Law School: Planner Review

I just finished my NINTH week of law school (shout out to legal grammar for making me spell out ninth) and I can’t believe it.

I was thinking today about all the stuff I’ve done and all the many, many more things I still have left. The end of semester is looking to be very busy between my final memo, outlining, activity meetings, and keeping up with my day to day readings! How am I going to manage all this? I am honestly not sure, but I know I am going to start with my planner.

I have come to find out that one of the best things you can do for yourself your first semester is start to develop a routine. I am still working on this because I’m not the kind of person who spends my whole weekend studying. I need my days off! But I have started to get into a good routine and I owe it all to my planner for allowing me to see what the next week looks like and plan lunch meetings and in between class homework.

After reading an embarrassing number of blog posts on what the best planner is I decided to take the plunge on the Plum Paper planner. I went with it because I felt like it had the best combination of all my planner desires.

Side note: In undergrad I actually had two planners a few semesters because I loved my Lilly planner for so many reasons, but there were times I was so busy I also needed a daily planner that I could fill in each hour of the day so I used my school’s planner as well.

After using my planner for a few months now I have decided that I am completely in love with it for a couple of reasons which I will mention below. I am also going to go through how you create the planner so that you can get an idea for it.

First. the price is great and let’s be honest there seems to be a large shortage of cash in my law school life, so budget friendly items are KEY. They start at $32 and are still are somewhat customizable at that price. You get to pick your cover and add a monogram or other text at that price.

They also have a TON of layout options. Some of the options vary in price, but most are included in the $32 range. I chose the vertical hourly layout because that is still my favorite way to plan out my day. My roommate picked one of the student layouts that is divided vertically by day and has a box for each class and she really likes that layout. I decided not to use the school ones because I didn’t want to either leave the class spaces blank and fill them in each week or have a whole semester of wrong classes. But it’s your planner so you just need to worry about making it what you want!

After you pick your layout you move to color scheme. Basically, there ar only two options, “neutral” which is black/greys and “colorful” which is basically the rainbow. I went with colorful.

Once you pick your color scheme you can also further customize your layout which I really appreciated. It costs $4, but I would say it is well worth it if you know that you would rather have different labels for some of your boxes. I put my weekly view and how I customized my boxes as well. Something I forgot to mention earlier: I was able to customize my hour range too which I was really excited about!

You can then choose your binding style. This is mainly for if you have your own binder already and just want the insert pages. Neither option adds to the base price.

One of my FAVORITE things about this planner is you get to choose the length (in months) and at which month you start and stop. Since I bought mine this summer, I did a thirteen-month planner so it could last me until next summer when I am *hopefully* working and making money. (crosses fingers) Adding one month is only $2 so I thought it was a worthwhile investment.

Finally, the absolute best thing about the Plum Paper planner is the TONS of inserts you can add. I added a few: (1) monthly blog planning (2) monthly fitness (3) a separate budgeting section for each month at the back of my planner (4) extra meeting notes!

All of these sections do cost money, but they are the parts of the planner that I was most excited about. The planner also has such a good base price that adding doesn’t make it crazy expensive. (I’m looking at you Erin Condren planners).

Overall, this planner has been a life saver. I don’t know where I’d be without it and when I forget it at home, I feel lost all day. It has held up being slung in and out of my backpack and still looks just as beautiful as when I bought it! I put some pictures below for you all to see. I put blank blog, fitness and budget bc you know, privacy.

If you decide to get a Plum Paper Planner & want a 10% discount fill out the contact me form or leave a comment & I will email you a referral code!