range of sizes and formats available. Click here to see the entire range of Collins Classic planners in daily and weekly formats and all sizes.

Huge thanks again to the kind folks at Collins for giving me this gorgeous diary!

Maps in planners

As I've said many times before, I love maps in my planners. I actually use them, and often. I especially use time zone maps, since I live overseas, and have friends and family all over the world.

The best maps I have ever seen in bound planners are in The Time Traveler planners (click here for their website).   (Edited to add: the position of Best Maps now goes to the Collins Classic Manager planner. Its maps are complete with topo and road information!  Click here to see my review and photos of the Collins Classic Manager planner.)

I bought my first Time Traveler planner in 2005, mainly because of the maps, and bought another one in 2009. They have an excellent time zones world map (which is also one of the very few I've ever seen which accurately notes that Nepal is in its own time zone of 45 minutes, not on 30 minutes like India).  Click on any of the photos below for a larger view.

Other maps in the Time Traveler planners include a gorgeous full-color map of the world (sorry for the bad lighting and shadows!):

 Very detailed maps of every continent, the US...

 Europe etc...

 A spectacular map of Asia...

 Africa, the Americas, everywhere. Even the North and South poles!!

The Time Traveler planners also have loads of pages of international information like holidays for lots of countries, international calling codes, clothing sizes, measurements and conversions, an extremely handy chart of international paper sizes, and more.  And it has monthly calendars! They are great planners and in fact I'm resisting the urge to order one up right now!

Filofax has some excellent maps. I like their pull-out map with the time zones on one side:

 and the world on the other:

I have some excellent Filofax maps including a very detailed map of Washington DC (not shown), and the British Isles map (with Scotland featured below):

Quo Vadis planners have excellent maps of all the continents that are nicely detailed and very comprehensive.  Recently I specifically looked in my Quo Vadis Minister planner to see just exactly where Jakarta is and what's near it:

Quo Vadis planners also have an excellent and useful time zones map:

Moleskine's notorious time zone map is so stylized it's nearly useless.  You have to consult a different map to find any cities not listed, accurate time zone boundaries, or any other information really:

Some notebooks even have maps.  Letts noteletts notebooks have very nice time zone maps:

What about you? Do you like to have maps in your planner and/ or notebook? If so, what planner or notebook with maps do you like to use? And, do you know of a planner or notebook with maps that I haven't listed here? Please post a comment and tell me about it! :)