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Our In-Depth Full Focus Planner Review

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Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner is one of the most popular and widely acclaimed planners on the market. And this is my official Full Focus Planner review.

Personally, I’ve used this planner system off and on for years. 

It gives you the power to not only create daily goals and write them down, but it also combines daily goal setting with a very intentional process of outlining weekly, quarterly, and even annual goals, to help you fully integrate your future plans when you set your daily goals, intentions, and rituals. 

Well, recently, I had a student who ordered his first Full Focus Planner, and so I decided to get his take on the system for this review, for a totally fresh perspective. He worked together with my team to create this in-depth, full-system review of Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner, to help you decide if this might be a system that would work for you. 

As I always say—regardless of what system you choose, turning your dreams into goals, writing down those goals, and sticking with them consistently in the long-term is really the key to success. 

But I believe that the Full Focus Planner actually makes this process a lot more streamlined—though it is a bit of a challenge to master for those who are first jumping into it. 

Let’s break it all down so that you can decide if this might be a system that could help you with your own goal-setting habits.

Note: From this point onward, the post is going to be recorded in the words of a student in my program who just recently used the journal for the first time, and recorded his experiences. He even took some photographs to help document his journey! 

Getting Started: An Overview Of The Full Focus Planner

Full Focus Planner Image Review

I’d been interested in Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner for quite some time. 

Of course, when you start looking into goal-setting and journaling systems, this system is always in the top five. 

And some people claim that it’s literally the best of its kind. 

So I finally decided to go for it, and I ordered my own Full Focus Planner. 

I decided to start with the Full Focus Planner – Linen option. I chose the dark gray color (though there are actually 5 colors available), and I chose the standard binding (as opposed to the coil binding). 

How Much Does The Full Focus Planner Cost?

As of the time that this was written, the Full Focus Planner costs $40.99 to order on the official Full Focus website (not including shipping). 

This includes enough daily pages to cover a quarter of the year (90 days). 

Thus, if you want to make use of the Full Focus Planner for an entire year, you would need four copies, which would come out to approximately $163.96. 

Now, keep in mind that they do offer a subscription feature, which saves you 20% on the price. 

Personally, I wanted to try the planner for one quarter, to see if it would be a good fit for me. Then, if I liked it, I planned to go ahead and buy the subscription. 

I felt pretty good about the price point after getting the journal (though some people see it as being overpriced; but we’ll talk more about that in a minute).

It’s a deep and integrated analog goal-setting system, and is so much more than just a journal filled with blank pages. 

It’s truly a full-fledged goal achievement system that packs a lot of goal-setting power into one beautiful planner—so when it arrived, I was in no way disappointed with what I was getting for the money. 

Opening Up The Planner For The First Time

full focus planner unpackaging

My Full Focus Planner took less than a week to arrive. 

When it did, it was safely packaged and free of any sort of damage. 

Upon opening it, I was immediately impressed by the quality. 

I’ve paid almost as much as this for hardcover books that didn’t seem to be built to the same standard of quality as the Full Focus Planner. 

In other words, my first impression of the basic construction of the product was very good. 

The linen cover is attractive and feels good to the touch. The lay-flat woven binding is top-notch. And the pages, which are cream-colored and uncoated, are attractive to the eyes and definitely designed to be inspiring. 

Not only is it well-made, but it also just looks really good. 

It also has an elastic band to help keep the planner closed when it’s not in use, and has 2 ribbons that you can use to jump back to those important spots where you left off. 

Alright. Now let’s talk about the interior of the planner, and the system itself. 

This is where the majority of the value behind the Full Focus Planner really shines through. 

The Full Focus Planner System – Does It Work? And Is It Worth It?

michael hyatt quote

The first thing you’ll figure out about the Full Focus Planner is that it’s a bit more complicated than most other planners on the market. 

I had mostly previously just used nice journals or notebooks to write down my goals—so jumping into the Full Focus Planner felt a lot like jumping from ‘beginner’ waters into ‘the professional deep-end.’ 

Is The Full Focus Planner Good For Beginners?

If you’ve never put any thought into goal setting, and/or if you’ve never written down daily goals or set goals for yourself at all, then the Full Focus Planner might feel overwhelming at first. 

Since I already had about a year of general goal-setting experience under my belt, the Full Focus Planner made sense to me, and I was quickly able to pick up on the many different advantages and new techniques it could provide me with. 

I realized that this system could really take my current goal-setting habits to the next level in ways that I had never even thought about or anticipated before. 

