Franklin Covey Monarch Planner - Should you buy it?

 

 

[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]

 

Hello my friends, I hope you're doing well. I'm so excited because in this video, I will be reviewing Monarch size planners. This video will be helpful if you're trying to figure out which size planner that you want to get and if you're wondering if a larger size planner will work for you. I'm going to review a Monarch size Wire-Bound cover, a Monarch size Ring-Bound cover, a Monarch size Wire-Bound planner and a Monarch size Ring-Bound planner which I'm going to show you a moment when I open this up. 

 

So, the names of these products that I have here is called “The Brighton” and it's a simulated leather zipper Wire-Bound cover. And I will also be reviewing the Monarch compass weekly Wire-Bound planner and I am going to show the Monarch Franklin Covey Basics Spacemaker vinyl zipper binder in the color burgundy and I will be reviewing the Monarch original weekly Ring-Bound planner that you see here. 

 

If you're new here hello, my name is Tonya and I make videos on functional and practical planning. If being organized and productive is something that interests you, please be sure to hit the like and subscribe button. 

 

Now my first impressions of the Monarch binder is that it is truly Monarch. It is huge. It is big. Compared to my classic size binders it is very much big. So here is a classic size Wire-Bound planner that I sell in my shop. And as you can see here, there is a huge difference in space that is taken up by this other Wire-Bound cover. 

 

So, let's talk about who would benefit from a large size planner. So, if you're the type of person that wants to use a regular sheet of paper in the United States, a normal sized sheet of paper looks like this; is eight and a half by 11 inches. Now if you want a planner that is this size with Franklin Covey, you will have to get what's called the Monarch size. The Monarch size is for people that need to take a lot of notes and that need a lot of page real estate. The Monarch size is also for people that will leave their planner stationary on a desk. This is not the size that in my opinion you would want to use if you're going to port it everywhere or take it everywhere with you.

 

I think the Monarch size is a great size for students because students that are in college or in some places, they call it University. A lot of times students that need an academic planner, they get the larger size because they get regular size sheets of paper. So, they'll get a syllabus or assignments that are on a regular size sheet of paper. And with that, you can just simply put that paper in your planner and have it with you. You wouldn't have to worry about taking a piece of paper and folding it in half in order to fit into your classic size binder or your compact size binder or your pocket size binder. Pocket size is really small. 

 

 

When it comes to portability, let me show you how that would look. So, I have here one of my tote bags. So, I'm going to just place- this in a large regular size tote bag that the average woman would carry. If you put the Monarch size in this tote bag, it looks like this. So, it fits in. Its briefcase size. In my opinion, it will fit a case that would carry a laptop, but it could be heavy to carry this and a laptop together by the way. So, this is how it would look in a normal size tote bag.

 

Now I purchased these items. This was the first time that I've ever received a Monarch size cover. And I must tell you that I was surprised by the size of it. I was expecting it to be a little bit smaller, more similar to this size, like a regular sized sheet of paper. But I understand why it had to be made wide; because it needed to accommodate clearance for the zipper, for the pockets, to be able to open and close it comfortably. I get all that. And to be able to house a regular sheet of paper and pen loops and you don't want the paper hitting against your pen loop. So, I understand why the covers were made a little bit wide; it is quite a size to deal with. 

 

Another type of person that will be interested in a Monarch size planner is if you're like me, the older I get the more I have trouble with my eyesight. So, I was interested in seeing a Monarch size planner because I thought I would have a larger font and more real estate to write on in the planner and everything would just be larger and it will make it easier on my eyes. So that is part of the reason why I decided to try out the larger Monarch size planner.  

 

Hey guys, I was editing this video and realized that I didn't complete my thoughts on the font size. So, if you're looking to get the Monarch size because of the larger font, you're making an assumption that the font will be larger. This is the binder from my shop which has seven rings, it fits Franklin planner inserts. And let's quickly compare the font.

 

So, this is the original classic size planner. And it's the daily format because I can't for the life of me find my weekly one right now. But as you can see the font is bigger, but it's not that much bigger. So don't bother Monarch because you are assuming that the font is going to be huge; it's not. The font is larger than the classic size, but not that big, as you can see here. But this planner is definitely in my opinion not made for portability. And I think that you will be disappointed really quickly. If you buy this planner thinking that “Oh, it'll be okay, I can take it with me back and forth here and there”. If you're a person that travels a lot for your job. 

 

Now I think going back and forth to college is fine with this because you may already have books anyway, while a lot of books are electronic these days. But you may already have books anyway, this will just kind of just fit in with all the other books that you carry.

 

If you own the Monarch size, can you please leave a message in the comments and let us know how you use the Monarch size and if you like it because a lot of times people read the comments underneath these videos, and you guys sometimes leave the most insightful information. So please feel free to leave a comment. You can leave a comment anyway but especially if you own the size planner, I would love to know what you think. 

