I’m a little bit late in the calendar buying season, but I wanted to get this review out there since I’ve noticed some surprising feedback on the Levenger website where they share customer reviews on the 2013 Circa Planner Pages.

 

I’ve found that the general layout shown above in the Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages works well for my needs.  For the most part I don’t make heavy use of the left hand side with the hourly schedule that goes from 7AM to 7PM.  The majority of what I use this for is if I have something major due or that I need to accomplish by a certain date.

I’ve tried using it to keep track of my meetings for work, but quite frankly between my email calendar and my Blackberry, it just isn’t the best use of my time to try and track things there.  What I do make much heavier use of though is the right hand side that allows me to outline my tasks for the day.  In my junior size version of this, there are 26 blank lines to enter the tasks or accomplishments you need to complete for the day.  There are also an extra  7 lines of text below in a “notes” section.  The top of each hourly page on the left has that months 30 day calendar in a thumbnail.  The opposite facing page has the previous month and next month in thumbnail versions at top.  I find these to be very useful when working off of a set of two pages that are intended to represent only one day.

 

Addressing Some Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages Review Issues from other Users

Now the thing that was most surprising about the reviews for these Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages on the Levenger website was the fact that people were complaining about the paper quality.  The complaints mention poor results with fountain pen ink, problems with erasing pencil, and a fear that the paper wouldn’t hold up to being moved in and out of the Circa rings.  Here are my findings and thoughts on those issues, that can be seen in the above and below scans of my writing samples:

• Fountain Pen Ink.  Using my Sailor Professional Gear Imperial Fountain Pen, with Pelekin Edelstein Ink, I found that writing on the Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages was great.  There was no feathering or skipping, and the nib ran across the page very smoothly.  Flipping the page over showed the very faintest of show through.  Now I know that people that use wider nibs or an ink that might be much darker or wetter could have issues, so this is just my experience with the pen and ink I use on a regular basis.
• Show through with other ink.  Using a Sharpie Pen, I did some writing to see if this would show through a lot since they tend to be a little bit more prone to this, and surprisingly enough I again didn’t get any real noticeable show through.
• Mechanical Pencil and Erasing.  I definitely didn’t have any issues writing on the Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages with a .5mm point in my Uniball Kurutoga.  If you look at the writing sample you can see the scribble mark that I erased a line through.  Because it was a rather solid and large scribble mark, it did take a bit of effort to remove as much of it as I could.  Contrary to the feedback on the website, I did not see any significant removal of the printed page lines.  I did get a very slight and hardly noticeable hint of the paper being removed after some really heavy erasing, but that would probably be the case with most any paper.
• Paper not holding up to being moved in and out of the rings.  Again, I’m not seeing evidence of this.  I also don’t see or have a need to frequently move the pages.  Normally I think my Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages are only moved in and out of the rings about 3-4 times.  As long as this is done carefully and within reason, you shouldn’t have an issue.

If anyone has different experiences with their Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

With all of that said, I’m left to wonder if maybe Levenger saw the complaints and upgraded the quality of the paper after all of the feedback was left?

I do have two of my own minor issues, which I think could make the daily planner pages better.  My first issue is more with the packaging and delivery.  If you order the full year at once, they are packaged by quarter and I found it odd that there was no marking on the cellophane wrap of each quarter to indicate which quarter it was.  There is no way to know for sure without opening the package and looking.  I’m guessing that they order they were stacked in is the correct order, so I wrote on the plastic with a Sharpie to indicate the order they came in, so I’m hoping for the best there.  Update – This did turn out to be the case, they were packed in order.

My other issue is that I would really love if they put those perforated corners on these so that you can rip them off as you go.  This creates a little thumb tab to quickly open up to the current day.  Currently I’m using the plastic page finder, but I’d much prefer the minimalist thumb tabs to help slim down my planner.  This would also help keep it from having anything that sticks out as the page finder does at top.

Anyway, those are my thoughts and findings on the Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages.  If you are looking for some new 2013 Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages, I hope you found this helpful.  I found it a bit counter-intuitive to do a review on these though just because they are pretty much your only option unless you want to print your own and punch them.  Bottom line for me though, I’ll be happy and organized with these Levenger Circa Daily Planner Pages for the next 349 days.