Calendar/Planner Recommendations

I'm a paper calendar girl myself.

The last several years I've bought the 'At a Glance' school year calendar. It goes from July of one year to July of the next. Especially kids in school I found I frequently needed into the next school year to plan. Probably next month, I buy the next one. I think they run about $30 at like Office Max.

And I'm a little OCD, (in a good way), so I take the time to color code things.
Of course if it's something tentative it's written in pencil.
Then birthdays and important things like "no school" days are written in red.
My son's activities in blue and my daughter's in purple.
Mine are written in green and general activities/info in Black.

I also will pick up one of those clear FedEx sleeves they use to put the paper thingys in and adhere it to the inside of the back cover. Then I have a handy dandy little pocket for receipts and appointment cards,etc.

Like I said, I've probably been doing it this way 4-5 years? Our son is now 21 and our daughter almost 17 and it's worked for me.

Good Luck

1 mom found this helpful

OMG...LLK below..sounds just like me. Except I have overload on paper calendars. I have a smaller one in the nice bound zipper thing that used to fit in my purse...now is bedside. I color code things too, use page tab post its to tab the months, colored paper clips for things, etc. Its bad!!!

Then I have a large one (8 X 10 ?) for my curriculum planning for daycare..and another for general stuff....daycare things get entered plus personal stuff like appointments, school things for DD, family functions, birthdays, etc. I am way OCD about my paper calendars. I also put some stuff in my smart phone. Its a bit ridiculous but I have this thing for lists and organization of this stuff.

But the calendar books themselves I get at Walmart or Target for about $10 each. I just need them to have a sort of block style, a monthly tabbed page and then the daily sections so I can write more detailed things in. I have looked a the more expensive books, but don;t see the big deal for the price..I buy the cheap ones and color code, etc.

Good Luck!

I used the Franklin Covey system too, before I stayed home after my son was born. I agree, the binder system is too bulky to carry around, but they also have a spiral bound calendar that is much more compact that carrying around a binder.

It has alot of the same features that the binder system has, but it alot easier to throw in your bag.

Funny thing is that just yesterday, I went to buy a calendar. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a $10 calendar book. After leaving the store, I decided that I didn't like the month layout and ended up heading back to good old reliable Franklin Covey for my spiral. It runs around $22, but so much better!

I also use the Franklin Covey weekly planner and still love it. i have used the compact and the spiral one, love them both. I like the binder one because i can add blank pages to it for extra notes. i also like to have a hard copy, they don't crash or erase. Good luck!

I found that with FC, I didn't need the daily pages so I went to their Simplicity for Moms pages, which are week-at-a-glance and include spots for kids. I really liked that for a few years but the nature of my job is very project-oriented, so this year I switched back to a ring binder (Simplicity is wire-bound). I had to get a daytimer binder because the FC ones were too wide (1.5" and I only need 1") and then got just month-at-a-glance FC pages which also have the monthly master task list and then added sections with tab dividers and lined pages for projects. I have medical pages and activity sheets for each child, some project management fold-out sheets for work, and some other random pages from past sets. All in all, I really like this set up - the calendar has all of the appointments for my family and me, and I have plenty of room to track work projects and meeting notes without flipping through daily or weekly pages to find info, and it's not bulky.

What works best for me are the ones that show the days in columns rather then little squares. You see a month at a time and a week at a time. You can find them spiral bound, they have less room for contacts and such, but are much trimmer. I found the Franklin Covey ones (5.5 x 8.5-ish) that have no dates on clearance and stocked up (at Target). The columned ones are harder to find though. My mom uses a full page size one for her appointment book for her counseling practice, so maybe try the appointment book section of an office supply store instead. (makes it easier to cram in everyone's schedule if you have the day times in there already.

Best wishes!

I was given a blackberry for work and I nevre went back to a planner. I will be sunk if there's another blackout like we had in NY years ago! I have work, personal, kids stuff all on the calendar. It's wondeful! Never needed or wanted a hard copy - but again I will be suck if there's ever a power outage.

For many years I have ordered Daytimer products and found them very helpful. I've used 3 sizes but when I had my kids living at home and was working, the desk size was best. Now I use the portable. You can get several formats.

I have been using the At A Glance collegiate monthly academic planner (item# 70CP060512). I like that it has lined spaces for each day of the month. I much prefer an academic planner for the sake of my children's schedule. MomAgenda seems cool too. Mead has come out with more Mom-type of calendars that were nice and worth looking at.

I have used the Franklin Covey planners in the past but I needed something a bit more streamlined at this point in my life.

Wishing you luck! I understand the need to have the "right" planner. It makes all the difference.

I just use the calendar in Outlook (e-mail) and then if I need a hard copy, I just print it. It works for me, and was way cheaper than Franklin Covey.

The best one I've found -- MomAgenda --www.momagenda.com. Has a weekly calendar and space for four kids. I use those for my two girls, my husband and my mother (since she is my daycare provider). Been using it now for three years and love it!

HTH!