Review of the SmartLife PUSH Journal

Do you love day planners? Do you love journals? Do you love setting goals?

Then you’re going to love this review of the SmartLife PUSH Journal.

It’s no secret that here at Small Business Boss, we’re planner junkies.

This journal was created by Chalene Johnson, who you might know from infomercials or fitness programs like PiYo.

One of the reasons I wanted to review this planner is because it’s designed to solve some of the typical problems with day planners. For example, often times in planners there’s not really any clear goal setting, but this planner does goal planning in a way I find really appealing.

This planner uses the concept of PUSH goals, which is essentially setting one goal that if achieved, makes multiple other goals possible. Plus, it approaches goal setting in 90-day chunks, which is exactly how we do it here at Small Business Boss.

PLANNER SPECS

The planner itself is fairly compact, measuring in at 6”x9”. It’s less than 1 pound, and at 181 pages is also quite slim. Definitely small enough to fit in a purse or small travel bag.

The version I used had a normal bookbinding, but the newer versions are bound with a spiral ring. The planner comes in a few different colours as well.

Inside the front pocket, it has a handy storage pocket, and it comes with stickers to help you customize your planner a little. You also get a SmartLife PUSH Monthly Tracker bookmark.

The planner itself is really well made and the paper is thick so your markers won’t bleed through. (Trust me, I’m fussy about my paper!)

The SmartLife PUSH Journal covers a 30-day timeframe and comes in at a cost of $37.95, which is a little pricey compared to some of the other planners we have reviewed, as you’d need a new book for each month of the year.

PUTTING THE SMARTLIFE PUSH JOURNAL TO THE TEST

The main thing that drew me to this planner and made me want to review it was that is merges everything from both business and life. I usually have two sets of goals in progress — one professional and one personal — so I really liked the idea that this planner offered an all-in-one solution to track these.

Getting started on using this planner is an absolute breeze. I loved the first section of pages which are all about walking you through setting up your priorities, which is something we talk about a lot about at Small Business Boss.

From there, the next section is about setting your 90-day goals. It encourages you to set three goals and then setting one PUSH goal. There’s also a brainstorming section which is a great place to scribble down ideas as they happen.

At the end of the planner, there’s a 30-day review for you to reflect back and see what you’ve accomplished. To me, this is a critical piece of goal setting that often gets missed so having it right in the planner was fantastic. I was able to recap my month and see exactly where I am in relation to my broader goals.

All in all, if you’re into goal setting, this planner really delivers.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS PLANNER

There was a whole lot I found that I liked about this planner.

I loved how much room it gives you to track your goals and progress. Because it focuses on 90-day chunks of time, it completely aligns with the 12-week system I already use.

I also liked that it includes both your daily habits (things like sleep, nutrition, and exercise) along with your day-to-day life stuff that you need to take care of. As a small business boss, I have everything I need, both work and personal, tracked and in one place. So much easier!

This planner does a really great job in the upfront pages of walking you through goal setting. I like that I can do a brain dump at the start, and then there’s a place for me to do a recap at the end to wrap up the process.

ITEMS OF NOTE

If you’re thinking of buying this planner, there are a few other things you should know.

I really didn’t like how this journal was bound, with a solid spine because it makes the journal hard to keep open. The good news here is that the newer versions use a spiral ring to bind them, so if I had one of those, I might have liked it a bit more.

My other issue with this journal is that it’s only for 30 days, which means to cover a whole year, I would need to buy 12 of these. After checking out their website, I was able to find 3 packs of the journals for $64.95, but that still means buying a set every quarter.

For me, personally, I was using two different planners, so the actual cost of using the PUSH journals isn’t too bad if I were just moving to one planner, but the overall cost adds up for a full year. Also, consider this…if using the journal is actually helping you create and meet your goals, then the cost is probably worth the investment.

The other thing to take into account is that on days where you may not have fitness or nutrition goals, you will probably end up with some empty pages. This is really not a big deal for some people, but for me personally, I like to see stuff on every page and feel like I’m really maximizing the use of my journal.

Overall, there are a lot of things to like about the SmartLife PUSH Journal.

If you like having everything in one place for both business and personal, I highly recommend trying out this planner.