Day Designer Planner Review (Updated for 2022-2023)

This daily Day Designer planner review will show you the pros and cons, compare the Target version, the best pens to use, how it compares to other planner reviews I’ve done and more.

Note: This blog contains affiliate links or referral links. Purchases from these links provides a small commission or discounts towards future purchases to me at no extra cost to you. Medical and health information and these recommendations are from my personal experience and do not constitute medical advice. Please seek professional medical advice for your health. Refer to my Full Privacy Policy and Disclaimers here.

Note also: I received this planner from Day Designer for review consideration. Opinions expressed are my own.

I first started using the daily Day Designer planner (the original version from their website) in 2016 when I started wanting to turn my blog into a business. I felt like getting everything done for my home, blog and trying to manage my chronic illness was an elusive dream. I want to be organized so badly but it seems way beyond my reach no matter how hard I try. Do you feel like that too?

I think that is why I’m so obsessed with my planners and trying to find the perfect planner to help me fulfill my dreams. Today, I’m sharing an honest Day Designer Planner Review so you can see the Day Designer’s many different planner options, features, pros and cons, a pen test so you can see what pens work best in the Day Designer and what the difference is between the planners sold on the website and the Blue Sky version at Target (they are NOT the same!). We’ve got a lot to cover so let’s get started and show you this beautiful, simple and versatile planner.

Daily Day Designer 2022-2023 Features (Original size)

Here are the Day Designer feature specifications as described on their website for the Original size Daily Planner.

Academic Year: July 2022 – June 2023

Original Size: 9” wide x 9.75” tall x 1.5″ depth (including the binding)

Page Dimensions: 7.3″ wide x 9.5″ tall

Weight: 2.6 lbs.  

Durable glossy hardcover

Flagship Collection: Also available in Daily Mini, Weekly Original, and Weekly Mini

100 GSM White Paper

Daily Planning Pages with Hourly Scheduling from 5 am to 9 pm

Today, To-Do, Dinner, Gratitude, Top 3 To-Do Prompts, Notes and more!

Goal Setting Worksheets to Help You Achieve Your Big Dreams

Daily Inspirational Quotes

Combined Weekend Pages with Weekly Overview

Gold Foil Dated Monthly Tabs

Two-Page Monthly Overviews with a Monday Start Day for Each Week

Two-Page 2022 to 2023 Yearly Overview with a Monday Start Day for Each Week

Daily and Monthly Pages Marked with U.S. holidays

2022-2023 Holidays Reference Calendar

Birthdays & Important Days Checklist

Two Gold Foil Sticker Sheets

Bookmark Ruler with Removeable Protective Overlay

Printed Double-Sided in Gray Text to Avoid Stark Contrast

Durable Glossy Hardcover in our Enchanted Design

Soft Teal Liner with Inside Front Cover Pocket for Added Functionality

Protective Gold Corners

Sophisticated Gold Wire-O Binding

Tear-Out Pages in the Front and Back of Planner to Protect Inside Pages

Day Designer website

Pair your Flagship Edition planner with our Notes & Accessories for an added level of organization and planning!

Look inside The 2022-2023 Day Designer

Let’s look inside the Day Designer as I review it for you. This are photos of the 2022-2023 Daily Day Designer in the Original Size and Enchanted Garden Cover that Day Designer sent to me for review consideration. The other coil bound daily planners will be of similar quality and paper type.

Keepsake Box, Cover, and Coil

The Day Deisgner comes in a white keepsake box with a mint interior. Sliding that gorgeous box open is so satisfying and I was blown away by the beauty of the Enchanted Garden cover I chose.

The box is very sturdy and can be used to store your day designer at the end of the year or makes a nice little drawer for stickers, notepads or pens to sit on your desk or inside your desk drawer.

In general, wire O coil binding is my not my favorite kind of coil because it’s subject to the elements of moving it around and opening and closing the cover. I used my 2016-2017 Day Designer for a few months and always kept it at home.

