Erin Condren Planners-talk to me about these

[sunflowerlady]

Why are they considered to be so awesome? They just released the new life planner and it starts at about fifty dollars. Wow! 

 

I am considering one and like the idea of personalization, but I feel I am missing something in what makes these worth so much money.

 

Here is what I am looking for in a planner, so maybe it will help you all to give me input.

 

I am not looking for a lesson planner. Dd will be a senior, and hopefully doing dual enrollment, so no need for that. 

 

I am buying a home, have a part time, work at home job, and am trying to start a new venture doing some online selling via ebay. I need to have a week and month at a glance and then be able to break each day down into hourly sections. I tend to have ADD tendencies (no formal diagnosis) and I want to allot time each day to do things that need to be done. I need to assign myself blocks to time for my part time job, my new online business, housework and things related to my home purchase. 

 

Anyone here love Erin Condren and can tell me why? Or anyone have other planner suggestions?

 

Thanks

[imagine.more]

Honestly Erin Condren has terrible customer service. I have ordered from them and had the order messed up and they did not fix it. Super annoying. 

 

I adore Plum Paper Planners.....same type of planner, better quality paper, much better customer service, and more customization offered...and a slightly cheaper price. They really listen to their customers. I emailed asking if they would be offering a Homeschool tab to replace the My Class tab for the Teacher Planner and they said they had it in the works for the future *and* asked for suggestions. Someone else I know wanted to sort of bullet journal in her Plum Paper Planner and asked if they could make all the notes pages (she added extras too) be gridded instead of lines, and they did it. You get to choose the custom colors on your covers, any color you can name or send as a hex code. If you google you can often find Plum Paper coupon codes. Or follow them on Instagram/Facebook....about once a month or so they have a special of some sort where you can get 10% off or something. 

 

I highly recommend the hourly section option like you are planning. I have been doing that for 2+ years now in the Catholic Planner that I make, and it fits perfectly with my busy life. I can *see* exactly where I have free chunks of time or not and it helps me not to double-book myself accidentally and I can see when DH will be home or at work so I know when I'm available to leave the house alone for errands or tutoring. The visual aspect of being able to see my time over the week in the hourly vertical planner pages really helps me. 

[JulieA97]

I love my EC planner and I know they recently added an hourly format.  I am not sure how well the hourly format for them works though, maybe check out some Youtube reviews of them?  I use the vertical format broken up into 3 segments per day.  Top section is appts and things we are doing, middle section is my To Do list, bottom section is things to do for my part time WAH job.  So that format works great for me.  I will say that the 2014-15 seemed to have better paper than the one I got at the beginning of this year.  This years seems a little thinner.  I think they have corrected the issue but it was disappointing to spend so much on a planner and have my pen bleed through.

 

As for whats so great about them-the personalization is great and they are colorful and fun.  I like the format.  But there are other planners out there that might fit your needs better.  I have heard good things about Plum Paper for instance.

[Guest]

The only personalization is the cover. And the customer service is beyond awful. Go with Plum Paper and build what you want. As for me, I went with a Filofax and have been very happy adding in exactly what I need.

[footballmom]

I'm on my third EC planner and really like it.  Like a PP, I have the three box format for morning, afternoon and evening.  I use it as a diary of sorts - on the lines under each day I write my weight, my workout (and distance and pace if it was a run).  This year they took out the mini calendar in the left corner of each week and I miss it.  They replaced it with a blank "Thankful thought" box, which I think intentional gratitude is important, but the calendar was super helpful to me rather than toggling back and forth.  

 

I've heard good things about Plum Paper but haven't ordered.  I agree the CS at EC is terrible, but they do give you discounts at certain milestone orders (I think 1, 5 and 10), so this last planner was actually free (just had to pay shipping).  I like the idea of being able to swap out covers, but then I tell myself that is a wasteful use of money when the cover I have is perfectly good :) 

[sunflowerlady]

Thanks everyone! I will check out Plum paper !

[momee]

I love this

http://www.levenger.com/CIRCA-326/CIRCA-NOTEBOOKS-339.aspx

 

and this

 

http://bulletjournal.com/

 

I needed something more colorful and pre-printed/dated for homeschool.  As such I bought and customized the plum paper option mentioned above.  I don't know how it will compare to Levenger - but I do know keeping my homeschool info in the Well Planned Day planner and a personal planner in addition was important, otherwise it got too jumbled.

 

I'm posting the first two for you because I find great value in keeping everything on paper and not in my head (think Getting Things Done brain dump) because my brain is too full managing 5 other people.  I used the Levenger circa notebook before bullet journals came out.  I could keep invoices, to do lists, household inventory, a printed meal plan from Plan to Eat, our budget page from YNAB, my homeschool calendar page that I printed the public school calendar on the back of, and have tabbed sections for work, homeschool, volunteer, home, whatever - all in one place.  

