(Evelyn Morgan is a plannerd, an office supply junkie, and a fountain ink hoarder. You can find her on Twitter.)
Founded over 60 years ago, Quo Vadis has a long history of producing high quality planners suited to the needs of many. The bound, Textagenda Compact Daily Desk Diary is no exception. This small, but not pocketable journal, at 4” x 6” (12 x 17 cm) is roughly B6 sized, covers the academic year (August 2016 - July 2017), and is geared towards the student. Mine arrived with the refillable Texas cover, a durable, faux-suede material, in red.
The Textagenda opens with a personal information page, and 12-month reference calendar. Next, are time schedules for plotting out when and where classes occur for two terms. It is a nice feature that Saturday is included. Following is a three-page spread for anno-planning. Quo Vadis notes this allows for “the organization of your year at a single glance,” and with clever code and notation, I would agree, however space is at a premium in this view. There is no monthly view and I found the absence surprising. As expected, the majority of the planner is daily pages. Along the edge of the book, months are marked, making them easier to find. At the back is the semi-ubiquitous and slightly useless maps and a table of average monthly temperatures in the world. Address pages finish off the planner.
Quo Vadis planners feature tear off corners, which make finding the current date easier. They are perforated, and generally easy to remove. If, however you are especially finicky about neatness, use scissors or leave them attached.
Daily planners seem to fall into two camps. They either provide so much space I don’t know what to do with it all, or so little that the information which can be put on it is minimal.
Textagenda finds a middle ground. The date is large and prominent, walled by a small hourly schedule with both 12 and 24-hour notation that runs from 8am to 7pm. This is just enough room to mark changes to my regular schedule with no details.
Underneath is a highlighted area for the day’s priority. Note that is singular. It is not a lot of room; however, it forces me to focus on the most important thing I need to accomplish today. There is also reference to the day of the year, days left in the year and tiny icon of the moon phase, because I need to know when the moon is waxing.
Most of the daily page is available for writing pertinent information about assignments, projects or tests. The 6mm lines are spaced well and the width of the page is comfortable for writing. A secondary highlighted Notes section appears at the bottom, which begs for brief future plans or reminders.
Overall, the Textagenda is a high quality product, with some well thought-out elements, but I would be hard pressed to make it work in my life. When I was in college, I could see the value of this layout, however I think it doesn’t provide enough room for all the information I needed to track, and it’s too big to carry around every day.
(Exaclair, the US distributor of Quo Vadis, supplied this product to The Pen Addict at no charge for purposes of this review.)