The cover held up pretty well but I was always scared the wire O coil would bend. I recommend a planner pouch (like the Simplified Teacher planner pouch which looks more professional  or maybe a large Erin Condren planner pouch) to protect the coil and the gold foiling on the cover.

Inside Pocket, Tabs and Stickers

The inside pocket is the same mint as the interior of the keepsake box.

The gold stickers and the gold laminated tabs seem sturdy.

Preplanning and Goalsetting Pages

I love goalsetting – both setting goals that are important to me and figuring out how to break those goals down into actionable pieces and schedule them into my planner to get them done.

The Day Designer has great preplanning/goalsetting pages. Here’s what they include (pictured below):

• Day Designer’s Story
• How to Use your Day Designer
• Self Assessment: Where Am I In Life?
• Core Values Worksheet: What is Important to me?
• My Goals: What is Important to me?
• My Plan: What Steps Do I need to take to get there?
• Ideal Month: Making it happen!
• Ideal Week: Making it Happen!
• 12 month overview

Some of the goalsetting pages are offered as free printables which I think is amazing so you can test them out for yourself before you buy or print additional copies for each quarter or when your goals/life changes.

Monthly Calendar Pages:

The Monthly Calendar Pages are minimalistic in design with simple, clean lines. I loved the color in other planners but the dark gray and white is sharp, classic and clean.

If you want to add color, you can use accessories to pretty it up.

There is a sidebar where you can write your goals and small victories. We tend to be great at celebrating our big victories but it is equally important to enjoy the journey and celebrate our small victories along the way.

The calendar is a Monday start. I like that because the weekend is together.

Tip: if you keep appointments in Google Calendar or iCal on your phone like I do, I recommend changing the setting so that it starts on Monday also. This helps you not make mistakes when transferring events into your paper monthly calendar. I keep all my appointments in Google Calendar so I can share events with my family, it is easy to move appointments  and it sends me reminders. That is our master schedule..

Since I don’t want to duplicate work or information, I don’t  use the planner monthly calendar for appointments. I like to use it for more creatively. It’s a good month overview to track things daily like:

• happy memories or daily highlights
• Small victories
• Gratitude
• Top priorities
• Goal progress
• Quotes you find/things you learn
• Budget, bills due or expenses
• Menu plan/meals made so you know how old your leftovers are
• Health and fitness overview
• New habits or intentions you want to cultivate
• A sticker a day, a doodle a day or lettering challenge
• Word a day challenge
• an index of important notes/lists from your daily pages

Weekday Daily Planning Pages:

The weekday daily pages (shown on the left page in the picture above) are why I bought the Day Designer planner for the first time back in 2016.

Each page has a schedule on the left, hourly increments from 5am to 9pm.

I have always liked to track my time, it helps me evaluate how long tasks truly take me. I’m notoriously bad about underestimating how long a task will take (it’s called the “planning fallacy” so apparently I’m not the only one who does this).

The schedule helps me quantify my time management so I can better budget my time with realistic expectations.

There is so much space on the schedule side that for ideal productivity, you can both mark time blocks you plan at the beginning of the day and then write in next to it what you actually did.

Or set it up like a pomodoro planner where you mark pomodoro blocks and then check them off.

Because of the large schedule space and the different ways you can set it up,  I think the Day Designer is the best planner for time blocking.

Each weekday planning page also has  predefined space for tracking the following items. It looks more organized and with plenty of space to write, I have yet to run out of room for my tasks.

• Today’s Top Three
• Due
• Dinner
• Dollars
• Don’t Forget
• Schedule
• To Do
• Notes (where I track my food, water intake and pain levels)
• Daily Gratitude

Day Designer Weekend pages

Saturday and Saturday share a page in the Day Designer daily (shown on the right page in the image above). The weekend pages also include Top 3 tasks, an hourly schedule and plans for next week at the bottom. I’m guessing they put Saturday and Sunday on one page to save number of pages and bulk because it would be even heavier than 2 pounds. I like the concept of the Plans for Next Week area but it does not give too much space for a whole set of goals. I think it’s a good place to jot down the menu plan for the following week so you can have your grocery list ready.

