Tag: Organization

hero's planner

Will the Hero’s Planner work for someone with ADHD?

Posted on by Jenna

The newest product from the Hero’s Journal, the Hero’s Planner, is available in perfect or spiral bound for $79.99. While it may seem a bit on the pricey side, I assure you that the value it provides will outweigh the higher price point. 

hero's planner box

So, what exactly does the Hero’s Planner offer? Designed with the needs of individuals with ADHD in mind, it provides a comprehensive system to help you manage your time, tasks, and goals effectively. And you also get:

  • Stick on pen loop
  • Four (4) sticker sheets – 3 functional, 1 decorative
  • Elastic band closure
  • Folder in back
  • Ribbon bookmark

I do wish it came with two ribbon bookmarks. I like being able to mark the current month and week. It’s a minor thing in the long run, as I can also use clips or magnetic page markers. I like the included sticker sheets. They are bright and fun and would make me want to keep looking at my planner. 

If you’ve been around a while, you may remember the Hero’s Journal, which is a daily goals-focused version. It comes in different versions: space, magic, and fantasy/dragon. The Hero’s Planner is the weekly version with a dinosaur theme! Also, the pages are white, unlike the cream/yellow in the Hero’s Journal. 

Personally, I hate the cream/yellow and am super excited to see the white pages in the weekly planner!

As with many planners like this, there’s an intro section with instructions, and you get the story’s start, which will be carried through the planner. 

hero's planner

Now, we move into the planning parts and start with a year at a glance. On the left-hand side, you have seven boxes, and on the right, six, for a total of 13. You can set up each box as a month in the year and put in birthdays, appointments, or other future dates. You can also use them to set goals or track habits. With the page being mostly blank, you have a lot of freedom in setting up and using these boxes.

We have a pre-monthly checklist followed by our monthly calendar. I absolutely LOVE that the calendar has six rows, so you will never have to double updates until the end of the month. You get a few lines along the bottom and a dot grid side column. 

hero's planner

Moving into the weekly spreads, you get two pages per week. You get four weekly spreads. The left-hand side is a horizontal weekly spread with Monday through Sunday. There is room for a headline each day and five lines underneath. At the top is a habit’s icon key. You get five icons and a line. You can assign a habit to each icon, and then, on each day of the week, you can color in the icon as you complete the habit. 

The bottom has a fun drawing you can color in on the right-hand side, while the top is split into two columns. The first column has space to write in your main quest for the week and your to-dos and sidequests. You also get a quote. The other side has a dot grids notes section for whatever your heart desires!

Each month, the weekly spreads change just enough to keep it interesting and help you keep using it—after all, what will next month look like?!

After three months, you will have your quarterly check-in, and at the end of the year, you have a yearly inventory. I really like this idea and would probably bookmark this page to refer to throughout the year. You can track your books, music/podcasts, movies/shows, milestones, and quotes. You also get three puzzles and many blank pages (26).

I believe the Hero’s Planner would make a great weekly planner for someone with ADHD. It offers a fun story to follow, a way to gamify your habits, and changes throughout to keep you interested. There are minor things I would change, like adding a second ribbon bookmark, but those things wouldn’t stop me from buying or using this.

Tell me: Would you use the Hero’s Planner? What would you use the year at a glance page for?

Watch video version of review:

Erin Condren New Daily Duo: Worth it?!

Posted on by Jenna

It’s planner launch season! Of course, I ordered from the recent Erin Condren Life Planner launch. In this post, I will share what I ordered and my thoughts and compare the current Daily Duo with the newest version!

I am an Erin Condren affiliate and will earn a commission if you purchase from the link in this post. I ordered and paid for everything in this post myself; Erin Condren did not send any of these items to me.

Up first, the accessories! 

I always order the sticky notes, sticker books, and washi in all the patterns. Everything is so versatile and can be used creatively and functionally! I missed the canvas sticky notes because I was looking for them in the A5 rings version, but they are only available as a snap-in option. That’s a little disappointing.

I also grabbed the two petite notebooks, one in evolve and one in bold blooms. The evolve has the new productivity layout, which is really great for making notes and to-do lists. The bold blooms is a plain line notebook, perfect for journaling or jotting down notes and reminders. 

Lastly, I grabbed the new snap-in pocket dashboards. I have the clear ones from last year, but I couldn’t resist these colors! I use these in my 7×9 notebooks to hold sticker sheets or important papers. 

We will look closer at the new A5 Daily Duo in the ring agenda and I will compare it to last year’s version. 

First up, the new Agenda. I love the smaller size. It feels much more portable and takes up less space on the desk. Plus it’s black, and that’s my favorite color. My only issue with the new agenda is the rings. I feel like they are cheaper than previous versions. The gold finish isn’t the bright gold of last year, and the rings don’t always close right. The pages will catch because they don’t fully close/line up correctly. You have to kind of finagle them. 

