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Review :: Erin Condren Life Planner 2015

Erin Condren Life Planner Review

Ah yes…it’s that wonderful time of the year again! My body’s getting used to what it feels like to not be lesson planning at 11:30 at night…the smells of sunscreen permeates my house…my daily wardrobe consists of yoga pants and tee shirts…and THE NEW ERIN CONDREN PLANNERS HAVE LAUNCHED! I don’t necessarily love having to snap back to reality for a few days to think about the upcoming school year, but I’m willing to for this!! This will be my 4th year now of getting one of these little pieces of heaven. You can read about my past experiences in 2012, 2013, and 2014. I just placed my order for a new one yesterday and cannot WAIT until it gets to me! Here are some thoughts about this year’s new edition.

Pros:

  • The biggest thing you’ll see on Erin’s site talks about the new layout options for the planner. In the past, they’ve only had the vertical layout for each week. Days across the top, time down the side. While this is always the best layout for how I use my book for work, I totally understand the appeal of having a horizontal option as well. If I was using this as an academic planner for high school or college, this would definitely be my layout of choice! Here are the layouts side by side:

Erin Condren Life Planner Review

Erin Condren Life Planner

  • Same cute, customizable covers with words and pictures. This is one of my biggest reasons for loving these planners. I get to look at my super cute daughter’s picture each day on my planner! Here are three of my favorite new designs this year. Also starting last year, the covers are removeable and interchangeable. So, you could change them seasonally, monthly, or, I suppose, to replace that picture of you and your ex after a bad breakup!:

Erin Condren Life Planner ReviewErin Condren Life Planner ReviewErin Condren Life PlannerErin Condren Life Planner
– Custom “colorways.” In the past, you had to stick with one or two color combinations for your chosen color or pay a $15 design fee to further customize it. Now, on many of the covers, you can choose any of their colors to create a unique look for your cover. Just look for this: Erin Condren Life Planner Review

If you’re REALLY adventurous, you can even create your own cover from scratch. I opted for this predesigned cover (with a picture added and 2015-2016 School Year as the words), but could definitely see some of my friends making their own!

Erin Condren Life Planner

  • Accessories! If you’re thinking, “You know…I could just buy a cute planner at the store and add a cute picture, and color code everything myself,” I would say, “Sure! Buy can you get all of this stuff too??” It’s almost completely insane how much extra stuff you can get. I personally get the pen holder, photo stickers, and customizable event stickers (set up for institute days, school improvement days, and conference days!). However, I also really liked the snap in to-do list and thought it would be able to replace the pile of sticky notes that accumulate on my desk. However, I forgot to add it to the cart before I ordered….sad face.

Erin Condren Life Planner Review

ACCESSORIES2

  • “Thankful thoughts.” This year, they added a little “thankful thoughts” box each week for both layouts. What a great way to remember to focus on something positive each week!

Erin Condren Life Planner Review

Cons:

  • In the distant past, they’ve offered an “academic” July-July format. Starting last you, you can get Jan-Dec 2016 or pay $5 more to also get the rest of 2015 included. I understand the manufacturing logistics of not offering any start and end month as an option, but think it’s pretty obvious most people are using a July-July format if you’re LAUNCHING YOUR PRODUCT in June. So it does truthfully really irk me I have to pay $5 and then just rip out August-Dec 2016 when I get the book. Come on, guys!

  • Cost. I’m listing this as a con because it’s the most common complaint I hear and yes, I do feel a bit of sticker shock each time I order. However, let me justify it to you this way: I work 185 school days and probably spend 10-15 minutes per day using my planner or smiling at my daughter’s picture. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been having a really crummy stressful day and then I brush a few papers off and see her smiling at me from that cute, colorful book. That works out to 32 cents per day. 32 cents. 15 minutes of coffee? $3. 15 minutes of a massage? $15. 15 minutes in a car? $1.50. 32 cents is pretty darn cheap! Do yourself a favor and just get one 🙂 Once it arrives at your door, you won’t look back!

  • Shipping time. So, the nature of custom items is that they do take longer to manufacture. That being said, the website will always tell you an approximate ship date for your products. This year, mine was within a week! (It could have been because I was ordering 5 minutes after they launched….ehm…no I don’t have a problem!) However, there have been years in the past when I’ve had to wait several weeks. Therefore, don’t wait until 2 weeks before school starts back up and expect to have it for the first day of school. Just go ahead and order as soon as you can and enjoy filling it out whenever you start to feel the “back to school blues!”

