The Perfect Notebook and a Task Manager

This is a great planner. I had one before and am reviewing this after having bought another one.This is the ideal organizer for someone like me (and most of my coworkers and friends) who needs an organizer planner, but whose daily calendar is maintained in Outlook/Google. This is a perfect self-planner to supplement a calendar that (like it or not) is going to be inside an IT system and phone. The lined pages and (my favorite) dot pages --which Amazon doesn't sell but their website does-- let me replace carrying a notebook into meetings.The quality of the paper is really good (great for those of us who use pencil and erase) and I love how it divides the tasking sections into priorities, along with a back burner section for the future, plus a "people to call" section. The personal goals a "Big Blocks" system is a really good idea, though I have to confess to only using about 5% of its potential (though I really like it in principle).The cover is an exercise in trade-offs: It's fairly durable, but not that tough, though it's light enough to make it easy to carry in/out of meetings and to not add weight or bulk to take up space in bags, easily sliding in with a laptop and/or iPad.The biggest negative (fixable?) is that key items, such as the dated calendar planning pages, the extra refills, the dot pages, and more aren't available on Amazon at this time and their direct site charges astronomical shipping prices. Oh well.Most of the negative comments seem to stem from lousy handling by shippers, odd users, or people who (wrongly) think this is a YouTube comments section (not helpful). It is what it is: Just a planner. At the same time, they have a point that it's not very well packed by Amazon. Mine was fine, but could have easily been mangled by other things in the box.I bought this eons ago when they first released it (Kickstarter, I think?) and am now buying another one. I rarely write Amazon reviews, but when I saw that clowns had rated this so low I decided to chime in and hope it was helpful.

About me: Senior Mgmt role, ~12 hr workdays, 8-9 meeting a day, tried many planners, used for 3 weeksPros:-daily action tracking with intuitive prioritization (3 levels)-can wait for tomorrow, useful-parking lot, useful-sturdy notebook, paper, no issues with paper falling out or getting snagged, folds completely-like not having an hourly calendar, - I use outlook and find these in planners are wasted space-add paper where neededOpportunities for improvement:-still grab for my weekly view calendar to add due dates at a glance for the week (have both open on desk)-prefer dated notebooks with calendars at a glance in corner of page-people to call is repurposed daily, not usefulStill assessing:Big Blocks system- I built the notebook in 2 week increments. First personal dashboard, daily page, blank paper, and so on for 2 weeks and then reflect page. The reflection page has 2 on 1 so you have to waste pages.Also, I doubt I will use the big blocks- I just can’t see myself going back and crossing items out, but will try next round.

I think for $34 a planner that comes without an at-a-glance calendar is a bit silly. I checked the website and monthly and weekly calendars come separate for $9 a pop. So for a full system that wouldn't require carrying a separate calendar notebook would cost around $55. I tried to look online to see if there were other brands of calendar refills but every other discbound system uses 8 or 11 rings, not 10 like the Perfect Notebook.I think the goal pages are useful and breaking down priorities is helpful, but all in all the lack of a calendar renders this system pretty useless in my opinion. I, like another reviewer, think at the very least the book should be set up in the recommended method as I had to spend time coallating and putting the notebook together before realizing it wouldn't work as a planner.This is more of a goal setting notebook than a planner. Would not recommend for anyone that wants to have all their planning and goal setting in one place, nor for someone that may want to incorporate other brands of discbound pages.

So I have not yet started to use the perfect notebook, however there are a few things I dislike. First is the cost, $34 for what truly is a notebook is a bit excessive, but I am hoping that it helps enough to be with the cost once I start using the notebook. The note book includes instructions on how to set up and use the notebook, however the pages aren’t in the order of the set up, so you basically need to set up the notebook. Also, in following the setup there actually are enough of the correct specific pages to follow the notebook set up. All in all for $34 for a notebook I would expect it to be set up per the suggested set up and to include the appropriate number of pages to set up as described. It would be nice if the discs were a little larger as the notebook is basically maxed out from the amount of pages from the start. I am hopeful that for planning and once I start using the notebook that I will feel the cost was then justified so I will give it a chance but from my perspective the notebook is really overpriced for what it is.

I have been using the perfect notebook for a couple of week now and the impact it created on my daily schedule exceeded my expectation! It aids in strategizing my daily tasks and targeting the important ones, creating the connection between these tasks and my long-term goals. The perfect notebook touches all aspects of life: professional, relationship, health, wealth and more. I love the fact that it combines professional and personal ‘to-do’ items together and prioritize them based on importance. The perfect notebook is easy to use and a place to track your ‘big blocks’ which are the goals that provide the most value to me. Since day one, I experienced a significant change in efficiency and I feel more productive in general. I get to do tasks that I always put on-hold and they were extremely important to me.Highly recommended!!!