I got the clear cover and smaller discs that came with the sampling kit for $40 and put pics of my family as my personalized cover.  The circa punch is necessary if adding your own pages so if you're even 80% sure you like Levenger circa notebook idea, buy the punch.  The notebook won't be the same - your own!- unless you can add/take away pages as needed, in my opinion.

 

I just loved it.  My hope is to get my plum paper planner for school set up - filling it with CC ideas and field trips to flesh out our year.  Once the school planner is done though, I'm setting up my personal planner.  I'm thinking I should have done it the other way, personal then school since I still have a few months of summer :)

 

I have realized I am a paper planner girl, if I don't write it, it's gone.  Tech is not my friend there~HTH

Edited June 5, 2016 by momee

[momee]

The Simply Irresistible Sampler is $40 but includes a $40 coupon - great way to sample it out first then see what pages you want/need.

 

I find the blank pages, college ruled pages and tabs worked great.  Dated pre-printed pages were very cumbersome for my needs.  I wanted white space and room to jot down junk and keep it out of my head.  I really miss using it~will be going back.  Maybe I need to watch the brain dump video for GTD again.  Good stuff~~~~~

 

http://www.bohoberry.com/bullet-journal-gtd/

 

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by momee

[Happy]

You might like a Passion Planner. This is my first year using one for my personal and business life....so far it's good. Plenty of space for appointments, quite a bit of space for lists or thinking or writing whatever you need...

 

If I remember correctly, she has a download for free place on her website...if you want to download and print your own.

 

[Chocomom63]

I wish Erin Condren had kept to making JUST their Life Planners.  In the beginning they had been awesome, but then the size shrunk, the paper was different, and so on.   Two years in a row they screwed up my planner and so I threw in the towel on that.  I think the problem is they have too many things going and, in my opinion, the Life Planner really suffered.  To me, they are just too expensive and the frustration just isn't worth it.

 

That said, I'm loving my MAMBI Happy Planner!  It's a lot cheaper (especially if you use the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby) and there is a lot of room for writing what you want and tailoring it to you.  I am not quite like those who use it scrapbook-like (no time for that), but I do make it my own.  I also have the do it yourself Happy Planner for next year and I like that one even better - it's a boxed set.

 

My son got me a Passion Planner last year and while I liked it - it was way too big for me.  I liked all the extras about goals and dreams, etc., but I wish it had been smaller and spiral.  I haven't looked at one this year so not sure if they've changed.

 

If you are looking for something super simple, I've also had the Homemaker's Friend Daily Planner by Sue Hooley.  Very simple, pretty, it is Christian content so if that bothers you then this isn't the one for you.  I can take it or leave it so not a problem for me.

 

Now, my favorite planner was the BusyBodyBook from years ago.  It had blocks and at the top you could write names, or your different roles, or whatever, and keep everything straight that way.  It also had a page opposite that was lined for notes - I used the heck out of those pages!  The last one was printed in 2012 I think and I truly, truly miss it.  Wish they would print them again.

 

Okay, that's my take on it.   Good luck to finding something you like and if all else fails just crack out a nice spiral notebook. :-)

[kwickimom]

Honestly Erin Condren has terrible customer service. I have ordered from them and had the order messed up and they did not fix it. Super annoying. 

 

I adore Plum Paper Planners.....same type of planner, better quality paper, much better customer service, and more customization offered...and a slightly cheaper price. They really listen to their customers. I emailed asking if they would be offering a Homeschool tab to replace the My Class tab for the Teacher Planner and they said they had it in the works for the future *and* asked for suggestions. Someone else I know wanted to sort of bullet journal in her Plum Paper Planner and asked if they could make all the notes pages (she added extras too) be gridded instead of lines, and they did it. You get to choose the custom colors on your covers, any color you can name or send as a hex code. If you google you can often find Plum Paper coupon codes. Or follow them on Instagram/Facebook....about once a month or so they have a special of some sort where you can get 10% off or something. 

 

I highly recommend the hourly section option like you are planning. I have been doing that for 2+ years now in the Catholic Planner that I make, and it fits perfectly with my busy life. I can *see* exactly where I have free chunks of time or not and it helps me not to double-book myself accidentally and I can see when DH will be home or at work so I know when I'm available to leave the house alone for errands or tutoring. The visual aspect of being able to see my time over the week in the hourly vertical planner pages really helps me. 

 

 

I second this ^^^^^