Quo Vadis ABP2 daily planner

This is a planner I've had my eye on for years and years but have only just now gotten around to ordering it.

This is the European version of this diary which is printed in six languages.

I like the format with the timed column at the left and designated space for notes. It's the perfect size for a day per page planner: 12 by 17 cm (4 3/4 by 6 3/4 inches, the same size as the QV Textagenda and Notor). And it has the super-smooth white Quo Vadis paper that I love. Click on photos to enlarge.

But I'm wondering if all the languages will annoy me. I might highlight the English days and months to make it easier to find dates when flipping through the book.  I do like that holidays are indicated on the day spaces. Moon phases are too, although you don't see it on this page.

I love the timed column at the left with times from 7am through 9 pm with lines for the half hours and lines before 7am for early morning reminders. I like seeing my day chronologically as a vertical column so I think this format will work really well for me.  The Notes section at the side will be great for lists and notes.

At the bottom of the page there's a space for reminders, and month calendars.

 Some other features of this diary:

 The personal information page is multi-language.

 There is a page to note school holidays, and an annual reference calendar.

At the back of the book there is an annual calendar for the following year. Then there are the awesome Quo Vadis maps of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Benelux, the British Isles, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and all of Europe. I love the maps!

 At the back of the book are lists of public holidays for all the countries this diary covers.

Something that may or may not be an issue for me is the tiny spacing of the lines. I have shown them here alongside a Moleskine day per page diary.

The Moleskine ruling is 6 mm, which is pretty standard and is easy to write in. You can see the ABP2 lines are miniscule by comparison. Which isn't a bad thing, because I can fit a lot more writing on the page and it allows the schedule column to have a lot more timed lines.

The lines are tiny. I measure the ruling at 3.5 mm.

 To be honest I'm not worried about the ruling, I think it will be fine.

But during the process of taking these photos I did discover something that does really bother me. The book doesn't stay open on its own, which is unlike every other Quo Vadis planner I've ever used.  I was extremely disappointed to discover this because part of the joy of a Quo Vadis, besides the glorious paper, is the book stays open on its own for easy writing and reference.

So to figure out why, I compared it to my Quo Vadis Textagenda which is the exact same size and has the same paper.  Below I have compared the bindings and you can see the difference.

Textagenda stays open on its own. Binding is flexible.

ABP2 must be held flat. Binding is not flexible.

ABP2 when it's not being held open.

This really bothers me a lot. I don't think the book will stay open on its own even with training because of the way it's bound. I guess I'll have to hold it open with a binder clip or something.  This makes me really sad because I was SO excited about this planner and thought it would be The One for 2013!  But the not staying open is a huge disappointment.

So I ordered up the Quo Vadis ABP1, which has the same column + notes daily format but is 5 1/4 by 8 1/2 inches instead. The lines will be larger, and I'm hoping it stays open on its own. As far as I know the ABP1 is only available in the US, so I had it sent to my mom who is coming to visit me soon so she will bring it with her. I don't know how I'll feel about the larger book, usually that size is too large and heavy for me to carry around but I'm hoping the soft cover will make it light enough. We'll see.

I might still use this book, because the size is perfect. If I can get around the lack of flatability I think I'd love this planner.

I ordered this planner from Quo Vadis UK and the shipping was super-fast.

Dang it!  Just when I thought I'd found The One, it doesn't stay open!  The search continues...

How the Planner Industry Feels About Digital

Here is a reply from my planners friend to follow-up on yesterday's post about the future of the planner industry and how people "inside" the paper planners companies feel about digital planners.

How do the planner / organizer paper product companies feel about digital.

I know this has been like the DMZ battle group for paper lovers and digital lovers but the truth of it is that the traditional companies are caught in the middle.  I remember reading an article where they asked Lett’s CEO how he feels about digital and why Letts has no digital offering.  The basic answer was Letts is a paper company and people will always use paper so there is no plan right now for digital products…(sorry if I remember it wrongly but this was what I remember from the article).  I feel this is the wrong approach.  There is no just paper or digital argument…it doesn't make sense.  When I read how people debate about paper is better than digital or looking down at people who use paper or digital I just think it is so sad….to a point of WTF.  Look just let people use what they want to use.  If we can make products that can cover most of the users that is good business for me.  From a personal stand point I really don’t care.  All I care about is how you use our product in any format.  So please don’t badger people who use one or the other…just get along with each other.