With all of that being said, I’ll also say this:

If you’ve never set goals before, then your first Full Focus Planner will probably be a trial-and-error piece that’ll mostly assist you in figuring out how goal-setting works. 

You’ll probably end up writing a lot of stuff down that’ll change very rapidly. 

Why?

Because this system will really compel you to start thinking about your future in a more intentional way. 

And if you’ve never set goals before, you will probably very quickly begin to analyze, adapt, and change your direction for the future to help you get more on-target with your passion, purpose, and what you want to accomplish in life

This isn’t meant to be a criticism, however. 

Just know this:

If you’re a beginner, and if you plan to purchase the Full Focus Planner, take this advice to heart—learn the system, use the tools, and don’t be afraid to review, revise, and adapt as you go along. 

Part of succeeding with any goal-setting system will be your willingness to dive-in and get started. 

So don’t let the depth of this particular goal achievement system intimidate you. 

It’s intended to be a tool; one that you’ll mark up, write in, and use on a daily basis. 

So personally, I would just encourage you to go for it (though a bit of instruction before getting started may save you some headache). 

Speaking of instruction, let’s move on to talk about the different sections of the planner, how they work, and how to use them. 

Using The Full Focus Planner – A Guide For Beginners

Alright. 

Now let’s jump into the meat of the discussion. 

What does the Full Focus Planner contain?

And how do you use all of the different sections and tools to help you set goals and achieve success?

That’s what we’re going to talk about in this section. 

First of all, you can watch a quick-start guide in this video, created by Full Focus, that’ll get you started on the basic stuff. But there’s actually a lot more to this planner than just what you’ll see in the quick start guide.

https://youtu.be/Vpmn5UBxbzc

Let’s dive in and talk about the many different inner sections and tools offered within the Full Focus Planner.

The Annual Goals Section

Annual goals full focus planner

The annual goals section is pretty straightforward. 

It gives you a place to list the overarching yearly goals that you’d like to make progress on during the next quarter. 

On the following pages, it also gives you space to flesh out all of these goals individually.

This can actually be a challenging section to fill in if you’re not sure what your yearly goals should be. 

But once you figure that part out, this section is really useful for helping to set up an intentional direction for the quarter. 

Here’s a video, produced by Full Focus, designed to help you understand how to use this section. 

https://youtu.be/XSPbkk8cUag

This section is a perfect example of what I loved the most about the Full Focus Planner.

Right from the beginning, it compels you to get intentional about your longer-term goals, and to use that information as a guide when you start to break those goals down into daily and weekly intentions. 

This is just one example of why the Full Focus Planner may be a bit more complicated than other systems, but also tremendously powerful. 

The Monthly Calendar Section

Full focus planner monthly calendar

The Full Focus Planner contains enough monthly calendar pages to get you through an entire quarter, with some space to spare in case the quarter doesn’t line up starting with a Monday.

For the most part, this section is pretty self-explanatory. However, it’s super-useful to watch Full Focus’s instructional video on the section (to discover a few hidden gems you probably wouldn’t otherwise notice). 

https://youtu.be/7y-zEGDo1ds

On a side noteI really loved how Full Focus created video how-tos for each section of the planner. This made diving into it much easier than it would have been. The videos are very informative, concise, and useful. 

If you’re new to the planner, you should really watch them all. Here’s a link to the entire playlist on YouTube. 

The Rolling Quarters Section

Full Focus Planner Rolling Quarters

The rolling quarters pages are intended to help you record your plans for major commitments, events, meetings, etc. that are scheduled to come up over the course of the next quarter. 

These pages, once again, are pretty self-explanatory—but make sure to watch the instructional video for some hidden gems and instructions to help you maximize their usefulness. 

https://youtu.be/w4qpiTH2o8c

The Daily Rituals Sections

This was one of my favorite parts of the Full Focus Planner. 

Daily Rituals Full Focus Planner

The daily rituals section basically gives you a space to outline four different types of daily rituals:

  • Morning rituals
  • Workday startup rituals
  • Workday shutdown rituals
  • Evening rituals

It also gives you space to record the allotted time for each of these rituals, and provides an additional space to combine these times into a total. It also gives you space to rank each ritual by order of importance. 

Personally, I’m huge on productive, positive, intentional daily rituals. So I found this part of the planner system to be incredibly useful. 

One really cool thing that Full Focus did when designing this planner is that they also give you spots on the daily pages where you can check off your rituals as you complete them. 

Personally, I loved this level of detail and integration. 

