How’s your planner/journal journey?
Have you found your best so far?
Well… I assume that some may stop/have stopped looking no further than the BestSelf Journal. With its innovative design and thoughtful features, this journal sets itself apart from the rest.
The BestSelf Journal is meticulously crafted and intuitively designed to help you focus on what truly matters.
Whether you want to enhance your productivity, adopt healthier habits, or simply cultivate a positive mindset, this journal has got you covered.
I have tried multiple types of journals/planners to improve my productivity through my 20+ years of experience working for multiple corporations in multiple roles including sales, software engineering, and project/product manager. I used to enjoy Bullet Journal in the past; however, due to the change of priority in my life, now I prefer printed formats with some flexibility to tailor to my style.
In this article, I cover an overview of Bestself Journal (paper version), my experience, and who may/may not fit this planner.
Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
- 1. What is a Bestself journal?
- 2. Feature Overview
- 3. Best for Who?
- 4. NOT for Who?
- 5. Summary
1. What is a Bestself journal?
Price:
Self Journal
Goodbye comfort zone, hello goal zone.
Sale price$35.00 USD (from the official website)
Journal and accessories:
- Box
- Self Journal
- 13-week Roadmap (wall calendar)
- Ritual card
- Guidebook
Material & Interface:
- Hardcover
- 5.75″ x 8.5”
- Approx 15 oz (410g)
- 6 color options
- 3 ribbons (wide, regular, thin)
- Elastic band
- 1 back pocket
- Sustainably sourced sugarcane paper (100 gsm)
- Ruler
- My perception below (note: subjective)
- The planner weighs about the same or slightly heavier than a standard paperback book.
- No chemical smell
- The paper color is white-cream and light blue (weekly review)
- extremely smooth
- Stays open
Spec:
- Undated 13 Weeks paper planner
- Non-printed Month label (Monthly / Weekly / Daily page)
- Non-printed Weekday label (Monthly / Weekly / Daily page)
- The structure of the pages is like below
- 13-Week Bucket List
- 13-Week Goals
- Habit Trackers
- 4 Monthly pages (Calendars)
- 13 Weekly pages (start after Monthly pages)
- 171 Daily pages (start after Weekly pages)
- 13-Week Reflection
- 9 Free pages
- Index
Great advice from the Founder of this Journal, Cathryn Lavery :
“worrying messy hand-writing… perfectionism… all are the form of procrastination” … she knows me / my brain.
If you have 3 minutes now, this is a pretty good video to watch.
You can also see how this Journal was born from their brand story
1.1 What I liked
- Ritual Card
If you are trying to make a habit of doing Rituals every day, what is your trick not to forget them?
Maybe… Morning Ritual is easy to do, but Evening Ritual is hard to remember is it not?
Having a separate card is a great solution not to forget them.
Keeping them inside of the Planner page only is not a good idea. Out of sight, out of mind…
This is 1 of my validated methods of not forgetting rituals.
I always put my life “rules” being presented with physical paper attached to the monitor screen to make them visible.
- 13-weel Roadmap (wall poster)
The 13-Week Roadmap is a visual wall calendar featuring 13 rows where each row representing 1 week.
I highly welcome any format that creates a sense of urgency and the passage of time. Each week, you can clearly see how many weeks have passed and how many remain.
Designed to be displayed on a wall, the roadmap allows for easy viewing and reference, compared to flipping around the planner.
- 3 Ribbons with different width
I regularly use multiple kinds of stickies, bookmakers, and ribbons for multiple purposes for a single planner. But the issue for me is that I keep forgetting which is for what as it is too many my own rules and ideas…
Anyway, 1 (yellow one) of 3 ribbons is wider, which is intuitive for me to use for the current Month. Within the remaining 2 (navy and white), the white one looks wider, so I use this for current Week, and the navy is for today.
Whenever I try to open and see the bottom of the planner, it is easier to differentiate which belongs to which page. I feel this way for the first time.
- The structure of the pages
The structure of the pages in this planner works best for me. Because all monthly pages are grouped, followed by all weekly pages, and then all daily pages follow. Therefore, I will never see unused pages till the end even if I take some days off of not using the planner.
Not sure for others, but seeing the past unused pages was 1 of the biggest and most common bottlenecks for me to stay motivated to use a paper planner. Because unused pages make me feel that I am not achieving anything; However, this Panda Planner Daily never gives me that situation and feeling.
2. Feature Overview
2-1. 13-Week Bucket List
This is a List of bucket list you want to accomplish next 13 weeks
2-2. BestSelf Benchmark (1st time)
This is the self-evaluation to baseline you as today.
You will do 1 more time at the end of the 13 weeks so that you can use this data for comparison in 13 weeks.
2-3. 13-Week Goal (3 goals)
You define…
- Goal (up to 3) by using the SMART method
- 3 milestones for the goal
- How to achieve that goal
- The detailed actions
2-3-1. What I Liked
I believe this is very effective for anyone.
Not just setting up the goals, but also I need to BREAK DOWN into pieces (milestones) and THINK of how to achieve (strategize) to hit the goal.
I like the planner makes me think and be creative.
2-4. Habit Tracker Pages
2-4-1. What was NOT effective for me
I enjoy the liner format to keep my tracker; however, I prefer to keep track of more information for daily habits such as
- Total number of days since starting the habit (regardless of whether you slacked off or not)
- Best record so far (longest consecutive days without skipping)
- Today’s record (example: Today is his 35th day following this habit)
- total number of Days it took me to revert the habit
This information gives me some motivation and hints on my behavior pattern.
2-5. Monthly Spread Pages
The Monthly page is a 2-page spread for each month, and the standard calendar layout starts Sunday.
- Month (not labeled)
- Weekday (not labeled)
- NOTES
2-5-1. What I Liked
I am happy with the non-Printed Weekday label, as I prefer to start my week on Monday, not Sunday. This planner is made pretty flexible enough to adjust to any type of user.
2-6. Weekly Pages (Planning and Reviews)
It includes:
- Weekly Planning
- TOP 3 WEEKLY OBJECTIVES (w. Estimation Time & Checkbox)
- MON, TUE, WED, THU, FRI, SAT&SUN
- Weekly Review
- SUMMARY (WIN THE DAY SCORE, PLAN TO REALITY SCORE)
- WEEKLY REFLECTION:
- 3 BIG WINS (What were your 3 big wins for the week?)
- HIGHLIGHT (What’s the best thing that happened to you this week?)
- LESSONS LEARNED (Review your goals and assess your progress. How will you improve next week?)
- WEEKS REMAININGS
2-6-1. What I Liked
- Plan and Review the week side-by-side
The Left page is Planning of the Week.
The Right page is the Review of the same week; therefore, performing the weekly review is a great user experience.
I can just compare Plan vs Outcome side by side.
With some planners, I need to flip multiple pages to confirm what I originally planned upon weekly review. That never occurs on Bestself Journal.
- Objective with time estimation and checkbox
As part of Weekly Planning, we put an estimation for each Objective. As I always challenge time estimation and productivity enhancement, I’m very much welcome to put these numbers.
The checkbox is 1 of my favorites on the paper planner. Marking the check on the checkbox with my favorite pen is such a rewarding feeling.
- Page color of the Weekly Preview (slightly blue-gray color)
The page colors are intuitive so you can quickly find the weekly pages.
Once you’ve completed your planner, you’ll find that these Weekly Review pages are central pages that we can review and return to over and over again. Because there are a lot of lessons learned and self-improvement ideas.
These pages will certainly help you as you reflect on the last 13 weeks.
Not only that, but you can open this planner in the future and instantly see what you learned and how you felt.
The color is visible from the outside, so you can easily flip it open.
- Summary table
I like to describe output by using the numbers. This will result in an objective way to rate my productivity.
I can use this table to analyze my self-improvement as an overview.
“WIN THE DAY SCORE” – I cover the details in the Daily Pages section below
“PLAN TO REALITY SCORE” – I cover the details in the Daily Pages section below
2-6-2. What was NOT effective for me
- No Free page upon Weekly Review
I do loads of analysis and brain dumps as part of Weekly Review. It would be nice if there were some blank pages associated with Weekly Review.
Although I understand that it would be a trade-off to keep weekly plans and weekly reviews side by side.
I love to make check marks for completed tasks at the end of the week. That is such a small reward, but gives me huge psychological satisfaction. I manually added a checkbox for several areas.
2-7. Daily Pages
It includes:
- DAY & DATE
- What I’m grateful for…?
- My Goal
- 3 Today’s Target w/Pomodoro timer checker
- Timetable from 6 am to 9 pm)
- What would make Today’s great?
2-7-1. What I Liked
- Enough space for each day, as 2 pages for 1 day
- The dotted full blank page of the right
I like dotted blank pages overruled, because I feel it is more flexible. I can create sentences as well as I can create the tables. I often use table format to do some quick analysis.
Additionally, the guidebook suggests using this page for any evening review.
So I use the partial page for reviewing the day such as what went well, what did not, how to improve, etc…
- Today’s target with Pomodoro Timer
Pomodoro Technique works for me, so this pre-printed circle is helpful to remind me to set the timer.
- Week progress bar
This is another visual indicator to inform the time passage. How many weeks have passed and remain.
- WIN THE DAY SCORE
This number is highly subjective, and I have been searching around my scoring system to rate my day. As of today, my scoring system is made out of productivity and diet.
- PLAN TO REALITY SCORE
This tells your time estimation skill. I like to challenge myself to get accurate scores in time estimation as well as make the same task in a shorter time. So this is something I need to track to asses my skill
2-7-2. What was NOT / may NOT be effective
- 1 Habit Tracker
I usually track multiple habits in the habit tracker pages, so I did not use this.
- Time table is set from 6 am to 9 pm
The time starts at 6 am which works for me today; however, people who are involved with international business work at 4 am sometimes 10 pm for the meeting. This slot may not work for those users.
2-8. 13-Week Reflection
You will review the outcome of the past 13 weeks in this section.
2-8-1. What I Liked
To me, this is a kind of gaming. Stepping back and seeing where I stand and calculating how much points I earned 🙂
Once you finish the planner, many of my records exist in the planner esp. time management score, productivity score, habit score etcetera… next planning will be very effective as I know my pattern.
2-9. Bestself Benchmark (2nd time)
You will re-do the Benchmark check again. This is another game goal you can check to see how many points you earned.
3. Best for Who?
This planner is for people who
- are willing to craft your goals and achieve them at the macro-level (13 weeks) as well as the micro-level (Pomodoro timer, 0 space of timetable).
- are willing to learn the basic discipline of what to do and how to use the planner as a Guidebook explains thoroughly
- are willing to increase focus skills as the Pomodoro Technique is suggested to use.
4. NOT for Who?
This planner is NOT for people who
- prefer to capture life with a bird-view such as Weekly planner users.
- expect to have an Annual plan & review as this planner is targeted for 13 weeks
- are looking for heavy habit trackers and expect more than a checkmark on the tracker. (like me…) The habit tracker is pretty standard format on this planner.
5. Summary
BestSelf Self Journal is intuitively designed, well-balanced with micro and macro approaches, and a powerful system yet still a very simple and compact size daily planner.
