I was hoping to have some prototypes for potential new planners for you by now, but for various reasons I haven’t made that happen yet. Before I leap in and start re-formatting things, I thought it might be wise to ask for feedback from those of you who’ve already been using the planner for a year or two, about what you think are its pros and cons. I’ll share my thoughts below, and if you feel like joining me in the comments, that would be really helpful!
At the moment, the planner is A4, landscape format, and spiral bound along the short left-hand edge. This means that you can see a week on each A4 page, and you can fold the spiral binding back on itself to leave the book open at the current week.
If I switch to having the planner printed on demand by Amazon it won’t be spiral bound, as they don’t offer that as an option. It also won’t be landscape, as they don’t offer that as an option either. (Why?!)
I could keep it A4, but then the binding would be on the long edge (effectively in the middle)… or I could change it to A5, and have the week as a double page spread. That would make the book smaller, but thicker, as it would have twice the existing number of pages. But whichever I chose, you wouldn’t be able to leave the book open at the current week without squashing the spine, so you’d either need some kind of bookmark, or you’d just have to flick through it to find your place.
Would that be too annoying? I feel as though a paperback binding might not stand up to the rigours of being opened out flat every single day. I also feel as though keeping the book closed, rather than being able to leave it lying around conveniently showing what’s happening this week, might mean that it simply didn’t get used.
So… how do you use your planner?
If you like it exactly as it is, I can leave the current system running, and just place batch orders before the autumn term and again in time for Christmas.
But if there’s anything you’d like to change – whether that’s something about the design, the format, or the convenience of being able to order one at any time of the year, I’d be extremely grateful if you could let me know!