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Help! Which planner should I choose?
Sister, brother, friend in planning... We are here for you! Choosing a planner can be tough, especially with so many great options. Scroll down for a quick break down on each Laurel Denise planner so you can make the best decision for yourself.
Horizontal Weekly Planner
Our original planner format offers 3 different cover options for 2023. Sturdy binding and cover material combined with amazing card stock, this planner will help you get all of those moving pieces into one place! (This was called the "All in One Planner" in 2022.)
This planner is perfect for people that don't need a detailed time blocked daily schedule. If you like to write a general idea of your day (a few appointments and notes about what you are doing that day and your tasks), this planner is for you! With plenty of room for to-do lists assigned to each day, this planner is a dream if most of your days look the same, but your to-do list is ever changing. For helpful hints, our Instagram feed is filled with ideas on how to best use your Horizontal Weekly Planner. You might also love this deep dive into the Horizontal Weekly Planner on our Youtube channel.
Vertical Weekly Planner
New for 2023, this planner format has 3 cover options. Sturdy coil binding, premium paper weight, and lots of fun extras, this planner is a dream!
If you love to time block, have a busy schedule that changes each day, and need to visualize which parts of your day are full and which are empty in order to plan, this planner is for you. This planner gives room for daily priorities, daily to-do lists, weekly to-do lists, notes, and monthly to-do lists. We suggest pairing it with our time washi tape and choosing your favorite erasable highlighters to time block your heart away! For helpful hints, our Instagram feed is filled with ideas on how to best use your Vertical Weekly Planner. You might also love this deep dive into the Vertical Weekly Planner on our Youtube channel.
Horizontal vs. Vertical Weekly Planners
The difference between these planners is found in the weekly and daily pages (the short pages between the longer monthly tabbed pages). In the Horizontal Weeky Planner, these pages have a horizontal layout and don't have hourly time blocks. In the Vertical Weekly Planner, these pages have a vertical layout and give hourly time blocks for your schedule. This quick video on Instagram is a helpful visual tool for the comparision of these planners!
Project Planner
With 2 cover options for 2023, our project planner is perfect if you don't need to keep track of a lot of daily details, but you are involved with multiple projects, side hustles, or organizations which make one large to-do list something you can't manage. The simple act of breaking down a to-do list into categories and using your monthly spread to help set realistic goals and completion dates is pretty life changing.
This planner gives you a large monthly view on the left and four columns to help organize your to-do lists into categories on the right. Click here for ideas on how to use your to-do list page. Extra to-do list page inserts coming by March 2023! You might also enjoy this deep dive into our Project Planner on our Youtube channel.
Monthly Planner
Sometimes you just need everything in - quite literally - one place. With 2" x 1.5" daily squares, there is enough space for a few to-do items, appointments, and plans. For all of the extra reminders and tasks, this monthly planner gives you a full column on the left with plenty of space. We suggest pairing it with some of our sticky notes (launching by March 2023) for even more room! This quick video shows how Laurel would use the Monthly Planner.
OMG, I thought you'd never ask:
At Laurel Denise, we believe that it's possible for everyone to feel organized and find a planner that helps bring peace to their lives. And - good news! - you don't need fancy pens or a perfect office or gold-foiled stickers to get there! (Although, honestly, those things are quite fun.)
We share tips on how to get started on our Instagram channel, have a lively private Facebook Community with planner friends and (coming soon!) weekly Sunday planning sessions with Laurel, and a growing YouTube channel with lengthy how-to videos.
Here are some good practices for starting a new planner:
1. If you are color-coding in your planner, create your key and put it on the first page of your planner.
2. We find it's best to begin with inserting important yearly appointments and reminders. Put anniversaries, birthdays, grievance days, pretty much everything into your monthly spread. Then put reminders in your "to do this month" column of each month's spread (ie: In August, you might remind yourself to order winter coats for your children, if applicable).
3. Then you move into your weekly detailed planning time! Block out time before the beginning of your week to plan for the week ahead. We like to do this on Sundays, when we are meal planning for the week. Look at your schedule and make sure your to-do list is fleshed out and assigned to certain days of the week.
More than anything, don't stress. A planner is meant to work for you and be a helper. It's doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't even need to be neat! Progress, peace, functionality and fun over perfection :)
With the most unique layout on the market and the only planner that allows you to view your entire month, week, and daily schedule at the same time, you - truly - can't get this planner anywhere else. We work with the best manufacturers in the business and have brought quality planners to the marketplace year after year.
Our community is incomparible and filled with approachable planner people who support, help, and encourage you to become the type of organized person you never believed you could be.
Don't just take our word for it - check out our reviews page to see what everyone else is saying.
The difference between these planners is found in the weekly and daily pages (the short pages between the longer monthly tabbed pages). In the Horizontal Weeky Planner, these pages have a horizontal layout and don't have hourly time blocks. In the Vertical Weekly Planner, these pages have a vertical layout and give hourly time blocks for your schedule.
We have a few sizes, but all detailed sizing information can be found in each product's page. We even have images with specific sizes within each layout on most product pages!
Unfortunately, we cannot customize the covers or the binding on the planners at this time.
For now, we have decided as a company not to offer our exact printed planner layouts as a printable file.
Laurel has created some printable layouts that are slightly different than the planners we offer and they can be found here.
In Laurel's personal experience (which is the main inspiration for the design of these planners), if you don't actually write something down, you won't remember that something. That task, that "for the future", that special day, that list , that hope and dream - 9 times out of 10, if that happens electronically, it doesn't stick. For this reason, we choose paper for our main line.
We are working on offering a digital undated line that will launch in Spring 2023.
It feels silly to say that they are for everyone, but the Laurel Denise planner customer ranges from air force commander to homeschool parent to student to stay at home mom to entrepreneur (and on and on). People have commented that our planners have helped lift them out of a depression brought on by feeling like they couldn't ever manage to get anything done. They've written us that their to-do list was taking over their lives and our planner helped them plan their to-do list around their lives instead of their lives around their to-do list. Our planner has helped countless people to be able to take on side hustles, making their dreams become reality. It has helped a huge segment of people, with brains that think a little differently, feel seen and understood. So, if you fit into one of those many categories, you are welcomed, seen, and encouraged to try our system!
In short, everything. We made the complete switch to a planner company in October 2022 and have so much planned for 2023 and beyond.
In the Winter of 2023, you'll see some fun new accessories plus planner page inserts and dashboards. We will launch our next Undated Collection (with horizontal, vertical and project planner layouts) and Teacher Collection in Spring 2023 with plenty of cover options. What's coming after that is all a surprise (maybe even to us!), but you can rest assured we are fully commited to our functional, minimal, thoughtful planner design and thrilled at the new products coming your way.
Omg, same here. You are in good company! Our Youtube channel is an amazing place to start for videos on our various planners. If you don't have time to settle into the longer YouTube videos, check out our Instagram feed for quick reels with comparisons, tips, and how tos!