Some weekends are pure bliss of laziness and the 2 days in one page is just fine. But, for me, soccer weekends are just pure chaos, and busier than weekdays because of family fun activities AND feeding my 4 hungry men 3 meals a day. So some weekends I need just as much room to plan.

For those busy weekends when you need more space, you can get an undated Today & To Do Planner* so you can still keep track of everything. You can just use it on the days you really need it.

Notes Pages

There are not too many pages for notes in the Day Designer. It seems the notes pages are on the right side if the month ends on the left side.

Day Designer Planner Review: Quick Pros and Cons

Day Designer Pros

• great daily format
• I prefer the original size, I tried a free printable of the mini version* and it was too cramped for me
• plenty of space to write all my brain dump/mindsweep of random ideas and tasks during the day so I don’t forget anything
• I like that there are dedicated spaces for top 3 priorities, what’s due, what I can’t forget and daily gratitude
• minimalist design helps focus on tasks at hand, can add color and be creative when you want to
• An inspirational quote every weekday
• some of my favorite preplanning and goalsetting pages because they are focused on your values, whats important to you and making it happen
• packaging was superb, I kept the box it came in to transport the planner when I pack it for trips

Day Designer Cons

• priority shipping is only option and it’s expensive. Look for free shipping deals (right now it’s free shipping on orders of $100 or more)
• 100 GSM paper is not as thick and smooth as other brands’ planners but it needs to be thinner to keep the weight and bulk down, it’s big enough already. There’s some ghosting with my favorite pens but it was not a dealbreaker for me.
• bulky to carry around so I leave it at home or in the car (there is a mini version available if you need a portable version)
• wish there was a place for habit tracking. I could use up the whole to-do list just for the daily habits I want to cultivate
• I understand why they don’t but I still wish there was a full page for Saturday and Sunday planning
• not enough notes pages for me to be able to keep my master to do lists and bullet journal collections to make this an all-in-one solution. That’s ok it just means I’ll have an excuse for more pretty coordinating notebooks. A planner addict can’t have too many planners and notebooks!

What the Day Designer planner Helped Me Accomplish

I think the goal we have in getting a planner is to get more done, help us manage our overflowing to do list and help us remember things we don’t want to forget. I think the Day Designer helped me in all those areas. What I especially liked was identifying and focusing on my top 3 priorities.

So often I start off my day and by the end I have this completely overwhelming list of things I need to do. Having the top 3 priorities clearly marked at the top eliminated some of the noise and focus on those till they are done.

I started taking a comprehensive blogging course (and that’s why I moved from the weekly Plum Paper I loved to the Day Designer) so I could start turning the blog I love into a profitable business I love. I think the Day Designer definitely helped me manage my days better juggling home, family and blog life since I was undertaking this huge course and investment. I wanted to make sure to get it done! The Day Designer helped me start chasing that dream and designing the life I wanted to live.

I loved being able to track and better plan my days with the agenda. There was sooo much room that I never ran out! The Day Designer definitely helped me get everything out of my head on busy days and onto paper. While I’d like to say that every single idea found it’s way onto a bullet journal master collection list so that it wasn’t forgotten, I can’t say that’s 100% true. But now that it’s down, I can easily go back and get the most important ideas on a list.

Overall, I think the Day Designer was a wise choice for that stage of life when I was trying to grow a business and juggle home and family life. There was so much going on and it helped me log all the big goal tasks and tons of little things that come up. Looking back, I most loved that feeling of freedom from having all the things out of my head and into paper was wonderful and brought the planner peace I seek so often.  

Day Designer Free Printables  

What I love about Day Designer is the multitude and variety of free printables they offer on their site! You can download all their daily pages (including the mini size and A5) to test them out. And lots of their goal setting and extra printables too. Here are my favorites that I’ve downloaded too. Note that these are subject to change. What they offer free today may be gone tomorrow.