If I get brave, I may replace them with higher-quality silver hardware. 

I do wish they would offer silver hardware. I love that planners and notebooks have a silver coil by default. Why can’t the agenda be silver by default with a gold upgrade like everything else? 

The new agenda also has a different pocket layout in front with larger pockets to slide accessories into, like a sticker book. The back no longer has a space to slide anything into the pack of the agenda, but it still has the slit to put a medium-sized Erin Condren notepad in. 

The A5 only comes in evolve or bold blooms. Sadly, canvas is not an option this year. This is probably my biggest gripe. I have the canvas now. Why can’t they offer all three in both A5 and 7×9? I went with evolve because I don’t like the full-page bold blooms on the dashboard or the font in the bold blooms.

The monthly page hasn’t changed, but when you turn to the dashboard, it is now on the left-hand side. I really like this change. They tried it last year in the monthly, which made sense since it was a monthly view, lined page, dashboard, and more lined pages. I think it works in all the planners because you have the dashboard on the left, and then you can use the lined page on the right to expand on the things you put on the dashboard. 

We also get an updated ruler. It is now also a stencil, so you can easily draw boxes, flags, and habit trackers!

The biggest change is that there is now a lined page (front/back) and a weekly overview between each week in the Daily Duo. I don’t think I will use the weekly overview. I have gotten used to using a separate weekly and don’t want to flip back and forth in the daily. 

The weekly overview could be used for many things, such as meal planning and shopping lists, cleaning schedules, bills, workouts, projects, or assignments. You could also use it for work and the daily pages for personal (or vice versa).

I will probably also pull out all the lined pages and put them at the start or end of the month for goal planning. I don’t think I will use them between the weeks. 

We always have Monday on the left side when we flip to the daily pages.

BUT the BIGGEST AND BEST change is NO MORE MINI CALENDAR!!!!!!

I might be a tad excited about this change. I HATED that mini calendar and always tried to find ways to cover it up and make the space useful.

With the removal of the mini calendar, the to-do list has shifted up, and we have a larger blank space at the bottom. I wish the to-do list had been lengthened to fill half the page. There are some days when I have a lot of little things to do and have to go into the blank space. There is no change to the hourly section. 

Overall, I’m happy with the new version of the Erin Condren A5 ring agenda. I’d love to see a few changes, like higher-quality rings. And I really wish they’d offer all three designs in all sizes. I much prefer a very neutral inside. 

What are your thoughts on the changes to the daily duo? Are you ecstatic the mini calendar is gone? Do you hate the dashboard on the left-hand side? How will you use the weekly overview? 

Watch my review here:

Should You Go Wild?

Posted on by Jenna

What do you get when you put thousands of planners in one location?

Chaos! And Go Wild.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend my first Go Wild this year. I was going alone and didn’t have any friends going. To say I was nervous is an understatement! But I quickly learned there was no need to be nervous. Most everyone was welcoming, and there was so much going on that it didn’t matter if you were alone.

Go Wild is quite expensive, but I highly recommend attending at least once if you can afford it. It was fun to be around like-minded individuals and meet people you’ve chatted with online, and the speakers were quite inspiring! I feel like I took a lot away from most of the sessions. 

How much did it cost me? Here is a rough estimate.

Ticket $720
Hotel $1055 
Airfare $12 
Lyft $111 
Food $190

Total $2076

I did have a single room. I didn’t want to room with anyone. You could share a room to lower the cost. I used airline miles for my flight; otherwise, it would have been around $250-300. The Lyft includes to and from the airport and one off-site meet-up. The trip back to the airport has half of the total. It must have been a busy time! It was still cheaper than renting a car and paying for parking/valet at the hotel. 

I have celiac disease, and I door-dash some groceries to my room. I ordered snacks, breakfast, and items to make sandwiches. The food also includes two hotel breakfasts, one airport dinner, and snacks. It may have been different if the area around the hotel had more gluten free options. I researched ahead of time, and nothing safe was within walking distance. 

There are ways to make it less expensive, especially if you don’t have dietary restrictions. 

You do get a ton of swag, both from the conference and from other attendees. I did swaps and tablemate gifts, but those are completely optional. I sat at the Happy Planner sponsored table and received the Retro Sunset box (retail $49.99), a pencil pouch, a bracelet kit, and several discs. 

We also received items from Archer and Olive, Altenew, sticker books from Amber Plans Her Day and Mojo JoJo, stickers from KrissyAnne Designs, a bunch of Zebra items (mildliners, brush pens, Sarasa pens, and more), Pipsticks Hello Kitty sub, A Kel of a Plan self-care planner, and an Erin Condren bag filled with even more goodies! I’m sure I’m probably missing something…

Not all of my tablemates brought gifts, and I was okay with that—those who did also brought smaller gifts. I was grateful for this because I was worried about the room in my suitcase and going over the weight limit! I thought all the tablemate gifts I received were thoughtful and mostly items I will use. Hopefully, others thought the same about mine!

