Somehow, no matter where my planning path takes me, I always manage to come back to the classic hardbound planner like the Leuchtturm1917 A5 planner. It really does have all the parts and pieces needed to plan out my schedule, take notes and basically stay on top of things. And it does all this in a relatively small package without sacrificing writing real estate.
Just to give a bit of size comparison, I sandwiched the Leuchtturm 1917 between my personal-sized Filofax Original in dark aqua and my A5-sized Finsbury in aqua (thanks to MJ for this beauty!) The paper size of the Leuchtturm 1917 planner is exactly the same as the A5 Filofax but it takes up considerably less space.
From the side, the Leuchtturm 1917 is also much slimmer but you get the idea. If one of your goals for 2016 is to trim down your daily carry, the Leuchtturm 1917 planner may be the first item on your wishlist.
Now, back to the details of the planner —
The Luechtturm1917 planner features the same soft ivory paper as regular Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks and all the printing is in a light, warm grey that is subtle and not distracting at all. It makes for a very clean looking planner.
The book features two grosgrain ribbon bookmarks with (JOY!) sealed ends. One marker is solid and the other is striped. I think the grey-and-teal striped marker is fabulous!
Inside the Leuchtturm 1917 Planner is year-at-a-glance calendars for 2015, 2016 and 2017 which makes it easy to reference for forward planning. The year-at-a-glance include week numbers. Next is a month-at-a-glance laid out vertically and include the moon phases. Each page had three months on it for a total of four pages of month-at-a-glance. Then comes a two-page spread of international holidays for 2016. Only the dates are listed, not the actual holiday, so if you don’t know why July 5 and 6 are holidays in the Czech Republic, you can make something up.
Then there is a project planning section. I did a little googling to try to figure out how this section would be used. Say you are having the roof repaired on your house and the contractor says it’ll take two weeks and they will start the first week of April, you’d write roof repair in the first box and then at the first week of April draw a line or dot or “x” then another in the second box under April. Then you could plan your mother-in-law’s visit after those two weeks. I’m not sure how useful these pages would be for me as I’m more inclined to use a month-at-a-glance calendar for these sorts of activities but it seems interesting.
Then comes the meat of the planner — the week-on-one-page plus notes layout that occupies the majority of the book. Saturday and Sunday share the bottom box which I’m not thrilled with but the full page for notes would provide any additional space I might need for weekend tasks, projects or events. At the bottom of each page is the week number again and the holidays are marked by country abbreviations. The moon phases are also shown in the weekly pages.
At the end of the book are 20 blank pages: 10 pages have perforation to make them easy to tear out. In the back in a bright white writing board with grid on one side and lines on the other in a dark black to act as a guide sheet with the blank pages. Also included is a set of stickers for labelling the spine and cover of your planner and a small cahier address book that can be tucked into the back gusseted pocket.
I did some rigorous pen testing and found that most fine nibbed fountain pens and felt tips worked well on the paper. Of course, ballpoint and gel pens performed exceedingly well. Since the paper is slightly ivory, the yellow mildliner was too light to be much use but traditional yellow highlighters and other colors of mildliners should work just fine.
From the reverse of the pen tests you can see a little bit of show through with the Franklin Christoph medium italic and the Pilot Varsity with standard medium nib. I also got a bit of show through from the TWSBI Mini with Callifolio Oliphants but I think that’s the ink more than the pen itself.
The book I received is called “Emerald” but its more of a teal, blue-green. I think the color is magnificent. While I believe that the emerald green color is the absolute best color option, Leuchtturm 1917 has provided eight other colors to choose from for their planners including a classic navy, black and grey as well as radiant shades of lemon, berry, orange, azure blue and purple if emerald green ain’t your thing. The A5 size planner is available from Goulet Pens for $19.95 per book.
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Goulet Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
I like their tag line, “Details make all the Difference”. So true. Great review.
I’ve got mine in the lemon color, which is very lemony indeed! This will be my first year using the Leuchtturm 1917 planner notebook, and I’m pretty sure I bought it after your wrote about it earlier this year or last year. Paging through it, it looks like exactly what I need.
I’m always interested to know how other people use the monthly planning pages in conjunction with the daily pages. Do you ever put the same events in both sections? Are there things that only go in the monthly pages? I feel good about my daily planning but I’ve never gotten a good handle on how to do more long-term planning.
Thanks, as always, for your wonderful blog. It’s a must-read for me every day.
The yellow sounds so sunny and lovely!
I use monthly pages for events (like a craft show, festival, etc) and birthdays. I like to put all the birthdays and milestones in on the monthly pages at the beginning of the year and then month-by-month add them to the weekly pages. I find it easier to look on a monthly calendar to see that a birthday is two weeks away (need to buy a card!) and add that note to my weekly page. Also, I love filling in holidays and trips to the monthly. The daily/weekly pages will have the actual travel info like flight times, reservation numbers etc.
It is impossible not to smle looking at the lemon cover! That sounds like a great way to use the monthly pages, and something I could definitely adapt. Thanks for the peek into your process.
What a classy notebook! I don’t prefer hardcover planners, but I’m beginning to really appreciate the Leuchtturm style.
I really want to try one of their notebooks but, they are more costly than Rhodia and Clairefontaine.
I used the same layout, but a Moleskine planner the past few years, and I love the layout with the week on the left, and a blank (or grid or lined) page on the right for lists and notes. I’ve been using an A5 Filofax for school and work, since my little personal filofax did not have enough room. Now I am tempted to try the Leuchtturm planner!
I have a question and I hope you are still reading comments from older posts.
I planned on buying a decent planner for 2016. I do not want one of these over the top Erin Condren-type things that has stickers, ribbons and all of that other frivolous nonsense, nor do I want one a cheap planner you see sold everywhere in stores. For 2015, I ordered a Rhodia Planner from Fahrneys Pens and while it had better paper, it did not have enough functionality for me. Thanks to your review, I am going to purchase my first Leuchtturn Planner.
My question is the lovely fountain pen you are displaying in some of the photos. What pen is that? That pen did not come with the planner or you would have mentioned it.
I’ve never used a fountain pen in any of my planners due to the cheapness of the paper.
Thank You.
Thanks so much for commenting. The pen I showed is the TWSBI Diamond 580 in Christmas Green. People pronounce the company name “twizbee” — I don’t know if that’s correct but I like how it sounds. My green pen was a special edition color last Christmas but there are many other options both in color and size available in the TWSBI line currently. Best of luck in your planner adventures next year!