• Free Daily Planning Page
• Mini Daily Planning Page
• A5 Daily Planning Page
• Today & To Do Planning Pages
• Grocery List
• Ideal Week
• Brain dump
• Core Elements Worksheet
• Entertaining Checklist
• Food and Exercise Log
• Monthly Goal Progress
• Weekly Meal Plan
• Weekly Chore Chart
• 86 Lists for the Planner Obsessed
• Notes Pages
• Intentional Living Worksheet
• My Favorite Self Care Habits
• Bucket Lists
• 50 Best Practices for Living a Well Designed Life

There are even more I haven’t listed, I was trying to just give you a sample but there are a bunch of extras that I think would be amazing to print and keep in a binder.

Check out their full free printable library here. I hope some of these goodies are still there when you visit!

Day Designer Discount Code

Day Designer was kind enough to give me a discount code. Use my Day Designer discount code SMALLVICTORIES10 for 10% off your total order at checkout.

What are the best pens to use in my Day Designer planner?  

I did an ultimate pen test and spent about 4 hours trying out different pens in my 2016-2017 Day Designer planner. So this image and results are from that test and I will update it again for the newer planner and upgraded paper (from 90 GSM to 100 GSM) when I can.

The paper quality in my 2016-2017 Day Designer was 90 GSM and in 2022-2023 the paper is 100 GSM so it’s a little better quality now but still not as thick as other planners on the market (see my Ultimate Planner Comparison for paper comparison).

I tested each pen with a colored dot which is what I usually do for coloring coding, the color name written and a squiggly line to see how it would bleed (run all the way through the paper so you can see what’s written) or ghosts (where you can faintly tell what is written or that something is written).

I tested the following 9 brands of pens to figure out what the BEST pen to use in the Day Designer is. There are a combination of gel pens and felt tip pens and one brand of highlighters.

Gel Pens, Metal Tip

• my favorite pen overall – Pentel Energel Liquid Gel, 0.7mm, needle tip and they are refillable – the needle tip makes it glide when you write.
• Pentel Energel Liquid Gel, 0.7mm, metal tip – available in colors
• Papermate Inkjoy Gel Pens, retractable, 0.7mm, 10 colors in pack
• Zebra Sarasa Gel Pens, 0.7mm
• Pilot G-2, 0.7mm

Felt Tip

• my favorite in this category – Staedler Triplus Fineliner Pens, 10 colors in pack – the tip is very fine – if you have a heavy hand like I do the tip can bend.
• Papermate Flair Felt Point Pens, Medium – the medium is too bold for me, if I was going to use these I’d get the ultra fine .4mm
• Sharpie Pen, Fine Point, 10 colors in pack

Fine Point

• my favorite in this category – Pilot G-2, 0.38mm, Black only
• Pilot Precise v5, Extra Fine, Rolling Ball pen

Highlighters

• Zebra Mildliner Highlighters, 15 colors in 3 packs – I love these highlighters for all my planners!

Recommended pens are in my Day Designer Planner and Best Pens to Use list in my Amazon Favorites Store*.

What’s the difference between the Day Designer planners on the website and the Day Designer Blue Sky Line at Target or Amazon?

The Day Designer by Blue Sky line is a great option for those who are on a stricter budget but still need a well designed planner. You can get a good planner for approximately $12 to $25. But the biggest difference between the Flagship/original collection Day Designers on the website and the Blue Sky line at Target or Amazon is the quality of materials.

I had picked up one of the weekly Blue Sky planners at Target to flip through a few years ago and found that the pages were very thin and hard to turn on the tighter wire coil. The pages kept getting stuck to each other or in the twin-wire spiral as I tried to flip pages. It was so frustrating that I returned the planner, I didn’t even want to pen test it.

As a result, I haven’t done any pen tests on the Blue Sky planner paper but it’s a 80 GSM paper (which is like standard printer paper) so it’s a lesser grade than the 100 GSM that they put in their signature line.

The Day Designer by Blue Sky planning pages are also slightly different than what you get in the original  line. They have the most important features like the daily agenda, to dos, priority and gratitude and they have a few goalsetting pages that are different than the flagship line. The covers on the Day Designer by Blue Sky are flexible material, not a hard cover.

