8 Beautiful Planners Like Day Designer

These 8 beautiful planners like Day Designer will help you get more done in less time and inspire you to design a life you love.

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Day Designer Alternatives

The Day Designer has it’s pros and cons so if you are looking for some Day Designer alternatives, I’ve narrowed down the best ones for you.First, here are the 5 features that make the original Day Designer Daily planner unique so these are the features we’ll be looking for in Day Designer alternatives for you to consider:

• beautiful, elegant covers that look professional
• goalsetting pages
• self assessment in various life areas
• one page per day (for weekdays) layout with boxes for various elements (ex. top 3, dinner, finances)
• minimalist interior layouts

Planners Like Day Designer

1. Day designer by blue sky

The most obvious Day Designer alternative is the Day Designer by Blue Sky line. With much of the same great features of the flagship Day Designer at a fraction of the cost and more readily available at Amazon, Target, and sometimes office supply stores like Staples and Office Max.

The Day designer by Blue Sky adds pops of color to the daily pages that the original Day Designer does not have.

2. Franklin Planner

Franklin planner has a couple planners like the Day Designer depending on the binding you are looking for

La Vie en Rose Planner

If you want a coiled planner, the La Vie en Rose planner is like the Day Designer because it has a simple, minimalist black and white layout with spaces for:

• Your top 3
• to do list
• Me time
• Happening today
• And notes (with enough space to write in your schedule if needed)

The lovely floral covers and dividers with tabs look professional. There are no goalsetting pages but there is a monthly notes page where you can write in your goals. I love too that the notes pages has enough space should you decide to time block or write in your schedule. There are some days where you might not need the schedule so it’s nice you can use the space as you see fit.

The Franklin Planner also has some ring bound planner inserts that are like the Day Designer planner inserts including the Monticello (a navy day on one page layout and my favorite the Carrara (a gray day on 2 page layout) so you can write in whatever you like. It’s plenty of space.

There are several insert themed daily and weekly layouts to choose from that include more color as well.

Add values based goal planning pages to your binder in order to make sure your goals align with your values (and for additional support, I recommend taking the free Franklin planner training course to help you so just that).

I used the Carrara day on 2 page inserts (my personal planner shown below in the blush Millie binder)

See my Ultimate Planner Comparison for how Franklin Planner compares to the Day Designer and other popular and productivity planners

Check out the free training and buy Franklin Planner here

3.Full Focus Planner

The Full Focus Planner is like the Day Designer because it has goalsetting worksheets including setting your ideal week, is a minimalist black and white layout and hardcover linen or leather covers that look very professional and classic.

The Full Focus planner is an undated quarterly planner and includes a day on 2 pages layout. That means every daily page has a full notes page (while the Day Designer has very few notes pages).

In addition, the Full Focus planner has a 4 page weekly preview and review to help you plan and reflect/adjust your productivity and self care each week. Of all the planners reviews I’ve done, the Full Focus planner has the best weekly review process built in.

Discount code: Save 10% off your first order by using my discount code TANYA10

Buy the Full Focus Planner here

4.Purple Trail Planners

Purple Trail planners are like the Day Designer and are the best customizable planner. You can customize your ideal planner by choosing your own:

• personalized coil or leather binder covers
• minimalist neutral or colorful layouts,
• wide variety of planning pages including daily, weekly, fitness, mom, teacher, student, homeschool, fitness, reading, meal planners, business, content, and specialty planners
• add on sections including checklists, financial, fitness, nutrition, travel, party planning, bill trackers, puzzles and games, notes pages and more

Purple Trail Planners is a great solution for people who want an all in one planner to manage their schedule, home, budget, family, academics and blog, business or side hustle. Since you build it yourself, Allow yourself ample time on their site to look around and customize your planner!

Here’s the ring binder planner I built (but don’t worry, the leather binders look more professional if that’s what you need):

I show you all the details inside my custom Harry Potter inspired planner in my Ultimate Planner Comparison and how Purple Trail compares to the Day Designer and other planners on the market.

Buy Purple Trail Planners here

5.Plum Paper

Plum Paper is another great choice for a planner like Day Designer because it is one of my favorite  customizable planners.