For a paper company you need to offer as many different products as you can, to give more of what people want to buy.  Let it be paper or digital.  We have done many hybrid paper digital products.  And yes we even had a full branded product that merged paper with PDA….well….you know what went extinct or transformed into.  Doing a pure digital product is so damn hard that if you don’t understand it don’t even try because you're just dumping money in to a big black hole.  If from the start you know what you're doing and what you want to do then all will be good.  Case in point is that you would think a paper planner company can come out with a cool digital app.  Look at mead and Fc the apps they came out with are crap….I mean so bad I don’t even know why I just paid money for it.  Those guys have no idea what they want to do so they just convert all their paper product ideas in to an app….which is bad…because they fail to understand that the digital industry works at lighting speed…and product reviews can make or break your app.  When you have only 1 star or less on your app…then your app will never be used….people won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.  They forgot the fact that people who use digital planners have a totally different mind set from paper based users.  If you don’t understand how people use digital planning don’t make a planning app or convert a paper planner into a digital one just for the heck of it.  We learned a hard lesson when trying to do our digital app and to a point I said…I have to can this project or else it will do more harm than good.  I have to do more research and learn how people plan and use the product all over again.  There is no way I can beat Apple’s own calendar…haha.

The really good planning apps are not even from established companies.  They are from people that have really good planning solutions that the digital format allows them to do it.  I would say their design and formats have turned a bright light on the industry.  It has given us another way of thinking about doing formats on paper.  I see these apps and the way they organize and color code and design I think to my self….wow…why I have never thought of that ever before.  Even our designers now are borrowing ideas from these apps for our future planners and formats.  There are so many good formats digitally that can really revolutionize how paper planners can work and do.  Even to a point where I was thinking…why even put a dated planner…just make more creative undated planners and let people customize what they want to put in.  Why not put more color coding or even more good visual points and offer more content?  All these things can really make my product look much better than what others have on the market.  

Anyway my 2 cents on how I feel about paper and digital…I use both and I love it.  For me nothing beats a blank note book yet.

Thanks again to my friend for contributing this very interesting insight into the industry!

Thoughts?

The future of the planners industry?

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine in the planners industry about things like the open letter to Filofax's PR company, my list of planner companies who listen to their customers, and Letts being sold. He gave me some shocking news that he has heard Moleskine is also up for sale! We got into an interesting discussion about the future of the paper planners industry and he said it was okay for me to share his viewpoint with you all. Here's what he had to say:

Hi Laurie:

After reading your post on Filofax and companies who don’t listen to their users I would like share some of my thoughts.

1-       For planners and organizers there are always difficulties in keeping in line with what the core customers want and what we can produce to bring in new users.  In this sunset industry (some people would say it is sunset) it is more and more important that we grab the younger youth customers.  Even younger kids who are taught by their parents or teacher to keep in the habit of being organized.  Those are our future market and customers. 

So what does this say about the core or hard core users.  Number one rule is do not rock the boat.  We learned this the hard way.  Especially the formats and cover design.  Slight changes of fonts, color or cover design will greatly impact these users and 90 percent of the time they will hate it.  The solution is to not change the core products for these users but minor adjustments such as more color cover offerings or different texture covers.  On the guts side will be updated information sections and different paper selections plus slight updates of the formats over time so the end users can adjust to it.

2-       Filofax:  They have the same problem as many of the other companies including us is that will this be a profitable business in the future or will it die off 10 years down the road.  This stuck in my head for the past few weeks when I see what is happening in the market trend is that “Do we want to become the king of the typewriters”.  Will this happen in the planner and organizer industry…most likely yes within the next 10 years.  The goal is to find your direction…find your focus in what products you want to develop and offer.  As business goes it is shrinking every year and we must find new ideas to grow.  

The key is not to lose focus of what you are developing and always keep the end users in mind.  

Here are my thoughts on Moleskine.  I do apologize that I might be harsh on this but I am not standing from the consumer side but from a branded company side.

Moleskine is a great brand with a great product image…with something that started out as a simple product and turned into a global niche brand that everyone tried to follow….but is it just an empty shell with no clear direction on where to go.

Moleskine started out in semi selective markets where the cool folks picked it up (Designers, Celebrities, artists and such)  with it they gathered a hard core user base who thinks they are more creative than the mass public.  They feel using Moleskine put you in a higher level of consumerism.  However in a global market a brand cannot make money on just the few folks.  Would Moleskine's popularity be where they are now without the mass public snatching up their product?  The answer is no.

However here is where lays the catch 22 problem.  Which means if you become popular it is hard to be cool with your hard core users.  Also you need to make $$ so you have to mass market sale the goods and then expand your company.  There is no in between.  You either will be small and mostly unknown and cater only to the hardcore users and risk the greater chance of not being able to do more or go broke doing it….the other choice will be to go mass market and earn more cash to build an empire (with the side effect of less quality and more quantity and more different products that your core groups will not like or have to do up special product ranges for mass retail chains so everyone can have a Moleskine and it will not be special anymore…) .  So in reality they went with the mass market route.  When you see it in Target with a cheap look and in less than pleasing displays or end cap programs… it means your brand is just like all others….nothing special.  It only means that parents can now justify buying a cool Moleskine for their kids and not think about “Did I just spend that much money for a blank note book??”

The problem now is that they have expanded into all these different products and sold everywhere…online and retail.  With the heavy down turn in economy in developing countries and shrinkage of developed retail market channels going bust it will hurt the company if the finance is not up to par.  And this is what is hitting them now I feel.  Going mass market means your profit %% is much less and a simple currency drop can wipe you out. Maybe they are ok still or maybe not but the bottom line is the bottom line….$$ comes first.  The brand will be here as long as people use paper to write on.



