and it’s a little different than the rest!
Why?
Because its BOUND!
That’s right! A physical BOUND planner.
The Charmed Life Master Planner
Isn’t she a beauty? I’m absolutely smitten with her and I think you will be too! So let me give you some specific details!
The Charmed Life Master Planner is a 3-in-1 planning, time management and brainstorming tool to help you generate ideas, formulate project plans and schedule the time to execute successfully on it all!
The Charmed Life Master Planner is broken into 3 sections:
♥ Section I: The Master Plan
•12 Months of Undated Month on 2 Pages Calendars
•12 Months of Master Task & Expense Sheets
•5 Week on 2 Page vertical panning spreads per month
♥ Section II: Important Projects
•Undated Yearly Project Tracker for short, mid and long term projects
•40 Pages of Project Plans with Notes
♥ Section III: Brilliant Ideas
•20 Braindump & Task Prioritization Sheets
•20 Brainstorm & Planning Sheets
•30 Extra Notes Pages
♥ Index
The Charmed Life Master Planner also includes 8 index sheets to track the content of information on specific pages to help locate and organize information quickly and efficiently!
FORMAT & SIZE
The Charmed Life Master Planner is a 5.5” by 8.5” book bound planner with a soft matte black cover and 382 bright white facing pages. The paper is approximately 26lb or 90gsm in weight and 98 bright white in color, which makes it excellent to use with a variety of pens, inks and highlighters with minimum bleed and ghosting.This binding and size was specifically chosen for a number of reasons to make The Charmed Life Master Planner as functional and flexible a tool as possible. The soft cover book binding makes the planner a discreet and portable tool that you can confidently carry along with you in even the most professional of settings to keep all your plans and ideas organized together. The planner is sized to fit comfortably into a variety of everyday handbags or briefcases. The universal half letter size also accommodates a variety of notebook or compendium style covers available on the market for added protection and functionality as desired.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The minimalistic black matte cover was designed specifically to make this planner timeless and elegant. You will find no external branding of the creator on the cover because this is your planner not a billboard for a personal brand. In order to minimize the look of fingerprints a matte cover was chosen over glossy, however oils from your hands will still accumulate on the cover and to clean these, all you need is a simple wet wipe. Keep in mind, this is a paper planner, so you don’t want to use anything too wet that might damage pages, but the careful and controlled use of a wipe or moist towelette followed by a dry microfiber cloth is sufficient to remove any visible oil spots without damaging the cover.
The Charmed Life Master Planner is proudly printed and shipped from the United States.
Why a book bound format?
When I first began the project of creating this planner I had three non-negotiable values that I committed myself to.
Price, Aesthetic and Accessibility.
I had a specific price point that I wanted to stick to for the retail of this planner. I know there are many planners on the market that retail from as low as $1 to as high as $100+ but I had an idea in my mind for where I wanted my planner to be priced in the mix.
I also had a specific aesthetic I wanted to stick to. I knew I wanted the planner to be as streamlined and universal as possible, something that anyone could carry into any meeting discreetly, could pull out of a bag and take notes in comfortably without feeling out of place or self-conscious and was inconspicuous enough to just sit out on a desk without feeling like it was drawing unnecessary attention.
Finally, I wanted this planner to be as accessible as possible for my community, just as easy to access as my print on demand planners and tools sold within my digital shop. I personally hate to wait for things, I know patience is a virtue but when it comes to planners, I don’t want to wait for a pre-order of a product, and then wait for that period to be over and then wait some more for my product to be manufactured before it even ships out to me. Let’s not even get into how annoying it can be to want to order something and this it’s out of stock! I have been down that road before with products I wanted and it is not an experience I want to give my community. I want people to be able to see my planner, be able to order it as soon as they decide they want it, and then receive it within a reasonable period of time.
