A good planner (2013): The Balabusta’s Daily Organizer

I’m always looking for good tools to help me organize life. And I’ve found a great Jewish planner to help!

The Balabusta’s Daily Organizer

***Note: I purchased my own copy of this, and am not being given anything to post about it. But I wanted to pass the planner information on to anyone who is looking for a good one!***

This planner is made with the Jewish woman in mind. It’s got both a monthly page spread…

…and a weekly page spread.

Weekly page: to do list along the left page (with shopping list on the far left shaded area) and weekly schedule on the right (with menu planning space on the far right shaded area)

I love having the Hebrew dates easily accessible near the English ones, and I like having the holidays marked already. (It’s no problem if you don’t read Hebrew because everything is in English – see pictures for an example.) I still draw over them with a highlighter for easy identification, but at least I don’t have to guess if it’s the day of the evening before with this book. I like having Shabbat (the Sabbath) already scheduled in, including which parsha (Torah portion) each week has, and I like the Jewish inspiration sprinkled throughout the book (like, “The loudest noise in Creation is the sound of a person breaking a habit.” -Rav Yisrael Salanter).

The Balabusta’s Daily Organizer also has a good-sized section of planning pages in the back: candlelighting times for 24 cities (mostly US), pages for notes, a phone number and address section, a medical health info section, a weekly routine planning section, a 3-week menu planning section, recurring shopping lists, birthdays reminder, a borrow and loan record, Shabbat checklist, and an excerpt from Rebbetzin Kanievsky’s book. You may not use any of these, but you might find them useful, too.

Planning pages in the back

Here’s my overall review:

Pros:
-Sept 2012-Dec 2013 covered in full
-separate weekly and monthly pages. Many calendars do one or the other, but I like having both.
-weekly to-do list side-by-side with the weekly calendar
-shopping list and menu plan next to the weekly calendar (see photos)
-Jewish holidays already put in, and Jewish dates already marked
-Jewish quotes throughout
-Spiral binding so a pen can stay with it
-planning pages in the back: menu, routine, birthdays, etc.

Cons:
-too big for most purses / handbags
-monthly pages are interspersed with the weekly pages, so it doesn’t flow as well as it could.
-no way to mark place included – I’m using little post-it flags, but it would be nice if there was a ribbon, monthly tabs, or if the little to-do / menu sidebars were perforated like this secular one.

All told, this is a great planner for me. I’m mostly home-based, and usually scheduling something after an e-mail or phone call and not on the go. The post its come off and I replace them as needed, but I do find it frustrating to find the right page (maybe putting the months first for an overview, and then the weeks after for more details would help, too.) But the pros far outweigh the cons.

The Balabusta’s Daily Organizer could be the planner you are looking for!

Do you use a planner? Which one?

Permanent link to this article: https://organizedjewishhome.com/2012/12/18/a-good-planner-2013-the-balabustas-daily-organizer/

18 comments

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    • Shaindy on December 18, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    I used this planner for part of last year and LOVED the layout. The reason I stopped using it was because I started taking public transportation and couldn’t shlep it all over the place with me. I wish there was a web version! The one thing I didn’t like was that it was soft-cover, so the pages all got bent in my bag. Other than that, it was fantastic!
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      • Amital on December 19, 2012 at 4:16 am
        Author

      Size was one of the things I don’t like as much about it. I like the size for writing in, but not for carrying around!

      What do you use now?
      Amital recently posted..A good planner (2013): The Balabusta’s Daily OrganizerMy Profile

    • Shuli on December 19, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    Amital- I’ve been using this for a while. I have a big purse so the size is fine, but I agree that a stronger binding would be better. there’s a suggestion email address in the back, I think I will email them. To keep the place, what I always do is keep a paper clip on the current page (or on a few pages to secure it better). That has worked absolutely fine for me.

    • Amital on December 20, 2012 at 5:54 am
      Author

    A paper clip is a great idea Shuli!
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    • Chani on January 2, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    This is an AMAZING planner. I’ve used it for the past year and love it!! I use a paper clip and clip the current week to the month page so I can easily reference both.

    • Betsy on January 6, 2013 at 8:55 pm

    there are post-it tabs that are meant for filing folders that you can write on and they don’t fall off. I am using the same ones for the third year, they still look good and still don’t fall off.

    I use one color for the months, plus other colors for other information like authors I like, 2014 calendar, addresses, etc.

      • Amital on January 7, 2013 at 4:04 am
        Author

      That’s a great idea! I tried using some regular tiny tabs, but they kept coming off. And the paperclip other people recommend works pretty well, although if there is only one page clipped, it’s really tough to find. But I love the convenience and ease of tabs, so I’ll try it (BN).

      -Amital

    • Ellene on January 7, 2013 at 7:24 pm

    Hi, I’m the graphic artist for the Balabusta’s Daily Organizer. I appreciate your comments. Let me respond to a few.

