One of the things I continue to use to keep myself organized is a planner. I have tried many planners including my phone but I continue to go to paper planners. There is something about physically writing things down that helps me remember them better then just adding an alert on my phone. I also feel like when I have a paper planner laying out on my desk, I'm more motivated to stick with my weekly goals. I always want to head to my planner and fill things in or check things off, so the more action I take on my goals, the more I can play around with my planner!

I came across The Happy Planner and it was instant planner peace. The Happy Planner is a disk bound planner system created by MAMBI (Me and My Big Ideas). Just looking at The Happy Planner you will see the fun covers and lots of colorful pages, happiness radiates from this planner. It is a planner that brings out your creative side and helps you plan all at the same time. The boxes for each day provide ample planning space and because this is a disc bound planning system, you can pull the pages out of the planner, writing on it and then pop it back in, no more awkwardly trying to write on those days that are next to the binding!

Like I said above the planner is a disk bound planner system. Before buying The Happy Planner, I didn't quite understand how these worked. I had never seen anything like this coil in my whole planner-filled life because it’s not technically a real coil. The Happy Planner is disk-bound with several disks. This means that instead of a coil looping through hole-punched paper, there are multiple individual disks that act as a track for the paper and cover. The cover and paper essentially snap on to the disks by having notches cut into them. This means you can easily remove certain pages or add in more whenever you want. This disk feature on The Happy Planner has became one of my favorite features.

The planner it self is divided into monthly sections have a landing page, monthly calendar, and weekly layouts. I didn’t expect the Happy Planner to have any type of goal setting for the months, so I was so excited when that was the first thing I saw opening it up. The setup is definitely different from most other monthly goal-setting pages, but I really like the structure and writing space it provides. Then, of course, there’s the monthly calendar. It’s just what you expect from a monthly calendar: To-do / notes column included on the left side with enough room for you to write. Then its the weekly layouts. There’s a column for notes, each day’s column is divided into three sections. The weekly layout has a lot of white space even though the color scheme is a prominent part of the planner. You have ample space to write the meetings, tasks, and reminders for each day.

I find that The Happy Planner brings out my inner scrapbooker, and I’m so excited for the weekend to roll around so I can make my next week all pretty and put new memories in it. But, you can be totally practical with this planner too. You can label each one of the boxes to match your needs and add inserts to help you keep track of things you want to keep track of. You don’t need to use a bunch of stickers, stamps, pictures, washi tape, and cutouts to make your planner work for you – but it’s definitely more fun!

There are a lot of different designs for The Happy Planner, and even niche planners. So make sure to look around and do some research before you buy your first Happy Planner. While they are highly customizable, in my opinion it’s just more fun to get some pre-made that fits what you want to plan for, and then further customize it to be the perfect planner for you.

The Happy Planner | First Impressions