This is a fascinating glimpse inside the business of planners and what companies are going through right now. I do understand the industry is in general decline and that some will go out of business. But I think people will still be using paper planners 10 and more years from now. I just think there will probably be fewer people using them than now. Companies have to decide what their niche market will be. Mass production? Very high quality? Whatever it is, it will become a test of Survival Of The Fittest and only the few companies who manage to keep afloat will still be around 10 years from now.

What do you think?  

Do you know where your addresses are??

I used to be really organized with my addresses and contacts: they all went in my A5 Filofax, in the A-Z tabbed section. That was my master addresses list, the one where I kept the contact details of everyone I know.

But during the past several months while preparing to move, actually moving, living in temporary accommodation for 2 months, in our house for a few weeks without furniture, then swimming in boxes after our shipment arrived, I haven't been so organized. My big Filofax was in a box somewhere, the address pages removed and stuck into my carry-on bag. I couldn't be bothered to track down my bag every time I needed to write a new password or address, so I just wrote them into whatever book was in front of me at that moment. Since I use several planners and notebooks, my addresses quickly became scattered.

I thought I was the only one having this issue until recently a Twitter friend admitted she doesn't have a central location for all of her addresses and, "It's a problem."

Do you keep all of your addresses in one central location, whether electronically or on paper? Or like me do you have addresses, passwords and contacts in multiple locations?

New planner super-productivity

You know when you're using a new planner and suddenly you are so much more productive? You tick off your tasks in prioritized order, arrive early and prepared to all your appointments, have your goals neatly outlined and know what you're supposed to be doing every minute of the day?

I call that "New Planner Super-Productivity."  And I think it has very little to do with the actual planner itself and much more to do with the amount of attention you're giving it.

It's exciting to use a new planner!  It's fun to try a different format, size or brand.You spend a lot of time with your new planner playing with it and trying new things. 

But after a few days or weeks, the fascination with the planner's newness wears off.  You start forgetting to look at it as often. Your productivity levels fall to near where they were before you started using the planner. Eventually you might even decide it's a Planner Fail despite your initial super-productivity.

This isn't necessarily the planner's fault. Most likely, it will work for you just fine if you continue to pay attention to it. You shouldn't need to pay attention to your planner nearly constantly, because that's too high-maintenance. But with a reasonable amount of attention, most planners would work for us just fine.

The bottom line is, you have to write in your planner and look at it often for it to work well for you. One of my main rules of planner usage is, "The More You Use It, The More Useful It Is."

So when choosing a new planner, make sure you get one you will enjoy using and will pay attention to. Maybe it's attractive to you, or super-cool. Maybe it feels great in your hands, or you enjoy writing on the paper. Maybe it's fun to use, or it just really does make you more productive and efficient.

No matter which planner you choose, the most important feature is whatever will get you to pay lots of attention to it.

Planner companies who listen to their customers

I have decided I will no longer spend my hard-earned money on planner brands whose companies do not listen to their customers. I should not have to fight with a company to be listened to.

So instead, I am going to list companies who listen to their customers, provide positive dialogue, and go out of their way to make their customers happy.

Quo Vadis really stands out as a company who goes the extra mile to listen to their customers and make us happy. They have an excellent blog where they create a real dialogue with customers. They ask us what's important to us, what we need and what we like. They bring back planner formats due to popular demand. They interact with customers on Twitter. Dealing with Quo Vadis is like chatting with a friend. They are awesome.

Paperblanks also interacts well with customers via their blog, Facebook and Twitter. They are fun to chat with and I love seeing their new designs.

Uncalendar is a small company run by real people who do excellent customer service at a human level. They love their customers' comments so much they post them *all* on their website.  They recently joined Facebook too.

Brush Dance is run by great people who really care about their customers and are passionate about their (wonderful) products! They also communicate directly with their customers via their blog, Twitter and Facebook.

WeekDate is another company who communicates directly with customers and does everything in their power to make us happy.  I love getting their time management tips on Twitter and Facebook.

Success Choice is another small business run by real humans who really listen to their customers and make changes to their products based on customer suggestions. Their products are of the highest quality and designed to enrich your life.

Personal Planner UK is run by really nice folks who offer the ultimate in totally customized planners. You can find them on Facebook too.

There are a lot of excellent planner companies out there!  What planner companies have you had positive experiences with?

A moment of silence please

This weekend I had to throw away a planner. And not just any planner: it was The One That Started It All. 














It got absolutely destroyed in the move. Our boxes endured extreme heat in transit while being on a ship in the tropics. We were warned, but dang. The vinyl of the cover absolutely melted and disintegrated. It was a sticky mess. I took out the pages that still had some meaning to me, and the rest of it went into the trash.  You can imagine my grief!

So, a moment of silence please for the demise of the planner that started me on my life's journey to Planner Nirvana.

Goodbye old friend! Thanks for everything.