Name: Passion Planner
Maker: Passion Planner
Size: three proprietary sizes, smallest is similar to an A5
Format: vertical weekly
Paper: 120 GSM bamboo paper
Style: lined
Price: $51 (old ones are half price)
Planner Nerd tested: yes
Details:
Passion Planner is a vertical weekly planner that allows you to visualize a week on two pages and to plan in half hour increments. The company was launched via Kickstarter 10 years ago by a student looking for a better planner, and its design feels very student oriented—it also has academic year releases in addition to calendar year releases. It’s hard not to love the entrepreneurial backstory!
The paper is quite heavy compared to other popular planners—120 gsm vs. the 52 gsm Tomoe River paper that Hobonichi uses and the 68 gsm Tomoe River paper that Take a Note uses.
Where the planner stands out is its guided pages, including an exercise it encourages users to do once a year to set goals and questions to prompt reflection at the end of each month and throughout the planner’s layouts.
Review:
I used a Passion Planner for a couple of years and liked it a lot—it’s actually the planner that got me into vertical weeklies to begin with.
I think the question prompts throughout the planner are thought provoking and useful, not at all cheesy, and I enjoyed doing them the first time I got the planner, however you don’t need to buy the whole planner to put such reflections into practice. The exercises are just question prompts and mind maps so they’re not layout dependent—you can do them yourself in any notebook without much setup.
The prices of the is planner have gone up significantly but when I used them years ago, the company advertised itself as putting part of their proceeds toward donations of planners to students who need them, which is pretty cool if they still do that.
As for the paper, it’s supposed yo be sustainably sourced (which is great) but I’m not a fan because it’s very heavy just for writing, and the book itself is quite heavy for what you get. One thing I struggled with was archiving: while I wanted to keep the goal setting pages and reflection pages it felt like they were a small part of an otherwise heavy planner full of messy weekly scheduling notes I didn’t care to keep around, taking space in my home. They come in a variety of designs but were not my style so preferred the plain black versions for everyday use.
Overall I would recommend this planner, especially for people who are new to planning and have a lot of tasks, homework, scheduling to track week to week. I think it’s great for students and for people who want structure to help get them into the mode of goal setting and reflection. Advanced planners who have their own established systems will probably find this planner too limiting, unless of course they want exactly what Passion Planner has to offer and nothing else.
Check out these ideas for how to use the Passion Planner:
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