Planner Thunderdome 2023: The Clever Fox Planner

I was going to do this as one post with all five planners that I bought to flip through, but I took a lot of pictures and I still can’t really get that album carousel thing to work right so I’ll just do one post per planner, and maybe a wrap-up at the end. Yay, planner nerds! Everyone else can sit this one out!

Ah, crappity, do these pictures look blurry to you? They looked fine in the viewfinder of the camera as I was taking them, but now they look a little out of focus. I do have an eye appointment coming up so hopefully it’s just me, and these aren’t actually blurry, as if it was my first day using a camera and I’ve never had to focus anything. Sigh.

OK, here we go. Let’s start with the Clever Fox Planner, 2nd Edition, Non-dated Weekly Planner. It’s an A5, it comes with an instruction page that is written in such a tiny font that were I the type of person who needed a lesson on how to use a planner, I’d probably have to scan it in and enlarge it in order to read it. It also comes with a gajillion stickers, most of which I would probably never use.

Gratitude and Self-Awareness, and My Daily Rituals. You know what? I don’t want this in a planner. In a journal, sure; but not in a day planner I want to use primarily for work. I generally keep my planners so I can go on a hunt for something I wrote down seven years ago and meant to bookmark but didn’t, and I don’t want to be seeing a bunch of “oh I’m so happy for sunrises and kittens” when I’m flipping through things. I don’t need to be reminded of things I wanted and didn’t get, or things I wanted then but don’t want now, or things I wanted and got and wow did they ever turn out to not be what I wanted, actually.

I would probably have used a vision board when I was in my late teens, early twenties; but now? If I want to envision it, I move towards it. I don’t spend time daydreaming and putting a collage together about it to inspire me. Just wanting it is enough, thank you, I’ll head in that direction without cutting up a bunch of magazines. Do magazines still exist, even? And who needs a vision board when you have Pinterest?

Goals in eight different life areas? I would never, ever use this. Especially this year. I just want people to not die this year, and for me to actually be able to get some work done. Those are my goals.

My focus? How is a focus different than a goal? Are the five goals here supposed to be five of the eight goals on the previous page? Or five new goals? This is confusing and I don’t like it.

Important dates; yes. Under these, I would probably list the things I wanted to bring out for HaldeCraft in that particular month, or big things I had planned like a craft show or an open house (remember when I used to do open houses?!).

Goals? AGAIN? How many goals am I supposed to have? Wins? Well, if nobody died and I made a thing, that’s a win. How I’ll improve next month? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? And that stuff on the side – skills to learn? Things to avoid? I would never use those.

The days of the week are OK, I do want a weekly planner, not a daily one. But there’s not enough room for notes, I don’t understand why there’s a personal to-do list but not a work one (why not just put “to-do list”?). I’m sorry, wait, what? My main goal, and my reward if I achieve it? What am I, five? Am I bribing myself with a coloring book? This week’s wins and how I’ll improve? I’d never use those. Or I’d use them about once every six months. Other than that, most of the stuff on this page could be taken up by more room for notes.

Clearly this is not the planner for me. Which is too bad, because I really, really wanted to like something with the name Clever Fox!

Pros: I like the cover. I like the name. The paper feels good. I do like the section for “important dates,” even though I wouldn’t be using it as probably intended (to remember people’s birthdays) – but it would make a great place to plan out what I want to do in each month for work.

Cons: I’d never use most of it, and would either get frustrated at the lack of space for weekly notes, or would tape dot-grid or graph paper over all the pages and parts of pages that I wouldn’t use, and that would make the planner explodey.

Whelp. Stay tuned for Planner #2….