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The Happy Planner is the ultimate customizable planner! With so many add-ons and accessories, it is a planner you can truly make your own!
This is part of a series of planner reviews. Each one describes a specific style of planner and its features that will make it helpful in different situations. My goal is to help you find the planner (or planners) that would best help you during this time in your life. You can find an index of all the different planner reviews here.
I really like planners. And there are so many of them, for every style, and personality, and life that you can think of. And I’ve really been wanting to do a series on all the different planners I can find and see which ones work best for which situation. My hope is that this will help you figure out which one is right for you, at this particular time in your life.
So to start it off, lets talk about….
The Happy Planner
It’s not really a secret that Happy Planner has pretty much been my planner of choice for a couple years now. Not just that, but I tend to have multiples. I think I’ve had 6-7 at one time that I was trying to use. And honestly, that’s too much for me. I really applaud anyone that is able to keep up with that many (I know you are out there!! Share all your secrets with the rest of us!).
But it is so easy to just keep adding to the collection because they 1) Come out with new designs about every 6 months (and usually 10+ designs), and 2) They are all just so pretty its hard to choose just one! So we keep coming up with new ways to use them so we can justify buying them all.
And I don’t recommend having that many for most people (although I know some of you can totally pull it off!), but if you are looking to combine aspects of many different planners into one, Happy Planner has you covered. Because of the disc-bound system they use, pages can easily be moved, added, and taken out to fit your needs.
But we’ll get more into that in a minute, first I want to start out with the basics.
The Company:
From how it seems, this is a tight-knit group of people. They seem more like family (and many of them are family), than coworkers.
The face of the company is co-founder, Stephanie Fleming (her mom is the other founder). Her husband is the CEO, and I believe at least one sister (Lauren) and a brother also have major roles in the company.
Stephanie’s love for her family, coworkers, and customers comes through in everything she does, with a touch of being human along the way. I’ve never seen a comment from someone who has met her (and she goes face to face at events all. the. time.!) and didn’t express how kind she was in person.
Features:
- Price: Range from about $20-35
- Three sizes to choose from: Big (8.5 x 11 inches), Classic (7 x 9.25 inches), and Mini (about 4.6 x 7 inches).
- They are dated monthly/weekly planners, although there are a few versions that are undated too. Available in both 12 month and 18 month depending on the time of year and the size (Minis are only available in 12 month).
- Covers- hard laminated, often foiled, and interchangeable. The designs are beautiful and there are at least 10 choices at any given time. Plus because they are interchangeable, if you find another you like better, just swap it out.
- Monthly dividers are beautifully designed with quotes and patterns. Each planner has a theme that make the dividers and calendar pages go well together. Tabs are laminated and durable. The back of the divider is the first half of the monthly calendar.
- There is 2 year at a glance calendar in each planner, except possibly the undated versions.
- Before each month there is a bonus planning page. This page varies based on the planner but will usually include space for important dates and holidays, goals, and things that are currently going on in your life.
- Monthly calendar week starts on Sunday. There is room on the side for notes or lists.
- There are planners with both horizontal and vertical (3 boxes) weekly planners available. They also offer expansion packs which give you (undated) options like hourly.
What I’m Loving:
Although the basic planner is quite simple in layout and features, the add-ons for there planners are awesome and unlike anything that I’ve seen another company offer. There are MANY sticker books that are designed and sized just for the Happy Planners (although classic sized stickers will often fit into Erin Condren vertical planners too, since their boxes are also 1.5 inches wide. But keep in mind that ECLP boxes are a little shorter than Happy Planner).
Other add-ons include daily pages, project planners, various styles of note paper & to do lists, recipe pages, and a budget planner. Plus the expansion packs mentioned above that include an hourly version.
Happy Planner also makes planners specifically for teachers, students, and kids.
The Downside:
I love the options for customizing options available because of the discs that hold all the pages together. But those same discs often make the planners bulky and awkward, especially if you want to carry it around with you. They have both plastic and aluminum discs, and I’ve had plastic discs break just because I dropped my backpack at the wrong angle with my planner inside. The metal ones are definitely sturdier, but with that comes a little extra weight, and they hit surfaces harsher than the plastic (think about setting it down on a table). That might just be a personal issue- I haven’t heard anyone else complain about the metal discs. They sure are beautiful though!
Who is it good for?
- Creatives- The Happy Planner Community is amazing! If you are into expressing your creativity in your planner, this is definitely one to look into. (Check out Instagram for inspiration. Just search for #happyplanner and there will be more ideas than you know what to do with!)
- On the go- If you need something small to carry with you, I recommend a Mini Happy Planner with a deluxe cover. The bigger sizes don’t transport very well, so if that’s what you are looking for, stick to the mini.
- Need multiple planners in one book, or customizable on a frequent basis- You can not only use any of their add-ons to create your perfect planner, you can also purchase different styles of planners and merge them into one book. I have one that has some of the horizontal pages that I use as a journal, some mini pages where I record my favorite quote of the day, and vertical pages that I use as a faith planner.
There is a huge planner community around these planners! You can find so much inspiration and ideas for how to use them on Instagram and Pinterest. For a collection of ideas, check out my Pinterest board dedicated just to Happy Planners.
I hope this helped you find out more about the Happy Planner and decide if it would be right for you!
