What I'm NOT buying for 2024
A list of planners I'm NOT buying for 2024. Including the ones I really wanted to get. This is mostly a not-so-humblebrag, shamelessly seeking praise for my self-restraint. I go through some that very nearly made it into my 2024 stack, ones that weren't ever that close but that I'd love to try, and then a couple of entire categories I'm skipping (and why).
The ones I almost bought
These are planners I came very close to buying.
1. Erin Condren Hourly 2024
This one nearly made it in. I currently use two hourly weeklies, one for personal, one for work. For the last two years, my personal hourly has been the Erin Condren.
It has generous time spaces, lovely paper, and a delightful splash of colour. The monthly layout and dashboard is great.
It lost out to:
The Sprouted Planner Hourly. I'll miss the colour, and I had gotten a bit attached to the Erin Condren, but the Sprouted Planner weekly hourly layout is just so strong, I couldn't ignore it. It solves the one big problem with the Erin Condren, which is lack of notes space - and that was a problem they had made worse this year by adding habit trackers.
Read Heather's detailed 2024 Hourly Planner Rundown, or watch her video.
2. Sprouted Planner Weekly 2024
Sprouted Planner is having a good year. The weekly horizontal would be a good option for a work planner for me. It's a flexible layout, with ample room for lots of lists and notes, and lots of notes pages.
Read Heather's detailed 2024 Weekly Planner Rundown, or watch her video.
It lost out to:
My hourly from So Typical Me . . . and the Sprouted Planner horizontal from 2023.
I started So Typical Me in September, and am sticking with it for now, for a few reasons:
- I want to continue detailed time tracking for a while longer.
- It's a compact size, which makes it easy to have it on my desk when I'm working.
- I love how cheerful it is: it's just a really happy little planner.
But I doubt I'll do this level of time tracking forever. When I'm ready for a change, Sprouted Planner's weekly horizontal will definitely be on the list. For this reason, I picked up the 2023 version. It was heavily discounted ($16!), and getting it now means I can try it out cheaply, and without having to do another planner order if I decide to change to it. The 2023 and 2024 versions are very similar, and it should be easy to re-date.
3. Simplified Daily in Midnight Chinoiserie
Simplified have won the cover competition this year for me. I'm having a slightly unlucky year with covers and colourways: most of what I've seen this year hasn't gotten me very excited. Midnight Chinoiserie is the exception. It's gorgeous. This is the one that came closest to persuading me to make an impulse purchase, despite it not being the most practical choice for me.
It's not just the cover calling to me. It includes:
- Wire-o binding: ok, not a coil, but you can still fold it back on itself.
- Beautiful daily layouts: clean, simple, and with generous notes space.
- A light amount of annual prep work. I'm intrigued by the simplicity challenge.
For a walkthrough of the Simplified planners, Amanda's Favorites review video is great.
It lost out to:
The Sprouted Planner Daily (I told you they're having a ridiculously strong year).
The new Sprouted Planner daily just knocks everything else out of the water in terms of planner design:
- Coilbound
- Split into two books for portability
- A weekly dashboard (it's pretty close to a weekly planner within your daily)
- A flexible, clean daily layout
- Full weekends
That last point was the key one. Simplified's big weakness for me is that it puts the weekends onto one page. This is a design choice I don't really understand in planners. Many people don't work a conventional Monday-Friday. And many people use their planner for personal life as much as (or more than) work. When I was a freelancer, work would often spread itself across the week. I'd imagine that if you have kids, your weekends aren't exactly quiet either.
For me personally, my daily is likely to see more use at weekends. During the week my work planner will have a lot of my focus, with the daily providing room for lists, tracking various things, and micro-journaling space. It's the weekends where it'll be really full.
Add in the other advantages of the Sprouted Planner, and it was a no-brainer. However, the Midnight Chinoiserie cover design might have been enough to pull me over to Simplified if it wasn't for the weekends.
The ones I want to try but know won't quite work for me
These are the planners I'm intrigued by, and that appeal to me, but that I know really don't fit how I use my planners.
1. Laurel Denise
All the Laurel Denise planners are intriguing. They have unique layouts that allow you to see your month and week simultaneously. I really like this: their tagline is 'planners for the way you think', and I tend to agree with that.
For a walkthrough of the Laurel Denise planners, Amanda's Favorites review video is great.
Why it's not for me
Size. For work, my planner needs to fit in a small space on my desk. Even Laurel Denise's new mini-planner wouldn't fit. And for both work and personal I need more weekly space, with the monthly space being less important. So the overall balance of the pages doesn't quite work for me. Though it's not impossible to imagine making the vertical work for personal planning.
That said, I'm going to keep following this company. I'm half hoping they'll take a swing at something that shows your week and day (rather than month and week).
A slightly silly side note: the Laurel Denise aesthetic overall isn't very "me", and I usually like colourful planners. However, their Midnight colour is possibly the most interesting shade of black I've ever seen. It's a colourful black (I promise this makes sense). I'm hoping it becomes a standard colour for them.
2. Hobonichi Techo Cousin
The Hobonichi Techo Cousin offers monthly, weekly hourly, and daily pages, along with some useful trackers. I liked the hourly layout, and the potential for this planner to be an all-in-one.
Why it's not for me
I like to have my main planner views open. For example, when working, I'll have my personal hourly and my daily on stands to my left, with my work planner on my desk in front of me. So while an all-in-one book appeals for its delightful efficiency and portability, it doesn't actually make sense for how I physically position and view my planners.
And then there's some whole categories I'm skipping
The thing about obsessing about planners is, you eventually learn that even though a planner looks lovely, or a particular system sounds awesome, it just won't work for you. Here are some categories I'm not even trying to use in 2024. I'm including this because the pressure to do all the things (use all the planners!) can be intense, especially when you see content on YouTube showing people successfully using a particular system. It's ok to let go of the things that aren't for you.
1. Goal planners
I've tried (hasn't everyone?) You know what? Goal planners don't work for me. Goal-setting systems don't work for me. Intention-setting practices can, so long as they don't start to look too much like goal-setting.
In fact, they make things worse for me. When I actually paid attention to how I was feeling, I realised that habit trackers make me feel anxious, SMART goals made me feel trapped, or in some way lacking humanity, and that any sort of personal structured goal setting is the fastest way to make sure I don't do something (I have a blog post and video discussing this in more detail, and intend to do some follow-ups).
I'd love to dig into this more, because clearly this is something that works for a lot of people. But for now, I'm letting this go. I'll spend December reflecting, and maybe set some gentle intentions. But no structured goal planning.
2. Guided journals
Unlike goal planners, I actually enjoy journaling projects. But finding the time and focus is tricky, so I don't want to spend money on it right now. My aim for 2024 is to do more micro-journaling, as well as keeping up with my five year journal, and using my general journal a bit more often.
3. Project planners
I love the idea of organising a project in a paper planner, but there are some things where digital feels more natural to me. Whether it's a list of blog ideas, or ongoing DIY projects on the house, these just feel easier to manage in digital format. Perhaps because they get edited and changed so often.
Wrap up
This was a long one, but a really fun post to write. I'm pleased I got to shout about the exciting planners that I didn't get to buy!