Sharing tools + tips to help you in your self-care journey.
Hey, I’m Lauren! In addition to planner/journal reviews, on this channel, I talk about what I’ve learned & incorporated into my days to help me manage the day-to-day stresses of married life with 4 school aged kids.
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I love watching your videos - a kindred spirit. You have so many ideas and I totally get you - sometimes I felt like listening to you was like listening to myself! Rings are visually so minimal and organized but using them is so awkward - it just doesn’t make sense why to me so I still keep my A5 rings but repurposed them for address/password/and import notes/medical “reference book” on my bookshelf. It’s funny how all the beautiful things coming out grabbed my attention even though I know well enough that rings isn’t my planner spirit animal.
That’s the sweetest comment ever, Kat! Thank you so much for sharing how you feel! It’s definitely so easy to get swept up in the beauty and novelty each launch, but I think the more and more I try, the more I learn about what I like and what I don’t and that’s been making it easier to look away. I don’t regret any of my experiments, even the ones like these A5 rings where I kinda knew going in that it would likely not work for me. 😊
I think what I meant to say was that I was concerned that the thickness of the new stencil would be much less than the original one. EC used to sell a clear stencil and that one, according to people who bought it, said it was thin and would break easy wi5h us. I’m glad they didn’t repeat that mistake with this new stencil ruler snap-in combo. ☺️
I hate that they took the mini calendar 📅 out of the 7x9 Daily Duo. I really like the Daily Duo and the hourly in addition to the vertical and my personal favorite the horizontal!
@@CreatingSelfCarePlans yes I’ve noticed that too. I’m glad she included this helpful tool with her launch this year so we can get a taste of other layouts. I have more choices I like and that makes me so happy 😁!
Dang, I knew that would happen. I don’t know why they created them like a notepad! Mine is still intact but I haven’t been using it like I would my actual planners. I’ve been testing the layout and then putting it away until the next week.
@@CreatingSelfCarePlans I’ve been planning in it with the layouts I haven’t tried: the compact vertical👎🏽 the Daily Duo 👍🏽 and the hourly which is my favorite so far👍🏽❤️. I don’t count the horizontal and the vertical ones because I have those already and are used to them. But it’s okay that it fell apart. It has been used and loved 🥰
Thanks so much for stopping by my channel 💛 Subscribed! I had a similar planner switching/consolidating thoughts and will be changing things up at the half year mark for sure.
Is there a nice variety of sleep sounds to choose from without the subscription? I can't believe they have this thing on a subscription model. It's on sale for $170 right now though so I am considering it
I have access to 26 sleep sounds and I don’t have the subscription. But I don’t think having a subscription unlocks more sleep sounds anyway. These are the sounds that can play all night long or for however duration you set. If you are only looking for a sound machine, I would look elsewhere. The Restore 2 is too pricey to be used only in that way.
Great idea with incorporating the snap in! I don’t usually planner hop but considering it seriously because of all these awesome changes to the daily duo. By chance would you have a spare 20% code?
Very helpful video. Thank you for posting. I received my planner a week ago and still haven't had the courage to write anything in it. Going to watch makse's free youtube video, "2024 goal setting mastermind" first
FYI- iPhone definitely can wake you up gradually when you use Sleep Focus. You set it up & the alarm starts super quiet then slowly starts getting louder. Its actually a really great feature.
Yes, that’s what I was using before getting my new alarm clock. My purchase was to replace an existing bedroom clock that I used for time (some of the display lights went out) and I figured I would give this one a try to see if having the sunset feature would help me wake up better. I’ve never been great about mornings. I kept it because I enjoy the features beyond the morning alarm. I especially find the sleep sounds overnight helpful. But I do agree that the Sleep Focus on iPhone is a fantastic feature. I still have mine set up so I don’t have any disturbances overnight. Thanks for watching!
I ordered the A5 Daily with the Wisteria cover. Its the one with the opening rings. Ive not received it yet. But i did order the inside to be that design.
Everyone got the cute boxes for their order and mine was just the plain brown packing box with no tissue paper. Sigh. At least the stuff inside was beautiful!
I’m sorry to hear that. Personally, I’ve received brown boxes when my order is too big for their standard cute ones. I’m glad everything inside was beautiful, though! Which planner did you get?
@@CreatingSelfCarePlans I'm a calendar year planner, so I haven't gotten my daily planner yet, but I decided to get an Evolve Horizontal in the academic year at launch to use as a journal since my twins will be seniors in high school next year and I want to document all the little moments that I usually take for granted.
The default sunrise effect will do that. It will gradually increase in brightness the closer to the time the alarm will go off. You get to pick the max brightness. If you set up a wind down, that sunset brightness will start at the max brightness you set and then decrease gradually from there for the duration time you set. I have my sunrise set to 49% brightness and that seems plenty for beside my bed.
I know the TN system works well for many. I haven’t tried it as a way to keep everything in one place, though. I think if I really wanted to keep everything in one, I would lean more towards a disc bound system because it’s similar to coils but with the flexibility of having sections for different things. My only issue is I don’t like having to remove old inserts to make way for new ones so often, which is required in this case because I can’t keep a whole year of inserts in each section. Maybe one day it won’t bother me.
