It seems agendas and planners keep getting released earlier and earlier. Or maybe it was just me, because I bought my planner earlier than I usually do. Typically I pick one up at some point in July but I found one which I thought would be perfect for me a few weeks ago.I've used a Simplified Planner in the past and while I liked it, the format didn't work for me at the time. That, and my dog got a hold of it. However, I saw that Emily Ley had released a weekly version and it was precisely what I've been looking for:
One side for work, the other side for blog/life stuff, and a little space to remind me to order pizza. I've been using a Lilly Pulitzer planner and was drawing a line down the middle of the space and writing notes in pink and yellow lions due to a lack of margins. The SP offered me plenty of margin space and I don't have to draw a line. Wonderful! So I paid the $58 for this planner, and got it last week. I opened the box excitedly and flipped through the planner. I then promptly put the planner back in the box, slapped a mailing label on it, and sent it back for a refund.

I can be foolish with money sometimes and spending $58 on a planner would be one of the many tick marks on the list of needless crap I buy. This Emily Ley Simplified Planner is, quite frankly, a piece of junk for the amount of money I spent on it. It's very well-designed, it's colorful, and I truly wanted to love it. It simply just isn't worth the money.

What did it for me was the paper quality, or lack thereof. The paper in the planner is see through, and is pretty much the same stuff that's sitting in your computer printer at home. I can see the printing on the previous page already, imagine the mess that the planner will end up if I use Le Pens in it. Automatic and total bleed through.

Overall, this planner comes across as something that anyone with a home printer or a Staples account could produce on their own. There's nothing to justify the $58 price tag, which is a shame. Had the paper been similar to the Lilly planners, I would have been over-the-moon-happy.