Agendio planner review

My Agendio planner arrived yesterday! You may have seen my introduction post on the Agendio planners (which you can see here if you haven't already). Agendio.com is an amazing new online planner creator where you choose every aspect of your planner: the layout, the size, font, colors, add-ons and more. And you add in your own labels for lists, select your holidays, add your personalized events, and much more. These details are all saved so you don't have to add them again when you make your next planner!

The planner customizer takes a few minutes to get the hang of, so take a look at all the possibilities and play around with it. It's very addictive! Look at all the features (which you can see the overview of here).

I'll walk you through the planner I created so you can see some of the options. Remember this is just one, there are loads to choose from.

Disclosure: I received a discount code so I could create and receive this planner as a free sample to review.

I was too excited to take a picture before I ripped the package open, but I should have because the planner was beautifully wrapped in tissue paper with a logo sticker. Very elegant.

I went for their largest planner (8 1/2 by 11 inches), in the turquoise blue cover. I chose the color-matched elastic closure strap. You can also choose black, or none.

Before I go any further I want to make a note of the paper sizes. Agendio is located in North America, so they use standard North American paper sizes (letter size is 8 1/2 by 11 inches). They do not use European sizes (A4, A5 etc.). This of course makes sense because 1) their North American customers want the paper sizes they use and are accustomed to, and 2) it makes much more financial sense to use the local paper sizes than to import European sizes. So if you are not in North America, be sure to look at the page dimensions so you know what you are getting.

Let's continue! I want to apologize for the quality of my photos. It's very hard to get good light here this time of year, so the photos are a bit dark and the pages don't look nearly as nice as they do in real life. So as you look at these, please keep in mind these photos don't do the planner justice! You can click on images for a larger view.

The first page has the Agendio logo, and lists the Model number which is handy if you want to reorder and/ or tell people which Model you got. This one is Model number 32162. There is also space at the bottom of the page to write your contact info in case of loss.

The next page is a feature I love, and actually use: month overviews for the 12 months in your planner. My planner goes from December 2015-November 2016 so those are the months shown on this page. Very handy. Opposite is a lined page for notes, goals, frequently used numbers, whatever you like.

My planner is a monthly + weekly, and I chose to have my months at the beginning of the book. You could also choose to have the months at the back of the book, or embedded within the weeks. I love the big open day squares. You can also choose to have them lined, and you can select which line spacing you prefer.

I customized every aspect of the pages: which holidays to add, what I wanted the list area at the right to look like and what label I wanted for it, etc.

There are monthly calendars for the 12 months of your planner plus the next month, so my planner has month calendars for December 2015 through December 2016, which is very nice for forward planning. This means for example if you created your planner for the school year August through July, your monthly calendars would go August through the following August, so you can plan through the whole summer. Very convenient!

Below is my weekly layout. This one has the Span feature (more on that in a minute), two divisible areas at the right, and space under the daily columns for Activities.

Here you can see a closer look. I chose the Fondamento font, but there are loads of other fonts to choose from. I also chose turquoise print but you can choose from lots of different colors. You can see the Span feature, which allows you to write tasks or events over multiple days. Take a look at the holidays listed in Monday below, I want to tell you something about them:

One of the first questions the customizer asks is which country you will be using your planner in. Here's why: in Monday above there is Spring Bank Holiday, which is a UK holiday, and Memorial Day (US). Since I live in the UK, I set that as my location. That causes the UK holidays to appear as above, and holidays of other countries have their country notation so I know which country they are for.

Here you can see a better view of my lists at the right. I chose how may lines I wanted for each area, if I wanted them solid or dotted, square or round check boxes, and of course the labels.

Below the day column is a small area that I labeled Due Today. On the first Saturday of every month I have a reminder to check the batteries in my smoke and CO2 detectors. I also have blog post topics in the days as reminders. When I originally created a planner, they did not have these small spaces available, only larger ones. I requested this area to be smaller so the day column could be longer with more hours, and voila! They tweaked it for me. Keep in mind, the smaller the area below the days, the fewer Activities it will hold. This one only holds two, which is plenty for me. There are other formats with larger spaces for more Activities.

After all the weekly pages there are forward planning pages for the following 12 months, which is great so you can plug in future dates.

I chose to add the double-sided pocket to put papers into. This is a great place to put bills, receipts, birthday or wedding invitations, etc.

I also chose perforated tear-off corners, and their logo placemarkers.

You can choose to have your planner start any month, up to 6 months in advance. You can have your weeks start with any day, which is great for people who work shift or non-traditional work weeks.

The quality is fantastic: the paper is white, smooth and 90 gsm. The cover is soft to the touch but durable. Despite being full letter size, the planner is remarkably light: I weighed mine at 652 g.

I loved adding in all my own holidays and events like birthdays and anniversaries. Normally when I buy a planner I have to write in all kinds of things: holidays if they're not already in there, moon phases, and at the very minimum birthdays and anniversaries. With the customizer, these were all printed in, and are saved for the next time I make a planner!

You can make multiple planners, with different holidays and events too. So for example if you make a planner for someone else, you can put their holidays and important days in. Or if you make a planner specifically for work, you can have only work-related events and no personal ones.

I am very pleased with the result of my planner. Agendio.com is great for those of us who want to be able to customize our planner, a little or a lot.

They now also have refill pages for Filofax, Franklin Covey and Day Timer, so be sure to check those out too!