Makselife Planner Review
I’m so excited to be sharing my review of the Makselife planner. This is my 2nd year purchasing the Makselife, and I was able to get an early copy as a part of their review crew which is super exciting! I didn’t share the planners much last year I really just used them behind the scenes and got familiar with them. I may share some about last years planners I purchased in the future, since they are a bit different than my pick for this year, but this year I bought the Flagship planner in vertical! It is a 7×9 inch dated weekly planner that is heavily goal focused, which I absolutely love. The new 2023 planners are launching October 20th, 2022, so let’s get into this planner so I can share my Makselife Planner Review!
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For starters, their planners come in this really great keepsake box. It is so sturdy and pretty and perfect for stashing your planner in after the year is up if you are someone who likes to do that!
The planner cover I chose is called “Watercolor Sunrise”. I think it fits the theme of these planners perfectly, as the creator Sierra puts it, a planner that is focused on intentional living through goal setting. My plan is to use this planner for weekly personal planning in the upcoming year so that I can really get focused in on my goals again, which I have struggled with since 2020, anyone else??
Goal Setting Planner
For starters, this book is packed from the beginning with goal setting goodness. They walk you through doing a compass assessment for yourself, setting intentions, annual goals and vision, monthly goals, weekly actions, and then monthly reflections and quarterly reviews. I just love how in depth the goal setting is for this book, while it is still functional for planning, as well.
The compass assessment is a great tool for you to look at all of the areas of your life and see how well each different area is going- this includes personal, fun & recreation, work & learning, family & relationships, health & wellness, spiritual & personal growth, financial, and physical environment. You can score each area of your life so you know where to focus your new goals for the new year.
They walk you through setting goals, commitment, reassessing goals, being intentional, plus how to properly write your goals as actionable things you can do.
They also teach about different types of goals- stretch goals, progress goals, and maintenance goals. Then, there are steps on how to break down your annual goals into monthly and weekly goals.
There’s obviously a space to jot down your annual goals for each area of your life, and then the goal setting flows throughout the planner in the months and weeks wonderfully.
Monthly & Weekly Planning
As we move from initial goal planning into the meat of the planner, we have the monthly planning spread. Here is your place to write down your plans, events, appointments, etc…
Then, immediately following the monthly spread is a place to write out your goals for each area of your life for the month. You can refer back to the front of the book where there are some really great tips on turning your annual goals into smaller chunked goals and how to incorporate those goals into your life.
You have a dot grid notes page and then it goes into your weekly actions. Again, there is information at the beginning about how to break your goals down even further into actionable tasks to do throughout the week and each day.
After the weekly actions you have your weekly layout. As I mentioned, this planner is dated, but there are undated options which I’ll share further down in this post.
Here’s the full overview-
Then, each month has a monthly reflections page, and at the end of each quarter you have a quarterly compass check in.
Again, this is the flagship planner. It is dated, 7×9 inches, includes 12 months, and comes in four different cover options, with the choice of vertical layout or horizontal layout. Here are the cover options for the flagship-
Undated Quarterly Daily Planners
You can also choose an undated daily planner from Makselife that features all of this goal setting in an undated book filled with 3 months worth of daily planning pages. This planner is smaller, A5 size. You also have some cover color choices, which are-
I love this daily version (I ordered it last year) but I am just a Daily Duo user for life, so it won out in the end. But, if you prefer the Makselife style and concept, their daily planners are great.
You can also get their quarterly and daily undated pages in inserts for your A5 ring bound planner!
Just the Goals, please!
If you are interested in just having the goal setting goodness of this planner to use along with your own other planner you enjoy for planning, they have the goal-setting companion notebook set. It is a set of 4 notebooks, one for each quarter, they are undated, A5 size, and have the same leatherette feel to their cover as the other planners.
Also available is the Daily Intentions Notebook and the Evening Reflections Notebook.
Then, there are regular notebooks, undated weekly planners, and lots of accessories like some really beautiful matching markers, stencils, and more. You can see the full collection over on their website, which also includes a whole slew of digital versions of these products for digital planners! I do plan to review those coming up as well, so keep an eye out for that! Let’s take just a final minute to chat about product quality for these planners because I know when you are purchasing a planner to use for 12 months, that is super important.
Quality
Cover– I feel like the cover on this year’s planner I purchased is great. My planners last year had the leatherette covers, they were undated. Both of these styles are harder covers, but they can get bent or get indentations, so something to consider if you are planning to toss your planner into a bag, or if it will really bother you if your planner cover has imperfections, haha. My tabs do stick out just slightly past the cover, and I worry those would get bent in a bag, as well, but I plan to keep mine on my desk, so it will be fine. Just something to consider.
Print Quality– Their print quality is top notch. Some of the best I’ve seen in planners and my photos on my old camera do not do it justice.
Paper Thickness– I’m not sure the exact thickness of the paper, but it is a nice, thick paper that will hold up to a lot of writing utensils.
One thing I do want to say about Makselife is that they are so open to feedback about their products, correcting anything wrong and even making changes to products that just don’t stand up to the quality they expect, which is definitely appreciated. I am so excited to be using and sharing my Makselife planner this year, as it will definitely hold a spot in my 2023 lineup!
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You might also like these other planner reviews-
Erin Condren Deluxe Monthly Planner Review
Can’t wait to see all the free printables!
I need all the help I can get – only income is Social Security, so unable to purchase any thing. I have a small desk so the A5 is perfect