VJ from Notiq was my favorite speaker. She gave me a lot to think about. Martha Stewart had a lot of funny responses to questions. I also really enjoyed V from Under the Desk News. They spoke a lot about TikTok but the ideas behind it could translate to other social media. And, of course, I was excited to see Frank Warren from Post Sewcretys. I started reading the Sunday Secrets when they first started. 

Would I go again? Yes. Would I go if I couldn’t truly afford it? No. Don’t get me wrong—I had fun. I met some people. But I wouldn’t go into debt to attend. The sessions could have been longer and focused more on planning, personal branding/social media, productivity, etc. I also found the morning line-up before each day stressful and poorly run. 

I heard some people lined up around 3 a.m. when we weren’t supposed to be in line before 6:30. I heard the ADA accommodations were supposed to be limited to two per sponsored table, but that was not enforced. I also heard some volunteers were “saving” spots at their table for friends, which they weren’t supposed to do. 

I feel like if there are rules, then those should be followed and enforced. 

I’m curious about how some of the other conferences compare, but I don’t know if I will get a chance to attend any of them since Go Wild was so expensive. Does anyone want to sponsor me?! 😂

Did you go to Go Wild? What did you think? Is it worth it for you? If you didn’t go this year, would you go next year?

Watch my video version here:

Archer & Olive Fall Launch | Vintage Library Sub Box

Posted on by Jenna

Fall might be my favorite launch time, right behind Halloween, of course!

When the fall Archer and Olive launch was announced, I marked my planner and got my trigger finger ready. I didn’t want to miss out on any of the fall goodies! And my sub-box came around the same time, so stick around until the end to hear my thoughts on Vintage Library!

I ordered both sets of calliographs. I finally realized I don’t really use or like the acrylographs and skipped them this time. I always reach for the easier-to-use item, so calliographs it is! The fall launch had two sets, Autumn Morning and Autumn Midnight. I was mostly drawn to the Autumn Midnight, but both sets look very nice together. They did add labels to both sets, which is extremely helpful.

How fun would it be to be the person who gets to name pen colors?

I also ordered the gray pouch. It is a nice, sturdy canvas material with the enchanting wolf print inside. There is only one large pocket, no internal pockets. It is long enough to fit calliographs, Tombow, or other duel brush pens. The gray canvas feels stiffer than the green one released earlier this year. 

It wouldn’t be an Archer and Olive launch without washi tape! I grabbed both the enchanting wolf and books & coffee. I love both designs for different reasons. The colors and theme of books and coffee feels very fall. The enchanting wolf doesn’t really say fall to me, but I love the different shades of blue with the gold. It will be great to use any time of year!

And no Archer and Olive order would be complete without stickers! As with the washi, I got the enchanting wolf and books & coffee sheets. You get two of each. The books & coffee stickers have the same saying as the washi.

I also had to have the stamp set! It will be perfect for creating fun bullet journal spreads or memory keeping. It will be perfect for next year’s reading journals. It came with several stamps, an ink pad, and an acrylic block. Besides books and coffee, there are also leaves, which could be fall or regular, depending on which colors you pick. 

Lastly, I grabbed the book & coffee notebook in 8×8. I am loving the square notebook lately. It’s such a fun size and versatile for many things! I love the box it came in. It looks like a book and slides out. The notebook is a deep green with a rose gold icon and matching rose gold ampersand on the ribbon bookmark. I also took the opportunity to pre-order the A5 because I love this design so much!

Personally, I love all the items I got in the fall launch. Everything is beautiful, and it feels very much like fall and Archer and Olive returning to their roots. There are some fall launch items left. If you want to grab something, head over to Archer and Olive, and don’t forget to use my code Runsonespresso, to save 10% on your order (affiliate link and code, I will receive a commission).

Did you grab anything in the fall launch? Let me know in the comments!

Now, for the Vintage Library Sub Box.

OH. EM. GEE. THIS. BOX.

I haven’t been a subscriber since the beginning, only about a year or so, but this is by far the best sub-box I’ve received! Pretty much everything in this box was perfect, and I will find a use for it all!

The box itself has a beautiful book design around the outside, and the top says, “Welcome to the Archer and Olive Library. You are invited to come inside and take it all in. Every wall is filled with handcrafted books with exquisite detail. There is quiet peace, a record of the human experience throughout history. Find your favorite nook, settle in, and stay a while”.

Such a beautiful sentiment.