To learn more about how to set up these ritual pages, check out this video: 

https://youtu.be/PnRBhGXnig4

The Ideal Week Section

The ‘ideal week’ section is kind of like a ‘master hub’ that gives you a space to design how you would like to structure each week for maximum intentionality and productivity. 

Ideal Week Full Focus Planner

This was an interesting section—and honestly, it was probably the section that was the most difficult for me to fill out. 

Setting a weekly ‘routine,’ where you have the power to schedule different types of activities on different days of the week, really challenged my usual goal-setting method of ‘trying to do a little bit of everything every single day.’

For example—this section inspired me to set one afternoon each week as a ‘work on my home renovations’ day, instead of trying to fit in a little bit of work on the renovation each and every day. 

I felt like this section really helped me to fill a ‘blind spot’ in my personal goal-setting practice. So major kudos to Full Focus for this one! This was a serious level-up for me that will doubtlessly help me to set better, more achievable goals. 

Here’s the video describing how to set up that section of the planner:

https://youtu.be/ziuBkOnpsws

The Daily Pages Sections

The daily pages make up the majority of the pages found in the Full Focus Planner. 

These are the pages where you write down your daily goals, and they’re intended to be used on a day-to-day basis. 

Daily pages Full Focus Planner

There are enough of them to last you an entire quarter, plus a few—14 full weeks. 

But they’re also a lot more than just regular daily to-do list pages.

Obviously, they have a space where you can write down the date. They also show you how many weeks are remaining in the quarter, so you can watch as the weeks tick down toward the conclusion of that particular journal. This was designed to give you a sense of urgency. 

They also list out the morning rituals, allowing you to check each of the four main rituals off of your list as you accomplish them for the day.  

But the main focus of the daily pages is based on what they call your daily big 3

These are the three most important tasks on your agenda for that day. There are also spaces to record other tasks, as well as a space on the right side of the page where you can record appointments, meetings, and other time-sensitive obligations. 

On the opposite page, you’ll find a notes page, where you can make notes about pretty much whatever you might need the space for. 

This is a very open-ended part of the journal that you can use for whatever purpose it may serve you on that particular day. (There are also some extra note pages located at the end of the planner, in case you run out of space on a daily pages note page and need to continue writing.)

The daily pages sections are by far where you’ll be spending the most time—and honestly, I love how Full Focus designed these. 

If you tend to schedule time-sensitive appointments, these pages are going to feel especially intuitive for you. However, they are also amazing for people who don’t have time-sensitive appointments on the docket. 

I loved these pages because they helped me to really focus my energy on the three most important tasks of the day. To be honest, I used to run into a problem where I’d just try to schedule too much stuff—and this feature forced me to really narrow my focus and make sure that I didn’t overextend myself. 

This just carries on with the theme of intentionality that’s woven all throughout the Full Focus Planner. 

The way they designed these pages really helped me to set better, more productive, more intentional goals for myself without overdoing it or setting myself up for failure. 

Here’s the Full Focus video on how to use these daily pages to maximize your goal-setting habit. 

https://youtu.be/KtMwSIvsgdE

The Weekly Preview Sections

Along with daily pages, there is also a weekly preview section at the beginning of each week. 

Full Focus planner weekly preview

This basically gives you a place where you can map out an overarching, specific goal for the upcoming week, which will empower you to be more intentional about how you schedule tasks and activities on the daily pages. 

Note that this differs from the ideal week pages in a number of different ways. 

The ideal week section is more of an ‘overarching guide’ to how you may like to structure each week, while these weekly previews actually give you a space where you can very specifically map out each week individually before you get started on it, thereby empowering you to be as intentional and as focused as possible about the most important tasks and activities that you want to focus on as the next Monday rolls around. 

These sections are a bit time-consuming at first. But once you get started filling them out, you’ll quickly fall into a rhythm—and you’ll realize how much power this gives you to be intentional about blending your daily goals together for maximum productivity for the rest of the week. 

These sections also challenged me—but I found that they made my goal-setting habit a lot more defined and thorough. They just added another weekly dimension that I was missing before, which really helped me to level up my goal setting even more. 

Here’s the Full Focus video tutorial on how to utilize this section of the planner.

https://youtu.be/tyP0yV7ae-Y

The Quarterly Preview Section

The quarterly preview section of the Full Focus Planner is a place where you can reflect back on your previous quarter, and look forward to the next one. 

Quarterly Preview Full Focus Planner

This is a section best filled out after you’ve already completed the planner, and are getting ready to start the next quarter with a new one. 

It’s basically a summarization that helps to empower you by compelling you to give yourself credit for your achievements, to learn from your mistakes, to celebrate your wins, and to strategize for the next quarter. 