So, as I was evaluating options for binding and design for this planner with those three key values in my head, it became clear to me that the best way to achieve what I set out to do was with a book bound planner. And this wasn’t a situation where I was settling on the binding either, I am very thrilled that my planner is a bound book. I know in recent years you have seen me with ring or discbound planners, but before I formally joined the planner community, I used a softcover moleskine as my planner and I loved it. There is a part of my sentimental heart that romanticizes books on a level like none other and so for me personally, I am in love with the concept of a soft cover book bound planner. It comes with so many positives to me that it outweighs those few negatives that I know you all want me to address, so let’s talk about it!
Let’s start with the few negatives of a book binding as I see it!
1st NO SPIRAL. Yep, this is the one major negative of a book, it doesn’t spiral BUT let me remind you that a soft cover book CAN flip pages over on themselves and with no coil, spiral or rings or discs to content with, it’s actually a very comfortable experience writing in this planner whether you are left or right handed on either side of the spread!
2nd This actually leads in perfectly to the next drawback of a book bound planner, which is that it doesn’t lay flat on your desk. That’s true, this isn’t like a binder or spiral style planner that lays flat, however, again, you can keep a book bound planner open by flipping pages back and as any avid reader knows, you CAN train a book to lay open by breaking in the spine which is doable with this planner. Another easy solution for this would be to use a paper weight to keep your planner open OR to put it in a book stand. So there are some easy solutions to this problem as well!
3rd and final obstacle of a book bound planner is no reordering or personalization of pages. This is an issue any bound planner would face of course but we have found hacks around that in spiral bound planners haven’t we? Well, we don’t have many clever hacks for book bound planners yet but, remember, you can always add to a book bound planner with sticky notes, paper clips and loose sheets of paper, but there is one thing you still can’t do with a book bound planner: reorganize pages!! This is why The Charmed Life Master Planner comes with an index in the back and numbered pages. For those who are familiar with the bullet journal method you will be familiar with the concept of using an index to help you organize your book and quickly find and reference information.
So those are the three obstacles I see with a book binding, but we all know its not just book bound planners that have obstacles, no planner binding is a perfect solution, it’s just about finding the planner and binding that has the issues you are willing to deal with and the benefits you are looking for!
So, let’s talk about some of the benefits of a book bound planner and why I am so thrilled about The Charmed Life Master Planner.
1st It’s securely bound with your entire year and all your plans, projects and ideas in one place! Yes, I LOVE planners that you can customize and add and remove pages, but that’s only because in most customizable systems you need to constantly adjust and allocate space because they can’t hold everything you need. Well, The Charmed Life Master Planner is everything I will need in a year for managing my time, planning my projects and coming up with ideas! So there is nothing I need to add to this because at 382 pages, I have everything in one place!
2nd NO bulky cover or binding! So this is something you are going to have to see to really understand how excited I am about this binding. When I compare The Charmed Life Master Planner with the discbound planning system I was using before, it’s clear which option I would prefer to tote around. The discbound system is much bulkier! I cannot fit my discbound planner in my everyday handbag, BUT I can fit The Charmed Life Master Planner comfortably! Now, it’s important to note that the pages within each planner are the exact same, half letter sized 26lb paper, and yet I can only fit half a year of inserts, and a smaller project planning and notes section in my discbound. Again, The Charmed Life Master Planner is the full year and enough project plans, brainstorm and notes sheets for a year of ideas. Even if I were to switch this leather cover with a thin plastic option, the discbound is still bulkier and contains only half a year of inserts at one time.
3rd It’s sophisticated yet discreet! Can you think of anything more discreet and unassuming than a book? You can literally take a book with you anywhere you go and it draws almost no attention to itself. It’s not a cell phone or tablet that might need to be turned off or handed over in delicate situations. It’s not a leather planner that might be mistaken for a wallet and stolen. It fits seamlessly into nearly any work situation or life scenario without screaming “look at me- there is private information in here!” I love that this planner is so versatile, portable, gender neutral and yet elegant and sophisticated all at the same time.
I can’t wait for you to get your hands on The Charmed Life Master Planner to see and experience the ease of this complete planning system yourself! I have a feeling you’re going to love it!