 

So again, this cover is called The Brighton and it is a grayish color and it has the gray contrast which looks very handsome. I like the way this cover feels. And let me show you up close so you can see the texture of it. The cover feels good in the hand. And as you can see here the spine is stitched. This is a zippered cover. So with the zippered cover, a lot of people like to get covers that are zipper because they feel that their things won't fall out. Honestly, with zipper covers and non-zipper covers. I've never had a problem with covers that aren't zip with anything falling out. But I understand you know, different people have their different preferences. 

 

Now with The Brighton cover, you get two pen loops, they are elasticized on the back so that they can hold big and small ink pens. And with The Brighton cover you have several card slots here, place to put documents and receipts you have two pockets for that. And you have a pocket here where you can slip a spool sheet of paper down the side. So, if I was to put this piece of paper in, I could slide it in like that. And also, you have a pocket that goes this way. So, if you want you can carry two books in the planner, one on this side of the flap and one on this side. 

 

I'm just going to show you the back of the cover. And the back of the cover here again is a place where you can put documents. It was a pocket like that. And of course, there is a pocket going this way that can hold your planner. This is again a Wire-Bound cover meaning there are no rings in this cover. Let's compare this is a Ring-Bound cover and this is a Wire-Bound cover. Notice the footprint is slimmer on this one because it doesn't have to accommodate rings. So, let's take a look at the Wire-Bound planner inside. This has the double Wire-Bound as you can see here, this cover is like a frosted plastic cover here. 

 

Now this planner is called “The Compass” is a weekly planner. And this cover is a harder cardstock you have an information page here, this page is a little bit of a harder cardstock. You have three years of annual calendars here. Yeah, the Franklin planner quit start to die. And then you get into the planner itself. So, you start with a monthly index page a month spread across two pages. Wow, this is a lot of room. To give you an idea of how big of space you have to write this is one and a half inches. And I like that this is a neutral palette. I liked it there are lines so it can help keep your handwriting straight. There are holidays on this planner, this happens to be a Canadian holiday that I'm showing here. And there are moon phases on this planner, I think that it is suitable for both men and women. 

 

Next on the back, you have a master task list that's divided into personal and business sections and then it starts again. So, all of your monthly pages are in the beginning, your tabs are laminated. And it also comes with this cute little page finder. So, the page finder looks like this and it has these L-shaped arms on them. So, you want to be gentle with these when you use these in your Wire-Bound planner. So, if you want to mark your page, you can use this to mark your page and you can move it throughout your planner. So, after all your monthly pages here you have a whole page for notes and then start your weekly spreads. So, the weekly spread starts within Monday. 

 

By the way if I didn't mention these calendars start with a Sunday date. So, this is how your weekly spread look. You have two months of power. There's at the top here you have the current month and the next month, it tells you what week you're on. It has the dates of the week that this spans across here. This is Monday, Tuesday, so on and so forth Saturday and Sunday share a column, the planner goes from 7am to 8pm. At the bottom, you have sections where you can write in your daily tasks. And over here at the end, because Saturday and Sunday share a column called “weekend tasks”. And also, it comes with quotes at the top of each week. The weight of the paper feels pretty good. I'm not sure what the weight of this paper is, but it doesn't feel too thin and it doesn't feel too thick. 

 

So, flipping through to the end of this planner, you get future planning pages that go all the way out to 2026. You get a page that shows the upcoming holidays and observances. You have about six blank planner pages here that you can write notes on. Then you have a page with weights and measurements, kitchen measurements, conversion table, the world map and time zones. You have medical record information here. You have name and address information like a little telephone directory here. And you have seven pages front and back of these and that's the end of the planner. 

 

So now let's quickly go over the other planner here. Now this planner is called a Spacemaker. I'm not quite sure why they call it a Spacemaker. If you compare it to Brighton it is actually taller. I think they call it Spacemaker. Maybe because they made the sides like this. I'm not sure so but this cover honestly, I'm not a fan of how the material feels it feels very vinyl. And I think it did say in the description that it was vinyl. I'm also not really a fan of how the zipper kind of pucker's out around here. It just doesn't look like it's a premium mate. This zipper does not do that this zipper kind of goes in like that. And it just looks like it's a better quality than this one. 

 

So, let's open this up. The pen loop is not elasticized. And this cover as you can see there, and it has several card slots. This binder feels economic. It does not feel as good as this one in my opinion, but I bought it because the price was right. So, you have a flap here where you can I guess put in certain things. This card slot part you can stick your whole hand under here and on the back cover it has a high pocket so you can slip in a notepad with this cover. And again, notice how this material shows the indent. This binder came with a one page lifter. And honestly, I'm surprised about the page lifter. It looks generic and normally the Franklin Covey name is embossed on the page lifters but this one it is not.

 

The thing you need to know about the Monarch size Ring-Bound planner is you get seven rings.