Here’s the Full Focus instructional video tutorial about how to complete this section of the planner. 

https://youtu.be/J8AB0INDi14

What We Liked About The Full Focus Planner

There were a lot of things that I liked about this planner. But in order to try to bring all of these thoughts to a cohesive point, here were my 7 favorite things about it. 

  1. It truly is a well-made and beautiful planner. 
  2. The system prompts you to make daily and weekly plans based on long-term goals, which I loved. The fact that this is built-in is really awesome. 
  3. I really loved the space provided for the daily rituals. This, to me, was gold. 
  4. The daily pages were surprisingly simple and easy to use, and definitely provided a ‘level up’ from my usual ‘blank journal’ approach to daily goal setting. 
  5. Having a space where I could write down my annual goals (and also a provided section where I could flesh them out even more), right from the beginning, was a welcome feature—and this integration really helps to make the system more intentional and focused. 
  6. The free YouTube tutorial videos give you all of the direction you need to get started. This was very helpful, as I was a complete Full Focus newbie before buying this planner. 
  7. The ideal week section was probably the most helpful and the most challenging part of this system for me. Having a place to plot out what an ideal week would look like, while also providing you with a separate section to plan individual weeks, is extremely deep—but it’s also very powerful if you’re willing to put in the effort to go through all of it. 

What We Didn’t Like About The Full Focus Planner

Right off the bat, I can see how the price point could be a deterrent to some.

I mean, for the last year I’ve been writing down my long and short-term goals in a blank journal—and that has been extremely beneficial for me. 

But these blank journals also give me more than 90 days of goal-setting power for less than $10; which is literally a quarter of the price.

When you compare the price points of these two options, there’s a fair question to be asked. 

Is the Full Focus Planner just too expensive?

My official and personal answer to this question is a ‘no,’ but I could also see how some people may not be interested in delving so deeply into the goal-setting process. 

And so, for people who simply aren’t interested in such a complex toolbox, it’s probably true that the price point is just a little bit too high to justify, especially since you need to buy 4 of them every year.

The planner is also obviously fairly complex. And it could be overwhelming to some people. 

But here’s the thing. 

In order for the planner to deliver all of the value that it delivers, it really has no option but to be more complex than most other systems. 

I don’t really think that this can be avoided. Full Focus seemed to do the best they could at making what is actually a fairly complex thing (deep, detailed, and intentional goal-setting) as simple and as straightforward as possible. 

But these are really the only two legitimate criticisms that I’ve seen of the system. And for me, they were definitely not deal-breakers. 

Full Focus Planner Pros And Cons

Here are the basic pros and cons of the Full Focus Planner:

Pros:

  • Sturdy construction
  • Attractive design
  • Well laid-out
  • The system is solid and useful
  • Free training options get you started quickly and easily
  • Empowers you to flesh out your goals and intentions on a much deeper level than usual

Cons:

  • The price point is a bit on the high side
  • It’s more complicated than other systems
  • Complete beginners may feel overwhelmed
  • Not well-suited for people who just aren’t interested in complex goal-setting  

Who Should Use The Full Focus Planner?

If you’re ready to take your goal setting to the next level and actually want to get really disciplined about setting and achieving goals, then the Full Focus Planner may be a great option for you. 

The Full Focus Planner is a great option for people who actually want to schedule time every day, week, and month to dive deeply into their goals and intentions to create a detailed action plan. 

This planner is also a great fit for people who love analog planners, who would prefer not to write down their goals using a digital device. 

If this sounds like you, then the Full Focus Planner is probably a planner that you should at least try out once. 

Who Shouldn’t Use The Full Focus Planner?

If you only want to spend 5 minutes or less per day on goal setting, don’t have an interest in diving deeply and/or detailedly into your goals, and/or if you just aren’t too keen on analog journaling anyway—then the Full Focus Planner will probably leave you frustrated and overwhelmed. 

This is a serious analog goal achievement system for goal-setters who actually want to dive deeply into their goals and spend time exploring them and fleshing them out on paper. 

Therefore, if you don’t really have a desire to get ‘super serious’ about writing down your goals and intentions, then you’ll probably end up abandoning this journal for something cheaper and less complicated. 

Full Focus Planner Complaints

There are a few common complaints about the Full Focus journal that I’d like to address after using it myself. I’ve read about these complaints in other reviews; and now that I’ve used the planner for myself, I wanted to comment on them.

Complaint #1: The Full Focus Journal is too expensive.