The things I like about the Day Designer by Blue Sky line at Target or Amazon* was they they have a wider variety of planner styles to choose from. They had monthly, weekly, and daily planners, they had the Today & To Do undated and a variety of cover bindings and sizes to choose from.

The Blue Sky line is also more colorful with coordinating font colors on the planning pages whereas the flagship line is only a dark grey font for a minimalist look.

It seems like Day Designer tests out options in the Blue Sky line and then brings the ones that sell the best into their signature line. I remember seeing the Today & To Dos at Target when the line first came out and then Day Designer released an upgraded version on their flagship line.

Similarly, the Blue Sky line had weekly planners from the start. Then Day Designer announced they are going to start selling weekly planners* in their signature Flagship collections line starting in 2019. It’s just my theory, but it’s fun to see the Blue Sky line in Target to see what they might come out with next. 

The Blue Sky line is a good option if you wanted a more colorful, printed planner at a lower cost with the Day Designer planning and goal setting pages. But if you want better quality, then the Flagship line is definitely the way to go.

Where Can I Buy the Day Designer planner?

Their signature, higher quality Flagship Collection series is available to buy:

• All the covers are available on the Day Designer website
• Many of the covers in both flagship and mini size are available on Amazon* (see my Day Designer Planners + Best Pens to Use list) with free Prime shipping (get a free 30 day trial of Prime here*. I do not know if they will have the same packaging as what I mention above. Look for the ones that say “by Day Designer” if you want the signature Flagship high quality planner.

Their lower cost and lower quality Day Designer for Blue Sky Planning Essentials series is available to buy:

• Amazon* (see my Day Designer Planners + Best Pens to Use list) with free Prime shipping (get a free 30 day trial of Prime here*. Look for the ones that say “by Blue Sky” if you want the lower cost version.
• Target
• Some Staples and Office Depot/Office Max stores

Which are the planners like day designer?

Here are 8 beautiful planners like Day Designer.

Day Designer Planner Review – The Bottom Line

I LOVE the flagship collection Day Designer Planner for its minimalist elegance and its focus on creating and following your vision for a well designed life. With PLENTY of room to write, it really helps get ideas out of my head onto paper where I can delegate, add it to a future list or just get it done. Nothing motivates me more than simply checking off the boxes!

I love that the daily planning pages have focused areas for gratitude, dinner, what’s due and top 3 priorities so they don’t get lost in the rest of the to do list. I love the size of the flagship edition since I don’t carry it with me. I need the space!

Though I wish there were a daily page each for Saturdays and Sundays and more notes pages for my bullet journal to do lists, I understand that both of these would make the planner even bulkier and heavier. I”m ok with adding a coordinating notebook or notepad in the front cover for my bullet journal lists, then it’s easy to transfer them to the next year’s planner too!

I think the Original Daily Day Designer is great for stay-at-home moms and professionals working outside the home alike, especially for entrepreneurs and bloggers who have lots of tasks and/or appointments to manage in a day. The covers are elegant and professional so you can carry them into business meetings.

I was happy with my Day Designer and it’s helped me manage my busy season of life when I decided to take my blog to the business level. The Day Designer is a great choice for people who rely on their planners to get everything onto paper so they can manage their busy days.

Want to see how the Day Designer planner stacks up against other popular planners?

Subscribe now to my newsletter and download my FREE Ultimate Planner Comparison Chart here which will help you find your perfect life or goal planner for your planning needs and lifestyle.

More Planning and Productivity Posts:

Ultimate Planner Comparison + FREE Planner Comparison Chart

Daily Simplified Planner Review

How to Bullet Journal in the Passion Planner

I hope that my Day Designer planner review has showcased for you the pros and cons of this planner, information about the various planner styles to match your needs and budget, how the Flagship collection and the Blue Sky version at Target compare and the best pens to use in your Day Designer! 

The daily Day Designer is a fantastic planner for busy women who need ample space to write down their tasks, notes, and schedule to manage their day.