Hello lovelies! If you've been a regular reader of my blog for a while now, you will know how much I adore anything notebook and planner-related, whether that's list pads, weekly planner sheets, or more diary/agenda style planners. I write so many to do lists; ones for my daily schedule, ones for my weekly goals and much more. I was certainly in need of a more organised way of keeping track of my daily objectives that didn't leave me with a mass of random papers or 10+ new phone notes by the end of the week. I had actually been researching different types of planners, to find one that suited me when I received an email from Mål Paper very kindly offering to send me one of their Daily Goal Setter Planners*. I was delighted because this was such perfect timing, and I couldn't wait to see what this planner was like. I've had my Mål Paper planner for a couple of weeks now so it's time to tell you all what I think! I hope you all enjoy reading :)
I wanted to start off by telling you all more about Mal Paper & their debut product. Firstly, I absolutely love the name of this company! Mål is the Swedish world for goals, and as my friends will know I really love languages, especially from the Nordic countries, so I can't say that this didn't make me instantly more interested in the planner, haha! Mal Paper's mission is to create stationery products that help people complete their goals, by promoting the habit of positive thinking and focusing on your most important tasks, without getting too overwhelmed when it comes to achieving the milestones that allow you to work towards your long-term, mid-term and short-term goals. They are inspired by the Scandinavian 'clean and clutter-free way of living', and this definitely comes across in the daily goal setter planner.
'At Mal Paper, our aim is to help with your daily productivity, positivity and motivation. We create the tools you need to get your dreams down on paper and make your goals a reality'.
The daily goal setter planner is available in three varieties, all with a hardback cover: pink, grey or black. Which one would you choose? I opted for black because it's one of my favourite colours, plus I feel like everything just looks more professional in black, don't you think? The planner is undated and has six months worth of planning space over 244 pages. The paper inside is ivory in colour, which I prefer so much more to white paper; again, I personally feel like this just makes the planner look a lot more high-quality and professional. Throughout the planner, you will find sections for monthly, weekly and daily planning, as well as advice on how to become a more efficient planner and how to have more success when setting goals and completing them.
Oh, and there is also a document folder/pocket at the back of the planner to keep any loose notes in. I think this will be super handy for storing any important receipts, letters, tickets, etc. So, let's take a look inside the planner...
I really like how this planner includes a contents page because right away, you just know that it is going to be very organised and structured, which is a reflection of how I want my schedule to be! As you can see from the list of sections found within, the first seventeen pages are going to be dedicated to advice on how to use the planner more effectively. The daily goal setter planner is very detailed but in an easy to use way. The advice pages are very useful in explaining ways to help yourself get started when it comes to setting realistic and achievement goals, and providing tips on how you can start having a more positive outlook on completing your day-to-day tasks. After these pages, you will find the goal setter pages, featuring sections for recording your long-term goals, medium-term goals, and short-term goals. Then on to the monthly, weekly and daily pages, which make up the rest of the planner, other than a notes section at the back. I'm a big fan of how well set out and orderly this planner is!
The advice sections start with the cheat sheet, and begin by explaining how you can make the most of your day, in terms of achieving more and working through your to-do-lists by following a morning and evening routine when using the daily goal setter planner. Each of the daily pages start with a section to list three things that you are grateful for and one to make a positive affirmation for the day, that you are encouraged to say aloud to yourself several times to help start of your morning on a brighter note that will hopefully carry through the rest of the day.
Next, you write down the tasks that you want to accomplish that day, and grade them using the ABCDE method (attributed to Eat That Frog!, a book by Brian Tracy). This method involves marking the tasks you need to get done using a specific letter that indicates how important it is or whether it can wait until another day. You are advised to complete all of your A tasks, before moving on to the next letter as it is shown that you are more likely to accomplish more if you get the more important tasks completed first. It goes on to mention that if you complete some of your less important tasks first, it can often leave you feeling overwhelmed and pressured because your most important tasks are still not done yet, and personally I can totally recognise this problem in myself. It might seem easier at the time to complete the smaller tasks first but then I often run out of energy, made worse by the fact that I also struggle with chronic illnesses, and then I beat myself up about not having done the tasks that I wanted to complete the most!
