I am methodical and love to plan. Small wonder that I also love a planner. I’ve been searching for the right one. The Clever Fox Planner (Amazon Affiliate link here) checked a lot of boxes for me. But would I buy it again? Will it work for you?
I started this post in March. Well, we all know what happened back then & I basically abandoned the planner altogether (which is not like me). I have been focusing on marketing for the last few weeks, and I’ve started to use it again. It’s just amazing what a little planning can do for you!
I know this post is a stretch for a running linkup, but the reason I started to use this planner was to combine my running journal with a planner, because I didn’t really like using two journals.

No dates
Clever Fox is an undated planner. Which means you will have to write in dates for every month, every week, every day. Not a deal breaker for me.
The monthly calendar has room for this month’s goals, this month’s wins, and how you’ll improve going forward. In addition, it has spots for:
- Habits to Adopt
- Skills to Learn
- Things to Avoid
- Places to Go
- People to See
So far so good.

Weekly Plan
Before you get into the meat of your week, it’s time to set yourself up for success with:
- This week’s main goal
- This week’s priorities
- Work to-do list
- Personal to-do list
- Habits/Skills list with a checkbox for each day of the week
- Spaces to write out what you want to do in: healthy & sports, family & friends, romance & relationships, fun & recreation, personal development, and spiritual
I love being able to tick off the habits/skills I want to work on — and pretty much everything else, if I’m honest.
Now on to planning your day
Each day there is a place for:
- Today’s main goal
- Today’s priorities
- Schedule (broken down hourly from 6-9)
- To-do list
- Rate your productivity
- How I’ll improve
When I kept this with me, I found myself really focused on the things I needed to do. There is a page for each day of the week. You will need to write in the day and date.
Since going back to using this journal, I have discovered the schedule portion really isn’t necessary for me. I use it take notes, LOL! It takes up most of the page, though, which is a lot of space for something I don’t really need — you might need it, though.

Review your week
There is a blank page after all the days of the week for weekly notes. I used this for blog ideas, ideas for my YouTube channel, meal planning & meal prep.
Next to the Notes page is the Weekly Review, which includes fields for:
- A checkbox for this week’s main goal
- This week’s wins
Then there’s a series of questions for you to answer:
- What didn’t get done & why?
- What habits were not completed & why?
- What did you learn this week?
- How do you feel about your progress this week?
- How will you improve next week?
There is actually a lot more in the planner, including spaces for a vision board, a mind map, goals in various areas of your life, and even more.
Final Thoughts
Would I buy this planner again? No. It is too darn thick, and it’s only for 6 months! The 6 month thing wasn’t a deal breaker for me. The thickness is. I like to travel with my planner. I will take notes on what we did, where we ate, etc. I’ll track my runs and write notes on my race (because travel is almost always for a race for me!).
ETA: Yes, I wrote the above in March. I haven’t changed my mind; The Clever Fox is an awesome planner, but it’s not the right planner for me. The thickness is a big reason. The wasted space on an hourly schedule is another. I wish there was just blank space for actual journaling in the daily pages — I could use that for tracking runs (which I’m not doing anyway right now as we all know) or just journaling in general. I’ve been looking at the Simple Elephant Planner (Amazon Affiliate link here) and the Panda Planner (Amazon Affiliate link here)– not sure why I’m drawn to animal journals but of course I do love animals.

I found I didn’t really need all that daily space devoted broken down by time. A blank space, probably smaller, would have served me just fine.
I did learn that picking a main priority for each day, then several other (but not too many) to-dos was a real game changer for me. Of course I didn’t always do everything on my list, and some days I did other things that were just as important.
In the end choosing a priority and the other things that were truly important to me each day kept me much more focused and productive, and that is a great takeaway for me and something I’ll continue to do no matter what planner I decide on next.
ETA: Now that I’m back to using the planner, the above is still very true! I actually get more done if I think about the next day’s priorities the night before.
Do you need to be more organized?
Do you use a planner? Electronic or Digital or both?
Any recommendations for me?
Linking up with Zenaida Arroyo and Kim @ Kookyrunner
This week I am also joining up with the new Runners’ Roundup linkup.