You can customize just about everything in your planner, including the:

• interchangeable covers for the coiled planners, the headings on the  pages,
• a wide variety of interior layouts,
• the start month,
• # of months,
• add on sections (I recommend the goalsetting, meal planning and financial sections) and the binding (coiled, disc bound punched or unpunched)

I love that you can get these unpunched so that you can get a pretty binder and really build the planner and sections you need for your current season of life.

Plum Paper also has a wide variety of stickers and coordinating accessories to make it a great Day Designer alternative.

I first used the Plum Paper in 2016 to bullet journal in and it was amazing, I had everything to juggle my life and blog work in one planner. The paper quality is better than the Day Designer in my opinion- it’s smoother and thicker than the Day Designer. 

See my Ultimate Planner Comparison for more about how Plum Paper and the flagship Day Designer compare to each other and other popular planners.

Discount: Email me at tanya{at}momssmallvictories{dot}com to get a discount code of 10% your first purchase of $30 or more. I have to enter your email in their referral system and Plum Paper will send you the coupon code to use. It only works for emails they don’t already have in their system.

Buy Plum Paper Planners here

6.Emily Ley planners

Emily Ley focuses on simplifying your life and schedule and a couple of her planners are like the Day Designer.

2022-2023 Dapperdesk, Cognac
from: Simplified by Emily Ley

The Dapperdesk by Emily Ley is a good Day Designer alternative because it has a minimalist black and white layout, gorgeous, professional solid colored vegan leather covers, a book bound binding and a day on one page layout that includes space for your schedule, to do list and a large notes space

In addition, even Saturday and Sunday have their own daily planning page (whereas in the Day Designer the weekends share one page). There are more notes pages in the Dapperdesk where you can write in your goals but no dedicated goalsetting worksheets.

See how the Dapperdesk compares to the Day Designer in my Ultimate Planner Comparison.

The daily Simplified Planner  has the same minimalist layout on the daily pages as the Dapperdesk except the Simplified Planner has pops of bright, happy colors on the day/date and the monthly tabs and Saturday and Sunday share a page.

In addition, the Simplfiied Planner has prep work pages to:

• Reevaluate and set your weekly routine
• Create a Bucket list
• Do a 30 step simplicity challenge with small tasks to simplify your life

Like the Day Designer flagship planners, the Simplified Planners have beautifully designed floral and patterned covers with gold accents.

There are no dedicated goal setting worksheets in the Simplified Planner but there are 4 notes pages in the back or space in the margin of the monthly calendar where you can write goals in.

You can see my detailed daily Simplified Planner review and a further comparison of Day Designer vs Simplified Planner, what makes them unique and who each planner is good for in my daily Simplified Planner review.

These planners sell out and do not restock until the next planner launch so get yours now if this is the planner you want.

Buy the Simplified Planner here

Get $10 off your first order here

7.Go Getter Girl

The Go Getter Girl 5 in 1 Planner is a great planner like Day Designer because it has a black and white minimalist layout with 6 months of dated daily spreads, vision boards and “personal development” life coaching pages. The dated one page per day planning pages include:

• schedule from 5am to 9 pm with lines for half hour increments
• intentions
• grateful
• a blank box for post it affirmations or extra lists.
• work to do list
• personal to do list
• focusing on me

In addition, the Go Getter Girl planner has 125 GSM paper which is a higher quality paper. The daily planner has full planning pages for Satudays and Sundays and has weekly planning pages as well. There are 17+ pages for notes.

Buy the Go Getter Girl 5 in 1 Planner here

8. Ivory Paper Co

The Ivory Paper Co’s All in One Planer is a planner like Day Designer because it has beautiful professional looking covers, black and white minimalist daily weekday planning pages and shared weekend planning pages.

The daily weekday planning pages include sections for:

• due
• gratitude
• to do list
• schedule from 6am to 10pm
• meals
• water tracker

In addition, the All in One planner is customizable for start month, planner length (6, 7 or 8 months) and personalization on the cover. There are also weekly planning pages and a reading wish list.

Buy the Ivory Paper Co’s All in One Planner here

Those are my 8 recommendations for planners like the Day Designer that provide you the same professional looking outside and minimalist inside daily planner to design a life you love. Give one of these a try or leave me a comment if you need help deciding! There’s a lot of goodness to choose from and I want you to love whichever planner your choose.

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