I use a variety of digital tools and apps to organize my life. But I love a good paper planner. So when Cultivate What Matters launched its new 2023 Season by Season™ Daily Planner, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to check it out.
I don’t know about you, but this year has been pretty busy. More client assignments and family commitments mean I have to ensure that my days, weeks, and months are organized.
But as life changes, what I need from my planner must change too.
Cultivate What Matters, the company responsible for PowerSheets, now offers the Season by Season™ Daily Planner as an intuitive, flexible tool for living more intentionally. With its streamlined monthly and daily planning pages, this planner (see also ‘Best Productivity Planners‘) is designed to help us make every day count.
But will it? Where does the Season by Season™ Daily Planner succeed? Can it be improved?
In this review, I share what I learned about the 2023 Season by Season™ Daily Planner. Keep reading if you want to know what I discovered.
What is the Season By Season Daily Planner?
Cultivate What Matters is a company that revolves around being intentional about setting and achieving goals.
To help you do this, they sell a wide range of journals, planners, calendar sheets, conversation cards, and inspirational t-shirts.
They even have a “Reading Journal,” where you list the books you’ve read and what you learned.
The aim is to give you a structured way to plan each day and determine your goals to live a more fulfilling year.
One of their newest ways to do this is through the “2023 Season by Season™ Daily Planner” which allows you to do a day-by-day plan for the upcoming year.
However, this one differs because it divides the days into 90-day windows. This 90-day planner is the perfect timeframe because I like to focus on projects and goals quarterly.
What’s to like about the Season By Season Daily Planner?
The 90-day format
I’m excited about the 90-day format. As I start mapping out my goals for the coming year, I plan to use every 90 days as a guide to complete projects.
I know how hard it can be to start a new project. How long will the project take? How will it look at the end? Will there even be an end? Can I finish?
There will always be a lot of doubt when we begin a new goal, which usually stops so many people from finishing or reaching them.
With the Season By Season Daily Planner, the goal-planning process seems less daunting.
Seeing each project neatly divided into tight 90-day windows, with day-by-day mini-goals along the way, will give me a much better visual and work nicely with my Kanban system.
Only time will tell if my projects feel less overwhelming and more manageable.
Seasons
In addition to working well with my visual planning system, the 90-day windows line up with the year’s four seasons. Where possible, I plan to organize my goals around these seasonal periods.
For example, my book launches in 2023 will be spread out quarterly, allowing me to plan activities and promotions around the weather or special events.
Daily planning space
As you know, the planner lets you plan each day by itself, with space for scheduling everything out. One thing I noticed about the Season By Season Daily Planner is how the pages are laid out.
For each Monday-Friday period, each day gets a page. On the left is a column from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., with two lines for each.
This way, you get to plan day by day and hour by hour. Skillfully, it omits most hours that people will be asleep so as not to waste space.
Then, on the right of the page is a series of empty bullet points. This is where you fill out your priorities for the day, the overall goals, and things you need to do.
After that, there are three options: “Tend to my goals,” “Express gratitude,” and “Encourage someone.”
You can tick as many or as few as you want, but it gives you a good suggestion of how to spend your day. Also, you get a good balance throughout the week to live a more well-rounded life.
Finally, there is space for “Today’s Win,” where you can highlight your accomplishments for the day.
Monthly overview
Not only do you have individual days, but there are also some monthly calendar pages.
These allow you to know what your month will be like at a glance. This can make it more manageable and less overwhelming.
Rhythms
Before each of the 90-day windows, there is a space for recording “joyful rhythms.” The idea here is to start each season by taking stock of your best routines so you can cultivate them.
I like this section because it reminds me of the importance of habit tracking. Routines are important for getting through our days with some semblance of order in what can otherwise seem like an unruly world. The idea here is not just about maintaining current habits but also figuring out which ones should be continued into future months so that we feel more prepared.
What could be better about the Season By Season Daily Planner?
Weekends are combined into a single page
Often, our biggest plans fall on the weekends. This is certainly the case with personal and social activities. However, this planner combined Saturday and Sunday into just one page each week.
I understand why they’ve done it – the workweek will be full.
It’s a shame, though, because I would have liked the same amount of space for Saturday and Sunday, allowing me to do an hour-by-hour plan.
Weekends can sometimes be busy, and it would have been a nice way to take control of them.
Limited designs
When you buy the Season By Season Daily Planner, there is only one design and color scheme.
The design in question is a soft beige with neat gold writing, a golden coil, and corner protectors
It’s a very smart and beautiful design, but it would be nice to have some personalization.
Since the PowerSheets, planners come in such pretty, unique designs, it would have been nice to have the same type of selection for the 2023 Season by Season™ Daily Planner.
Verdict
Overall, Cultivate What Matter’s 2023 Season by Season™ Daily Planner looks like a winner.
Although it slips on its weekend pages and lacks design choices, there is still a lot to love.
Its 90-day seasonal windows help to organize your year by projects, while the weekday pages have space to plan.
