Plan 2 Bee, from Bee Bubbly

A day planner makes a great Christmas gift, because the timing is perfect!  When you open a day planner Christmas morning, you have a whole week to look it over and get it set up – and then it’s time for the new year to begin.

I’m a big believer that the planner you choose has to work for you, and I think that means that the ideal planner for me and the ideal planner for you might not be the same one.  The Plan 2 Bee planner from Bee Bubbly has a unique twist, though; it incorporates the necessary baby steps for making all of those changes you know we all want to make.

Need to wake up earlier or go to bed sooner?  Eat better?  Exercise more?  Get better about setting goals and implementing plans?  All of these sorts of things are included in the planner, in baby step form so that you make progress throughout the year.

The planner itself is a single, wire-bound book (about 6×9″).  This is nice, because it’s compact and easy to carry around.  It’s divided into quarters, and each quarter is on a different color of paper, so it’s very easy to see this breakdown.  There is a monthly calendar spread for each month, followed by weekly logs and weekly fitness/nutrition logs for each week of the month.

That’s not all, though!  Each quarter begins with places for priorities, goals, and a sort of “catch-all” spot for thoughts you don’t want to lose before they become goals or projects.  Once you’ve completed the first quarter, each also has a “last quarter recap” and “next quarter prep.”  As I noted earlier, this is progressive throughout the year.  (So, for instance, the first quarter you log your dietary intake and physical activity.  The second quarter, the log becomes more detailed, with types of fitness and dietary intake by food group.)

There’s even a community-type component.  Each quarter has an assessment available.  You print these from the website, but they become available only as they are needed.  (That is, as we approach the appropriate time of year.)  This helps keep you taking baby steps rather than trying to rush ahead, and encourages all planner users to be pulling for each other as a team.

There are a few additional pages in the Plan 2 Bee planner.  The front has spaces for your personal information, and for school phone numbers.  (It also has instructions that help walk you through how to get started.)  The end has places to plan ahead for the next year, for general contact information, and phone numbers for frequently-called people (the babysitter, mechanic, etc.).

I think the monthly pages are a little hard to find at a glance, so I would suggest adding tabs to those pages.  Also, the pages don’t seem to turn easily.  As this is a new product, hopefully that will be remedied with the next batch.  Apart from that, the only potential downside I see is one common to all wirebound planners – you can’t insert your own pages.  (That’s a trade-off, though, for the slim profile a wirebound planner offers.)

$19.95

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Disclosure:  I received a complimentary planner to facilitate this review.