 

So what I'm going to show you is that I got this from my daughter's room. This is a piece of paper that of course people in school and college typically use to take notes on. So, if you have a piece of paper with just three holes, it will not fit in this Ring-Bound binder because there are seven rings. So, what that means is if you get this binder, you must pretty much use Franklin cubbies inserts and products. Also, you can also use I believe day timers products and inserts as well. And they will be compatible with the Seven Rings in this binder. So, if you have pieces of paper that you need to put in a Monarch binder you need to purchase if you don't already have the whole puncher as well, so that you can easily put your papers in this binder. 

 

And hey guys, I hope you can't hear that there's some construction going on. And unfortunately, I try to wait for the construction to be over but I can certainly hear the noise in the background. But I have to record my videos first thing in the morning because I go to work and I actually go to work in 30 minutes. So, I like to record my videos in the morning and sometimes people are cutting grass and sometimes now they're you know people are doing construction so it's really hard sometimes finding a quiet time to record so please forgive me for the noise that you may hear in the background of this video.

 

So, I just want to go ahead and measure the ring size really quickly. So, with this binder, the ring size is 1.25 inches. So let me just put the planner pages back in here so we can flip through this. Okay, so now let's quickly flip through this Ring-Bound planner. So, this is the Franklin Covey original weekly. Whenever you hear the word original with Franklin Covey, it means that the planner pages are going to have this green on them and that is what their original version is. I personally liked the green. I think it's probably a little old school to some people but I personally really like it. I think it's easy on the eyes and I've always enjoyed it. So, this planner starts out with the information page where you put your name, address etc. Then you have three years of annual calendars, the Franklin planner QuickStart guide. 

 

Now this is what's interesting. The month is not across two pages like it was on the Wire-Bound planner. This is a month on one page So those of you who like a month on one page, you'll enjoy this planner here. So, you have just about an inch for each block on this planner. This planner also comes with the moon phases and the holidays, you have a laminated tab here for each month. On the back, you have a master task list and on the back master task list. 

 

And the nice thing about a Ring-Bound planner, if you prefer for your monthly pages to be collated throughout your planner, you can simply move these around as you see fit. 

 

So, then you have a blank note page. And now we get into our weekly spread here. So, with this weekly spread, there is a ton of space to write on, for example, measure this. This is like two inches and a quarter of writing space is a lot of writing space. So those of you who just need a lot of writing space, or your eyes bother you and you just need bigger paper, then this might be something that you want to consider. The format is pretty much just like the Wire-Bound one where it has the days of the week going down vertically like that. Saturday and Sunday share a column you have the times over here, it starts at 6am and goes to 8pm. Every now and then you get some notes pages in between.

 

So, let's flip to the end of the planner here and see if it's the same as the Wire-Bound planner. You get some plain note pages here. And you can always buy extra notes pages. If you feel this isn't enough, you have 10 pages of notes. So, if you count the front and back this 20 Pages for notes, you have a page for holidays and observances and then you have future planning calendars. 

 

Now notice these future planning calendars, you have this monthly format, it's the whole month on a page that you can plan out for the future that way and you get enough of those for the whole next year, then you get future planning pages, that takes you out an additional four years. So, this one goes to 2027. Then you get some more notes pages. And actually, see this is about five or six notes pages. So, I think in this planner, they kind of were pretty generous with the notes pages as compared to their other planners that they put out. And that's pretty much the end. This is just a white card board. Please let me know if you have questions about this planner. What do you think of the size? And again, I'm going to compare this. So, this is for example, this is a classic size. So, this is the Monarch. This is the classic size, this is a compact size planner. Now these two I sell in my shop, you can save money with discount promo code TONYAPLANS10. This is the pocket size. So, the pocket size, as you can see, is the same height as the compact size. So this is all four sizes compared. And as you can see, the Monarch size is very much bigger than all of the other ones. 

 

So, would I recommend the Monarch size? Well for certain people, I would recommend the Monarch size, which I mentioned before to students, to people that just need a lot of space for writing. But in general, I personally would recommend that if you can go down in size and ears are trying to choose between the two and you really think you can make a Monarch size and a classic size work. I would personally go to the classic size because the classic size one is their flagship, their signature product, they're going to have a lot of more choices and the classic size then they do in a Monarch size and it's just easier to carry around.

 

So, if you're trying to make a decision between which size to get, unless you really you know need the bigger size, then get the bigger size but I would personally recommend that you go down because a lot of times people will buy from just from me conversing with people a lot of times people buy the Monarch size and they later end up going down in size. I'm just trying to save you money, trying to save you time and frustration. If you think you can deal with the smallest size then try to make it work with the smallest size. I think you'll be happier with a smaller size but that's just my opinion. 

 

So please don't forget to like this video. This is Tonya helping you feel more organized, so this can be your best year yet.