Starting with the calliographs, we have a set of five. I believe some of these have been in other collections, but I don’t mind because all the colors look so good together. There are different shades of browns/tans and blue. Unfortunately, these ones are not labeled. That is a small disappointment.

We get four rolls of washi, starting with a roll of gold stars you can use for book reviews! I love this idea. You don’t need to draw or try to use a stamp or stencil. One roll looks like individual spines of books, and another like all your books lined up on a shelf. And the fourth one looks like postage stamps with “book review,” “currently reading,” and “from the library of.” What a fun idea! The washi is a nice touch and will be great in journal spreads.

The sticker sets are called book and typewriter stickers. Each pack has two stickers (four total), and each set has a white and a very light off-white sheet. The sheets have letters, numbers, and symbols. I like the idea of these; they look great, and a lot of thought went into it. But I have no idea how to use these. I would have much preferred stickers of books. 

I was very excited to see the next item as I had wanted one for a few months but hadn’t gotten to looking for one. It is a rotating date stamp and ink pad. Perfect for dating your journals! You can change the month, day, and year. And once you have rotated through all the years, there is a blank space so you can still use the month and day.

Next up are the oversized binder clips. They look cool, but I don’t know how I will use them. They measure about four inches tall and two inches wide. They are much larger than normal binder clips. 

We get a cute little memo pad that looks like the old library checkout cards for paper products. They are blank, so you can use them for anything. It is tri color with blue/gray/purple, yellow, and pink. I wish the pink were a different color. It doesn’t really go with the rest of the box and colors used.

Then we have the pocket library, which is a nice box with two oversized pocket notebooks. The details on the box and notebooks are fantastic! One is burgundy, vegan leather with lined pages, while the other is olive linen with a vegan leather pattern inlay with dot grid pages. I don’t want to use these; I want to display them! 

The last item in the box is an A5 notebook in blue buckram cover with navy and pearl accents. It is a dot grid notebook. This one feels special. So much so that I don’t want to use it! Of course, I will, but I want to find its perfect use. Maybe a future reading journal?

If you have any ideas for the book and typewriter stickers, please drop them in the comments because I am at a loss at how I want to use them. 

Watch the video version, and be sure to subscribe for future videos!

*New* Erin Condren Home Organization Tools

Posted on by Jenna

Get Your Life Together!

You can send your kids back to school and finally get your house (and life) in order with the new Erin Condren organizational products!

Large Cord Storage Box $24.50

Hide your unsightly cords at your desk or under the tv with the cord storage box. Comes in pink (dusty rose) with the asterisk design on the top. Too bad there aren’t other colors because this pink doesn’t go in my house. Also, no other real use for it other than cord storage.

Adjustable Bookend Organizer $26.50

How I wish this came in other colors! I love this product, but the color doesn’t work for me. It’s flexible in what you can store in it. I can work on your desk, your bookshelf, in your kitchen. If you don’t need it to hold your books for a bit, slide the end in, and you have a desk organizer!

Large Stand Up Folio $38.50

Available in many different designs with black, gray, or pink accents, the stand up folio is great for going from home to the office or coffee shop. It stores a laptop or planner, keeps your notepad and pens handy, and looks great! There are eight total elastic loops to hold pens or cordes, while the mesh pocket can hold your washi or laptop charger. I love this so much that I ordered the colorblends version!

Ultimate Pencil Case $20.50

Match your stand up folio! The ultimate pencil case has a nice hard top, holds six pens, and can double as a phone stand when out and about. *Note I have a Samsung 21 Ultra and fits well without a case. With a Spigen case, it is a little harder to use but still fits!

New EttaVee designs! Stay Golden on the list pad and Hopeful on Family Organizer Planner. I really love the Hopeful design. I like the design and more muted colors.

Monthly Calendar Sticky Notes $10.50

I am not a fan of this one. I don’t know what I would use it for. It’s too big (6×10) to fit in a 7×9 notebook. The boxes for each day are small. Overall this feels like a fail to me. What do you think?

Family Organizer starts at $40.50

A few of the features on the family organizer would not be useful. I feel the recurring schedule would be hard for anyone. Even when I was in school, my schedule would change from week to week. The habit and task tracking allow for one of each as there are only six lines for each section (and it’s Monday – Sunday for the dots, so six weeks?). I think this would be better served with the new monthly planner dashboard tracker. I do think the rest of the sections and pages would be useful for families!

Small Organizer Caddy $36.50

A smaller, more portable version of the previous organizational caddy. Great for taking your planner supplies on the go or toting your supplies around the house. This would also be great for carrying your kid’s stuff in the car. Or maybe items for a picnic? There are probably a million ways to use the small caddy!

Want to grab any of these items? Shop here: https://shrsl.com/38mu5 (affiliate link I will receive a commission if you buy).

What are your favorite and least favorite items in this release? Let me know in the comments!

Watch the video review: