What are the possible drawbacks of using Clever Fox Planner Daily Pro?
And would there be any solution to overcome those?
Here are 6 possible drawbacks you need to be aware of
before purchasing this planner.
Such that you do not give up on this planner halfway and waste your money.
Clever Fox produces various types of paper planners, record keeping books, and Journals. Among those, I will provide 6 possible drawbacks of the “Clever Fox Planner Daily Pro” , and how I solved those based on my experience.
Hope this information will be helpful for you upon selecting a new planner.
Clever Fox Planner Daily Pro
(8.5 x 11″ A4 Size Daily Life Planner and Gratitude Journal to Increase Productivity, Time Management and Hit Your Goals – Undated Planner – Lasts 3 Months)
(Disclaimer : All opinions are mine. This post contains Amazon affiliate links, but I am not receiving commission from Clever Fox)
Possible Drawbacks
Let me restate quickly
| 1 | Missing page number |
| 2 | Missing quarterly plan/review |
| 3 | Starting Sunday (monthly calendar, weekly habit trackers) |
| 4 | Possible to see blank unused pages due to the structure in case you skipped the day(s) |
| 5 | Big size (A4) |
| 6 | Too overwhelming for life goal setup |
Let’s dive in.
1. Missing page number
In this planner, there is no page number printed on each page.
The page number is very effective for me to organize the planner.
Such as indexing and page reference.
This may be a drawback for some users.
Maybe because I’m an ex-Bullet Journal user,
I am used to utilizing the page numbers.
Here’s an example of the issue scenario.
For instance,
On Daily Pages, I do a quick memo.
And if I feel like I need further brain dump for the topic.
Because I need a bigger space to write down,
I go jump to the blank pages provided at the end of the planner.
When conducting a weekly review,
I need to check last week’s “output”.
I quickly skim the past 7 day pages, and additionally,
I should check the pages at the end that extended from that 7 day period.
That’s where the problem arises.
I need to flip around the page multiple times
until I find where those extended pages are.
Without page numbers,
weekly review would be very cumbersome.
How I solved the issue
I manually added the page number for each page.
Ended up 222 pages.
With this manual solution,
anytime I want to have a connection b/w 2 separated pages,
I simply write down the reference page.
On the daily page,
I put something like…
“Ref : P.167 ->”
On the extended page,
I put ” Ref : P.28 ->”
Now I can easily jump from Page.28 to Page.167, vice versa.
Even though I added page numbers only to the even pages, it was a bit tedious work honestly. But, it is still worth having the page numbers to organize the planner for me.
2. Missing quarterly plan/review
This planner provides the great resources for Monthly / Weekly / Daily Plan & Review; however, Quarterly Planning & Review structure is missing.
Since some of my 1-year-goals are too big to achieve in 1 month,
I need to break-down those goals into Quarterly (3-months) goals,
which is an effective milestone for me to keep motivated.
Some may feel the same way.
How I solved the issue
Firstly, space perspective,
there are plenty of blank pages at the end.
We can utilize those pages to perform your quarterly plan and review.
So not much worry.
Secondly,
we need to think of how to perform Quarterly Planning”.
As we have 1-year goal page at the beginning of the planner,
we should be able to pick 1 of them for our quarterly goal.
If you think the goal is too big to achieve within 3 months,
then break-down into smaller goals.
Lastly,
Quarterly Review.
We can utilize the same prompts of Monthly Review.
So the review will be like this ;
- This quarter big wins
- What were the biggest lessons learned / insight gained?
- Which life areas were lacking and why?
- What tasks were not accomplished, and why?
- How do I feel about my progress this quarter?
- How will I improve next quarter?
3. Week starting Sunday (monthly calendar, weekly habit trackers)
In this planner,
There will be 2 areas you will see “Sunday” is the starting date of the week.
1- Monthly Calendar
2- Habit Tracker in weekly review
I personally prefer Monday as the first day of the week.
Because, I want to do a weekly review on Sunday.
If the week started on Sunday, then I would need to do weekly review on Saturday, which I don’t want 🙂
Starting a new week with Sunday does not fit my lifestyle.
How I solved the issue
I just overwrite them – sometimes I use stickers, sometimes manually write them down. This is a small effort for me.
4. Possible to see blank unused pages
Due to the structure of this planner,
if you skip the days because of sickness or low motivation,
you will see unused pages upon conducting a weekly review.
Note: The structure of this planner is the following:
Weekly Plan page → 7 Daily Pages → Weekly Review Page
Seeing the unused blank page(s) is de-motivating to me.
I feel like it is proof of laziness or a non-productive day.
I’m sure some may have the same problem as me.
How I solved the issue
I simply treat those unused pages as additional pages for other days.
Sometimes I just write down “sick” or “low key day” with a brief memo.
That is still useful information for me to know my physical or behavior pattern.
Also, I’m trying not to be perfectionist and just accepting my low-key days.
5. A4 size is too big
This planner is A4 Size (8.5 x 11″),
which is the perfect size to keep it open on my desk;
however, it is a bit annoying if I need to travel due to the size & weight
I’m sure many of the frequent biz travelers or sales people would feel the same.
How I solved the issue
I have few rules about my planners/journals/notes.
- I keep this Clever Fox Planner Daily Pro open on the desk all day.
- I have separate notes to carry-around with me. (e.g. a pocket sized note for any quick memo when I’m not at my desk)
- Today’s appointments and schedules are managed on the Digital Calendar
6. Too overwhelming for life goal setup
This planner is called a “Daily Pro”;
however,
it is not just a simple daily planner,
but also it helps you to build your long term life goal.
This may be too much for some people, as it requires big commitment.
If you feel like you want a long term dream,
then yes definitely this planner will give you a great starting point.
I definitely recommend this planner.
If it is too much for you to make a huge commitment now,
then you can simply skip 20 years of life plan page (only 2 pages), and just start with a 1 year goal page.
How I solved the issue
I didn’t. Because I don’t need to.
I am comfortable setting my life goals these days, and keep updating along the way.
I wish I could tell who I was 20 years ago about the importance of goal setting and living life with purpose so that your “limited” time can be used more efficiently.
Summary
Do you see any possible drawbacks for you?
Overall, this planner is well crafted internally and externally.
If you are ready to commit your goal, you can start today.
You can also refer these articles to understand better about this planner.
More Planners and Journals Resources
You can also refer other planners/Journals review to see if any of them fits to your life.