The evening routine involves checking off the tasks you have managed to get done, and reflecting on any that you haven't, thinking about why that may be and ways that you can have a better chance of doing it the next time you try. However, the most important thing that Mal Paper emphasises is that you reflect on the positive moments... 'Making a daily habit of reflecting on the great things that happened will build confidence in yourself to make things happen'. There is a section at the bottom of each daily page for you to record the greatest things that happened, as well as an option to rate your day.
I know that I've just been explaining the daily routines to you all, but I want to show you the planner sections in order, so above is an example of what the goal setter pages look like. As I mentioned before, there are pages for long (years), medium (six months to a year) and short-term (within a month) goals, each section being spread across two pages with space to set 14 goals in each. Mal Paper advises you to include the four W's when recording your goals: what, when, why & who, as well as how, because this allows you to work out exactly what is required to ensure your goals are accomplished!
The cheat sheet for the goal setter part of the planner tells you to use something called the S.M.A.R.T method when setting your goals, which I think is another super useful tool. It can be challenging to set goals without worrying that you will not be able to complete them, but the format and suggestions in the daily goal setter planner make it a lot less daunting, as goals seem much more achievable. I have so far listed one goal into each of the sections: learning to drive in my long-term goals, writing my novel in my medium-term goals and in my short-term goals, to organise my bedroom/belongings in order to prepare to start decorating. I really like how the goal section is set out, as it helps me to break down my goals into achievable and for lack of a better word, more bite-size tasks. This makes them seem less overwhelming. I am feeling more confident that they are realistic goals that I can actually achieve thanks to this planner :)
The latter parts of the planner are the monthly, weekly and daily reviews. The above photo shows the monthly review, which is set out very similar to the Filofax planner I own, with a calendar grid and an area for general notes. I am very glad the planner includes one of these as I like having a calendar to record appointments and important dates, such as pay days and when bills are due. The squares are a decent size for recording things so that's great. However, I would have liked the grey square for filling in the numbers to have been a little larger as it was a squeeze for me to keep my writing within the box. I also wish that the word 'day' along the top of the calendar wouldn't have been printed in the middle of the box because I have to write over the top of it to fill in the days of the week and that it looks a little messy as a result. I feel like they should have been kept blank, but that's all down to personal opinion and doesn't effect my use of the planner.
The parts that are unique to the Mal Paper planner are the 'most important tasks of the month' and 'review/rate your month' sections under the calendar. These sections are brilliant as they help you to focus on prioritising certain tasks on your to-do-list, and I think it will be nice to be able to look back on the month with positivity. Even if you didn't manage to complete everything you wanted to, your top five most important tasks will likely have been accomplished using the guidance given within the planner.
I really like that the daily goal setter planner is undated, because you can start using it whenever you want, and if you happen to be having a very stressful time where you don't feel like using your planner because you don't need anymore added pressure, you can put it away and go back to it when you're ready.
As you can see, the weekly review is broken down into the 'five most important tasks of the week', 'tasks of secondary importance' and 'additional tasks'. I very much like this method of breaking down your to-do-lists and spreading them out into categories based on their importance, because it makes them more manageable. Once you have filled in the weekly review, it will be easier to allocate each task to various days throughout the week and write them onto your daily review pages, maybe adding one of your top five important task to each day so that they are more achievable.
Mal Paper encourages you to refer back to your goals when setting your weekly tasks, so that you can include things that are stepping stones to help you to eventually complete your goals, which I think its a great habit to incorporate into your routine that will really help you to achieve your goals. I am definitely someone who needs all the help I can get with this, as I feel a lot of pressure to complete goals once I set them but don't really know where to start when it comes to making them actually happen, if they are not small, short-term goals. I'm hoping that the daily goal setter planner will give me the motivation and push I need!
I absolutely love the partition pages spread throughout the daily review section of the planner. It definitely needed them to break up six months worth of pages! I am a big fan of the simplistic black page with white lettering, and who doesn't love a motivational quote!? It provides that little something to remind you to keep working to achieve your goals as you proceed through the planner :) There's a title page at the start of the daily review section that I think is fantastic because it reminds me of the dividers I had in my Pukka notebooks and ring binders at school. I just like when things are organised into clear-cut sections, and to be honest, I think it would have been great if each of the sections had one of these title pages.
