I’ve been craving some change in my planner set up. Not to say that the A5 wasn’t working perfectly fine (surprisingly!) but it’s just one of those times when you know you want a change. I’ve wanting to go back to a Personal size for a while, but downsizing suddenly was a worry. So I thought I should switch to a DPP diary format, instead of the weekly I’m currently using. While I’ve always been an ardent fan of Filofax, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to order a Franklin Covey planner. I’ve always been fascinated about the size of compact pages (the same ring spacing as the FF personal), so this was my chance to go the Franklin way.

I got the Boston leather binder in compact on sale and went ahead and ordered it. Along with DPP inserts, plastic inserts, note pad and something called a started pack. I’ve started using it, but haven’t completely moved in. I may do another post on my set up soon.

Here are some pictures to start my journey….

Franklin Covey Binder - Boston in Compact

The leather is soft to the touch and the ring size is 1 inch (25mm) but doesn’t seem too big. The buckle is brass and adds a nice touch. The interest part about the ring mechanism is that the tabs at the end can be used not only to open but also to close the rings. So no snappy and getting your finger caught in between (done that plenty of times with the FF!). The binder didn’t seem to lay flat out of the box, but once I loaded up the inserts, it is fine.

 FC Monticello DPPI got the Monticello DPP format because of the simplistic design which gives the lay out more writing space. Look how fat the set is, despite it being DPP (not Do2P). It has a tabbed monthly pages, which is great for planning ahead since you can’t keep the whole diary in the binder. The monthly tabbed pages are made of heavier almost card stock paper. The lay out is simple, with a monthly task list and index covering the back pages. The pages themselves have the well known FC layout with a column for tasks, a column for appointments and a block for notes. The paper is much thicker than Filofax paper and doesn’t bleed and dark ink pens don’t show through.

FC Monticello DPP lay out

 I also got the value pack of plastic accessories which contains card holders, plastic pouches and a zipper pouch (which doesn’t zip very well unfortunately). The most interesting thing is the starter pack. The starter pack contains a guide to using the planner, how to set up goals, basic info, address pages and a few other things, all divided by small tabs.

FC Starter Pack Contents

FC Pouch Page Finder and Compass Cards

The interesting item that comes with the starter pack is Pouch Pagefinder with Weekly Compass Cards. The Compass cards fit into pouch of the page finder. The Compass cards basically lets you list what your want to do in your role every week. And the back is for notes. I still haven’t gone through the instructions to understand how to use this fully. But the concept fascinated me. May be I’ll do a post on this starter pack.

I am excited about this experiment. In a few days I’ll know if it’s working or not. Now let me get settled in….

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