I’ve used it both ways. If my entire system is A5 travelers notebooks, then I can use it. But I still prefer my daily to be in a coil. A TN that is all A5’s is a bit heavy. I also prefer my daily to have a section with times and a to do list.
I keep wanting to lower my stack too. I had seven or so planners but then I got rid of four and picked up one more so I’m down to four total… I’m hoping that the four-planner system will work for me easier than seven 😂
I think the work life balance planner could replace the daily duo for me, I use the daily duo as two lists and just ignore the times that are printed on it. I would like it better if they took the "work" and "life" headers off of the pages and the "gratitude" header off the bottom box. I can see using this instead for my two major work roles and having the bottom section be for lessons learned or metrics tracking or something like that. Also I would love to see the meeting notes be its own notepad instead of a section in this planner. A few years ago I bought an A5 tracker and haven't seen it since but man did I use those tracker pages for EVERYTHING!
One of my pet peeves about EC is that they will create a notepad and only make it in one style. If I like the layout, but the colors or design aren’t my jam, that bothers me. It would be nice if they gave us the option to pick. Also, how, like you said, they create a product, then don’t keep making it. Have you tried looking at resell sites like Mercari to get that A5 tracker you loved? Thanks for watching!
I bought the punched inserts for an A5 agenda cover I already had, and I gave up on them after about a week. My issue is I love the idea of ring planners, namely being able to move things around and build my own system, but I hate actually using a ring planner. It takes up too much desk real estate and the rings get in the way of my writing. I keep trying to like rings, I just don't like rings. I switched to the daily duo (work) and compact vertical (home) in A5 coiled format and I love them.
Yeah, that was the conclusion I came to with rings. I’m tempted to try their compact vertical again, but in the new 7x9 size. But I’m not sure. Now that their daily duo has a built in weekly overview, that could be enough for me.
The "meeting" pages could be used for a weekly review for 12/15, with a monthly review for 3/15.....Excellent review! Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
I was getting really excited about the new launch, and spent quite a bit of time planning what to buy. I love the idea of a daily duo and got excited about them removing the thumbnail month from every page. But if I'm honest I really don't need the timed part, I just need a task list for each day. And I don't need a whole page for tasks for each day. And I don't want to lug two thick planners around. I also don't like flipping between separate weekly and daily spreads. Which means the compact vertical is really the right planner for me. But hold on.... the compact vertical is just a lined page divided into quarters with dates. If I already plan to use date stickers, I can literally take a notes page and turn it into the same thing for a fraction of the cost with a ruler and marker. Then I just need the monthly layouts, because I don't want to draw those myself. Conclusion: I'm going to buy a monthly planner (on sale), divide the notes pages into quadrants, and add date stickers. Done. I do wish they offered the monthly in A5 though, that's my preferred size.
When I got my launch day order, it came with a sneak peak card for back to school and it had a meeting notebook that looked very much like the meeting layout in this planner. It’s going to be 7x9. 🙂
I just got this in a recent sale and think it’s great! I agree it’s a better layout than the daily duo! I wish they had options for the daily duo. I use outlook for hourly work appts. And the hourly sections takes up so much room in the duo!
Haven't watched yet but I'm so excited for your thoughts on this! I intitially ignored it because it was A5, but now I'm throwing one into my ECLP order.
The planner is definitely a hidden gem. I like how it's a simplified week view and then detailed days... and that its quarterly! I think every planner needs a habit tracker. That's why most don't make the cut for me, hahaha. This is on the list! Was it limited time or does it look like it'll be around for a bit? Also is it regular EC paper? Some journals have a different blend.
It is very interesting! I wonder if they are considering adding a second daily coiled option that will look like this because I think it would be awesome!
I ordered the work life journal when they announced the 20% insider sale last week (I had a 20% coupon from my lifeplanner, too, so it was even less expensive!) because this is exactly what I want in a daily planner. The daily duo is close, but not quite there. Mine is supposed to come tomorrow and I am 100% going to start using it right away!
I did the exact same! Stacked a 20% LP coupon I had with the latest 48 hr 20% off sale! I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw it and was excited about it! I’ve used the daily duo before but I don’t need all the schedule space. I like this layout much better!
@ccdalady Exactly, no dashboard like in the Daily Duo. I can never figure out how to use the dashboard pages so not having one makes this simpler for me. Glad you think this will work well for your planning needs! 😊
Great review! I got the Hatch to see what it was about because it was quite pricey & I do not regret it. I look forward to doing my unwind routine and listening to the sleep stories or mini podcast things it comes with. I love the sunrise and sunset feature & I def think it is trial and error because the light is BRIGHT. So I tested it for a few days with different settings. I do think it is something that gets me excited to sleep and wake up to bird chirping lmao. Love the video !
The light is definitely bright, especially right next to the bed! But I think that it works well. I want to pay for one month to get more into the app options since I didn’t really play much in it before my trial ended. But I love that I have that option whenever I’m ready! Thanks for watching!
