Fresh beginnings start with a great planner. Harry's life changed when he received his letter from Hogwarts and from that moment on, his epic adventure began. I'm still patiently waiting for my own acceptance letter from Hogwarts but I was super happy back in July last year when I received the next best thing: an expedited parcel containing my beautiful 2020-2021 Hogwarts planner by Insighted Editions.
I'm about halfway into this agenda right now (I've been using it for almost five months) and so far I'm very pleased with it. It starts on the 29th of June 2020, and ends on the 4th of July, 2021, making it a perfect planner for students or anyone following the student calendar. At the end of the school year which often ends around the month of June, it's just so wonderful to have a fresh agenda that starts around the time when summer begins. The beginning of summer break for my family allows us to have a little down time from all the homework, tests, assignments and projects. It becomes a great time for me to figure out our happenings for the months to come and I love doing this with a fresh new planner that starts in June. Some planners start in January, which is great if your life plans end in December and starts in the new year. But in my case, being a mom with young kids who are still in school, I love agendas that start in the summer because that's the time when I get to have a little break to catch my breath, allowing me to think about upcoming plans and events....and of course, getting my world ready for the haunting season - ha ha!
This Hogwarts agenda also comes with a monthly calendar which I absolutely love because it allows me to visually see all my happenings for that entire month. Each month is introduced by two beautifully printed pages showing star constellations floating in between golden animal characters that denote the symbols of each house: the serpent, lion, eagle and badger.
In terms of size, I love it. It measures about 18.5cm by 26cm (7.3" x 10.2") making it a fairly large planner but a good size for me. Call me a little old fashioned, but I like to write things down and I often need to add detailed descriptions of all of my thoughts, upcoming events and the things that I need to do, without having to squeeze them all into super tiny writing, a problem I run into when using smaller sized planners. If you're looking for a compact planner that can fit into a small purse, this is not the planner for you. But can you fit this into an average sized knapsack? Absolutely. And being a mom with 3 kids and a lot going on, I run around the city with a fairly large purse, and I can fit this agenda in there. This is also a weekly planner with ample space provided for each day, giving me a good number of lines to write down a whole bunch of stuff without too much space restriction. For some added fun, it even highlights the dates of some of the important events that took place in the Wizarding World, such as Harry's birthday and the Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Near the end of the agenda, there are 5 extra pages for Notes as well as a built-in pocket at the very back for safekeeping loose items such as important receipts, invoices, business cards or labels. So useful.
With October being my most favorite month of the year, I was especially pleased to find that it is greeted by two charmingly decorated pages of an almost black background, the perfect color that complements the magical darkness of the haunting season that I adore so much.
Overall, I've been happy with this wonderful planner so far, and it is helping me to keep ahead of the game. My only disappointment with this planner is that it does not include important International holidays and celebrations, for example, our Canadian Thanksgiving, Diwali (India's famous festival of lights), Ramadan and Eid (celebrated by the Muslim community), Chinese New Year, or International Pride Month celebrated annually in June, just to mention a few. I would have been absolutely delighted to see these events highlighted in this magical planner because there is a lot of space to embrace all of these beautiful celebrations. This is definitely something to think about for agenda creators and publishers. I'm also curious to know what Insighted Editions have planned for their next agenda design for the upcoming 2021-2022 year. But for now, this beautiful agenda helps to make my weekly and monthly planning tasks simply MAGIC and when the new agenda gets released, I would be inclined to purchase again.