I can now finally show you the sections of the daily review pages that I mentioned when discussing the morning and evening routines earlier in my post. Each page begins with an area to list 'three things to be grateful for'. I do really like this feature as it reminds me of gratitude planners, however I feel like I would want to fill in this section at the end of the day when reflecting on the little things in life that make me happy during each new day VS in the morning, but I understand the idea is to start off your day thinking more positively so I've been giving it a go nonetheless :)
Afterwards, you jot down a daily affirmation, which is a lovely concept :) I wrote on my page for August 1st 'today, I am going to kick anxiety's ass!' and repeating that multiple times to myself, as Mal Paper advises, did make me feel more content and less worried about all of the things I had to get done that day.
You can then move onto 'today's tasks/notes', which is where you record your to-do-list. I like that there are circles to tick/check off your tasks as you complete them. I am used to having to draw my own tiny boxes on whatever list pad or notepaper I am normally using, haha! There's a column for grading each of your tasks using the ABCDE method notes in the cheat sheets, and there are three shaded lines for you to write the top three most important tasks of that particular day. Another thing that I really like about the daily section of this planner is the amount of space that you are given; there are enough lines for 18 tasks, which is more than enough for one day in my opinion!
Here is a look at the other part of the daily pages, the area relating to the suggested evening routine, where you can reflect on the best parts of your day and also give it a rating from 1-10. I think the 'great things that happened today' section is an excellent idea! I feel like this kind of makes the planner double as a diary in a way, giving you the ability to look back and remember lovely things that occurred on a given day :)
So other than the couple of notes pages and the document pocket at the back, that's everything that you will find inside the daily goal setter planner. As a whole, the layout is very organised and well-structured, and that is something that I really love about it. I usually opt for planners that allow for more creative freedom when it comes to structure, but I do struggle with organising my tasks so I want to try something different. As I am someone that feels more content with familiar routines, I am very curious to see if this more ordered way of planning will be the right one for me! What do you think of the methods and structure in this planner? Does it sound like something that would be helpful for you?
I wanted to finish up my review by sharing some photos of how I have filled in my new planner. Although I am someone who finds simplicity aesthetically-pleasing so I love the way this planner looks, I am also someone who needs to add a little more character and colour into my planners to make it more inviting and to motivate myself to keep at it! So here's how I incorporated some of my personality into the pages...
For the monthly review, I decided to create a key to make it easier to organise my calendar. I have colour-coded my pay days, my blogging schedule and one of my other hobbies, toy photography. I have symbols for recording when I receive mail or when I spend money (to help me keep track of my expenditure). I like to keep a note of special events/holidays that are happening each month so I have written those in. Lastly, I have added stickers throughout because I need to bring cuteness into every part of life apparently :D
Overall, I am lovin' the daily goal setter planner and I'm looking forward to seeing how it helps me accomplish my to-do-lists and achieve my goals. I forgot to mention some features that I really like about the planner so I'll note them here. The cover is made of faux leather and has a somewhat padded feel to it, and this makes it more durable and easier to wipe clean if anything accidently spills onto it and such, which I think is fabulous. The simple gold lettering on the cover is so pretty! Also, the planner comes with two ribbon page-markers so you can easily find your monthly review and whichever daily review page you are currently writing on, so those are very handy. Oh, and at the bottom of the goal setter pages, there are some motivational quotes, and I think this is a wonderful detail to include :) I think £20.95 for this planner is a great price. It may look simple, but it is actually much more intricate and detailed inside and all of the advice sections will be very helpful to lots of people. Finally, I just want to say thankyou to Mal Paper for sending me one of their gorgeous planners ♥ And I hope you all enjoyed my review!
Thankyou for reading!
♥
What do you think of the Daily Goal Setter Planner?
Do you have a favourite feature?
(*) All posts/content marked with an asterisk signify that the item(s) featured have been gifted or sent to me for the purpose of review. I have kindly been sent the product featured in this post in exchange for a review. See my full disclaimer here.