As I stated before, I feel like the price is justified—but only if you love the system. That’s really what you’re paying for. You’re not paying for just a glorified notebook when you buy the Full Focus Planner—you’re actually buying a fully fleshed out and detailed goal-setting achievement system. 

And to be honest, I feel like it’s worth the money—because without it, it’s highly unlikely that I would have thought to do everything I was prompted to do by the materials and systems contained within the planner. 

The material provided in the planner is massively beneficial, in my opinion. 

Complaint #2: You have to write down the date each day, and that’s too much work.

Actually, I really liked this part. I’m not the biggest fan of buying planners that already have dates printed on them—because it feels ‘dated’ and ‘limited in its viability’ to me (this is partially why I used to prefer blank journals to calendar-based planners).

I really love that you can write in the dates as they occur with this planner. 

Complaint #3: It doesn’t have enough note-taking space. 

There’s quite a bit of note-taking space. There’s a whole page provided for each of the daily pages. If you take more notes than that, however, then you would need an extra notebook. 

With that being said, I feel like this isn’t really a valid criticism of the planner. It is, by definition, a planner—not a notebook. 

Complaint #4: The paper is cheap and low quality. 

I’m not sure why some people say this. The quality, thus far, seems very on-point to me. In fact, the quality of the paper was one of the things I thought was very well-done. 

Complaint #5: The online tutorials/support are terrible. 

This simply isn’t true. They provide an entire YouTube playlist to help you get started. 

Obviously, you need to go out and find this information yourself by looking it up on YouTube. But I don’t see this as being a downside. Plus, the videos are literally provided by Full Focus. 

So I just don’t really see this as a valid downside. 

Compaint #6: The planner is impossible to figure out how to use/is too complicated. 

This is a complicated planner. And truth be told, it might be too complicated for some people. 

But for someone who really wants to dive deeply into goal setting, I feel like Full Focus did a great job of packaging a pretty complex thing (a complete goal achievement planning system) into a product that helped to make the process as user-friendly as possible. 

Our Verdict – Is The Full Focus Planner Worth The Cost?

My official opinion is that the Full Focus Planner’s positive reputation in the goal achievement community is well deserved. 

I feel like it’s actually quite a work of art—and despite the high price-point, I intend to subscribe and to continue utilizing it in the long term. 

Granted, I’ll probably try a variety of additional planners as well, just to see if any of them may offer more value for the money. 

But as it stands, this is most definitely my favorite system thus-far, especially if you’re not afraid to dive deeply into your goals and intentions in an analog format, and to spend some serious time with a pen or pencil structuring your goals every week. 

I love this kind of stuff—so for me, the Full Focus Planner was a winner. 

I give it a 9 out of 10!

It’s hard to imagine a totally analog goal achievement system that could do a better job of empowering people to take intentional control of their lives than this system does. 

FAQs

How does Full Focus Planner work?

The Full Focus Planner works by giving you a framework for recording annual goals, monthly plans, ideal weekly scheduling, and daily goals utilizing an array of analog goal-setting tools, all packaged and integrated neatly and concisely within one incredible goal-setting planner. 

It’s actually more than just a planner. It’s a full-fledged, fully integrated, analog goal-planning system that’ll empower you to really dive deep into your goals, write them down, and accomplish them. 

How long does a Full Focus Planner last?

A Full Focus Planner is created for a 90-day achievement cycle (one quarter of the year). 

To make full use of this goal achievement-planning system, you’ll need to start a new planner every 90 days. 

Who owns Full Focus Planner?

The ‘brains’ behind the Full Focus Planner is the New York Times Bestselling author Michael Hyatt. He, along with his daughter Megan Hyatt Miller, wanted to help people win at work and succeed in life—and so, they designed the Full Focus Planner to meet this need. 

Is there a digital Full Focus Planner?

No. Currently, the Full Focus Planner is an analog-only, paper-only option designed for people who want to write down their goals the old-fashioned way—with a physical planner, real paper, and a pen or pencil. 

Conclusion

Well, that’s going to conclude our in-depth Full Focus Planner review. Hopefully, this post has helped you to make a decision about whether or not this might be the ideal planner for you.

Of course, at the end of the day, the system that you choose is never as important as just deciding to get starting writing down your goals.

So start turning your dreams into goals, and writing down those goals today.

This is how you create a roadmap to success and crush it.

Need some help getting started? Not ready to spend money on a goal-setting system quite yet?

Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.

You can also sign up for my email list to get my free Goal-Setting Essentials Starter Kit.

You’ve got this. I believe in you.

Now it’s time to get to work.

Best wishes…

Jay O’Donnell

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