  • There’s been some talk of customers experiencing some credit card fraud after purchasing from Erin Condren. I have personally never had this problem, but some customers swear “I’ve only used this card for Erin Condren and now have some unauthorized purchases.” Their customer services reps have been constantly talking on Facebook about their security and who industry-standard audits have shown their site to be secure. They did add Paypal as a checkout option this year, so you could always take advantage of that to be sure until more of this gets figured out.

To get a coupon to save $10 on the new Life Planner, add your e-mail address here:

I promise this is all I will use it for – I won’t sell it, or give it away, or anything else nasty like that! You get a coupon – I get a coupon and we both win!

Note: All pictures in this post are from Erin Condren.

Erin Condren Life Planner Review

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Review :: Julia Cook Books

One of my favorite authors for social-emotional learning is Julia Cook. She has a book for almost every single type of behavior or situation I encounter as a school social worker and they’re great for on-the-go lesson planning when I’m scrambling to make time to plan. Best of all, my students love the books and actually pay attention while we’re reading and talking about them. What’s not to love? Here are a few of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have any favorite books for teaching social-emotional skills?

Disclaimer: I didn’t receive any compensation for reviewing these books. I just own all of them and love using them with my students! However, the links in this post are Amazon Affiliate links, so if you buy them from Amazon through these links, I get a little extra money to help pay for the blog/hosting/etc!

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Review :: Erin Condren Life Planner 2014

Erin Condren Life Planner

For the last 2 years, my days have been a little more organized and colorful thanks to my lovely planners that I have purchased from ErinCondren.com. I’ll admit that I didn’t order one a little after midnight the day they came out like I did last year. However, I will be just as excited to receive that decorated box on my doorstep this year! It’s always hard to justify spending so much on a planner, but each year I think about the total minutes I spend each day looking at it (probably 15-30 which works out to about 70 hours per year, or almost 3 days of my life!) and know that it’s worth it!

Here’s a round-up on my loves and wishes of my EC Planner

Loves:

  • Interchangeable covers. While I only ordered one, the ability to change the cover during the year could be really helpful. For example, I have an adorable 3-month old baby at home and I’m sure I’ll get some cute pictures of her this year that I might not to wait until next year to feature. The ability to may a little bit of money and update my cover partway through the year is pretty awesome!
  • Repositionable stickers. I hate when an appointment gets changed and I have to veeerrrrry carefully and verrrry slowly peel off a sticker and hope I don’t rip the page to little pieces. The fact that the stickers this year can easily be moved from one day to another makes me very happy! And like last year, you can personalize the stickers for institute days, school improvement days, parent-teacher conferences, etc.!

Erin Condren Life Planner

  • “Forget Me Not” Perpetual Calendar for birthdays and anniversaries. While I do have to say that the couple of hours I spend rewriting birthdays and such in my new planner is very fun, it is nice to be able to spend that time playing with my baby instead 🙂

Erin Condren Life Planner

  • The usual adorableness that comes with EC products. Here’s a glimpse of some of the insides:

Erin Condren Life Planner

My Wishes for Next Year:

  • More “circle sticker” choices. You can upload your own images, but I’d love if they had more pre-made images for holidays to choose from. This was a wish of mine from last year and I hope it eventually happens!!

circle stickers

  • Ability to personalize ALL the rectangle stickers. While it is faster (for me and probably for them too!) to have some of them with specific events already made up (sale!, no work!, doctor appt., party!, etc.), it’d really be nice to do ALL my own. That way, I can color code and not be stuck in the colors they’ve decided for certain types of events (light blue for fun things, red for work). Another repeat wish from last year…maybe it’ll happen.

stickers

  • Taller ruler. The week marking ruler is clear this year, compared to the one from previous years. It gets a lot of use from me and it’s nice that it doesn’t block part of my week. However, like before, it only sticks up from the top of the planner MAYBE 1/2 a cm. It’d be really nice if it stuck up a little more so I could more easily find the current week!

Erin Condren Life Planner

  • No August-August calendar? This was ALMOST a deal breaker for me. Sure, I could pay $5 extra for the remaining months of 2014 in addition to all of 2015, but seriously guys. A majority of your audience is school people. Why the heck would you not allow an August to August option!? I understand the production difficulties of allowing people to choose any start month, but August seems like a very common one to offer. This year, I will basically throw out August through December 2015 as soon as I got the planner so I didn’t have to lug around all that extra weight all year. This was majorly disappointing 🙁

I’ll update this post as soon as I get mine in the mail (hopefully in the next week!) Want a planner? Click any of the images in this post, sign up for an account, and get an e-mail coupon for $10 off your first order!!

A final note: All of the pictures on this post are from the Erin Condren site. None of them are mine!