    Some of the “extras” suggested simply aren’t affordable — I wish they were! — because we only print 3,000 copies and not 300,000.

    Monthly tabs are unfortunately cost-prohibitive, but I put Post-It colored plastic tabs down the side on the monthly pages, and across the top I put a tab labelled “This week” that I keep moving, and also tab a few sections I use most often, like Addresses.

    I haven’t checked into the cost for a ribbon place marker.

    We perforated the shopping lists about 4 years ago. Some people like them; more people don’t. The problem we had with them was that the perfs can completely cut through with wear. If you like to keep the shopping list connected to the planner, that’s a problem.

    I’ve experimented with designing a smaller format planner. It looks very cute, but there’s very little room to write anything down, so at least to this point we haven’t produced one.

    I’d love to put out the planner for web or as an app — not sure where to begin with that.

      • Amital on January 8, 2013 at 7:45 am
        Author

      Thanks for the feedback. I can understand how it would be cost-prohibitive. I’m experimenting with tabs and even just cutting out the list to make it obvious where I am.

      It would be easier to put all the months together and then the weeks after that – do you get that feedback from anyone else? And someone commented that there was shaimos somewhere in the book, which is something to worry about when you’re done with it.

      I think an app, especially one you could coordinate with google calendar, would be fantastic!

      Amital

    • Sarah on January 22, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    Amital, thanks so much for the great detailed review of this organizer. Reading your review was like picking it up in a store and examining it. It looks like something I may use in the future, but for now I’ve decided not to get it. I need something very transportable, and something I can add my own pages to. (I’m thinking a small leather-bound, binder-style planner.)

    Hope you have a great (organized) day!!

      • Lisa Thomas on February 22, 2015 at 9:06 pm

      I wanted a notebook size desk top organizer with all the holidays and jewish information but for work, not to organize my home. My kids are grown and married and I am a working woman. I am in CT and there are no Shabbat times for CT. But this is the closest so far that I have found to what I am looking for. I just feel that there should be regular date books with all the jewish holidays and times. That is all the info we need. Maybe benching and a few morning prayers. I wish someone would come up with this. You?

        • Amital on March 11, 2015 at 3:42 pm
          Author

        It sounds wonderful! I’ve often wished for something tailored just to me, too. But it’s not something I would consider doing – very far out of my wheelhouse!

          • Ellene on March 11, 2015 at 6:12 pm

          This year we finally came out with a smaller “pocket” version (5″x7″) of The Balabusta’s Daily Organizer in addition to the desktop version. It’s small enough to be easily portable, and a few people have put them in leatherette holders so they can add notepads and such. B”H the Pocket edition sold out!

          We wouldn’t put bentching in the planner because it could create sheimos problems.

            • Amital on March 12, 2015 at 1:31 pm
              Author

            That sounds great! Where are you selling them?

            • Ellene on March 12, 2015 at 2:24 pm

            They’re carried by many Jewish bookstores including online sites and Amazon, but may be hard to find this time of year. The 2015/2016 planners (calendar pages from September 2015 – December 2016) should come out the beginning of August.

            I have a handful of Pocket Editions at home — you can order a planner (either size) or contact me from our website — your order or email goes to me:

            https://design613.com/balabusta/ or just try balabusta.us

            Our distributor Israel Bookshop Publications, still has some Desktop Editions: https://www.israelbookshoppublications.com/store/pc/The-Balabusta-s-Daily-Organizer-14-15-Desktop-Edition-7p876.htm

    • chumie on August 8, 2021 at 11:57 pm

    1 – can this be printed in a desktop – 8 1/2 x11 size? full paper size?
    2 – how do ppl orgainze their daily appnts when there are no time slots ?
    3 – positive – I love the weekly inspirational quotes!

      • Amital on August 11, 2021 at 3:27 pm
        Author

      Hi Chumie!

      I don’t use this planner anymore, but a quick internet search shows it’s available in different sizes, including a bigger “desktop” sized one. There doesn’t seem to be a printable option, however. I did find mine in a local Judaica shop, but I haven’t seen them there since them. Do a search and you’ll find the 20-21 version easily. I assume they’ll be putting out a 21-22 version soon!

      -Amital

      1. The Desktop size is 7″ x 8 1/2″ —
        that’s the same as a legal size sheet of paper cut in half. The printing took a long time this year because of labor shortages and supply chain issues, But I received a few cases today and they should start appearing in stores next week.

        1) No, we do not offer a print-your-own version.

        2) You write down your appointments and put times next to them or number them. There is also a “Weekly Routine” page in the back where you can write down regularly recurring tasks such as, for example, carpools. It’s a good page to bookmark. But If you have 10 different appointments every day and none of them are repeating on a regular basis, then this is not the right planner for you.

        3) Glad you enjoy them!

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